he visiting author had his audience of writing teachers in
thrall as he explained what he called “unpacking a scene.” Go
for detail, he urged. Don’t just write about someone entering
a room and slumping into a chair. Paint each movement in
words so that readers can see the character framed in the doorway, watch
him make his way across the room. Let readers hear the chair slide against
the floorboards and squeak with the weight of the character settling in.

A veteran teacher interrupted the hum of agreement coming from his
colleagues. “If one of my kids wrote that a character slumped into a chair,
I'd be elated,” he said. “Slumping would be a big deal.”

And there it was—the challenge that writing teachers face every day.
How to take students from where they are now to where they might go
as writers? How to help them use all the tools at their disposal to com-
municate, to argue, to explain, to connect?

According to the Nation’s Report Card on Writing issued by the
National Assessment of Educational Progress, most students still have far
to go in reaching their potential as writers. The most recent report card,

FOCUS ON WRITING

released in 1999, showed that most students have met the “basic” level
of writing achievement. However, only a minority of students—23 per-
cent of fourth-graders, 27 percent of eighth-graders, and 22 percent of
12th-graders—have advanced to the “proficient” level of achievement.
Only 1 percent of students performed at the highest achievement level,
which NAEP defines as “advanced.”

During the past decade, researchers and practitioners have focused
on writing instruction as a subject deserving a closer look. Several
forces have been at work: Teachers have worked hard to define what good
writing looks like and how to give students useful feedback to improve
their skills. The standards movement has prompted many states to de-
fine what writing instruction should accomplish and how to measure stu-
dent progress toward meeting goals. The National Writing Project has

emerged as a model of profess

nal development that helps teachers be-
come more effective writing coaches. Meanwhile, desktop publishing and
the World Wide Web have created new opportunities for students to share
their best work with audiences outside the classroom. And many schools

63


GG although
biologically
based, dyslexia
and dysgraphia
are treatable
disorders. q J

—Virginia Berninger,
University of Washington

plan, most kids will conquer reading in the regular class-
room; only the most disabled readers will require diag-
nosis and special ed placement.

As described in the 2001 Handbook of Psychoedu-
cational Assessment published by Academic Press, the
model works as follows:

Tier 1—Screening for early intervention: Every
K-2 student in the school is screened to ID those who are
at risk for reading and writing problems. The screening
measures are brief, but research-based. At-risk children
get early intervention—but not just any intervention. It
should be “science-based,” Berninger and her colleagues
insist. By that they mean the real McCoy—a “theory-
driven experiment in which competing hypotheses are
tested” in search of “empirical evidence that an inter-
vention is effective in improving student learning out-
comes.” (See the UW brain imaging study cited below as
an example.)

Tier 2—Modifying the regular instructional pro-
gram and monitoring the progress of students:
The classroom program is modified for students who
don’t respond well to Tier 1 intervention. That modifica-
tion might take a number of forms: adding curriculum
components, changing teaching practices, revising mate-
rials, and/or providing extra skills practice. The goal of Tier
2 is to determine whether all the essential curriculum
pieces are in place and being delivered effectively. To
monitor progress, schools can use curriculum-based
measurements. The process is guided by a multidisci-
plinary collaborative team using a problem-solving
approach to make ongoing changes as needed. Because
learning problems cut across disciplines and specialties,
a team might include the school psychologist, the special
educator, the speech and language pathologist, the social
worker, the nurse, the principal, the Title I teacher, and
the general ed teacher.

Tier 3—Diagnosis and treatment of referred chil-
dren: Students who failed to respond well to the first two
tiers get a thorough assessment. The goals are to decide

whether the child qualifies for special ed; to diagnose—
based on current scientific knowledge—why the stu-
dent is having trouble; and to design a systematic,
coordinated treatment plan.

“Many reading and writing disabilities could be pre-
vented or reduced in severity if a three-tier model of
assessment for intervention were implemented in schools,”
Berninger and company assert. “The learning outcome
for students with dyslexia and/or dysgraphia will be much
better if schools do not wait until students fail for several
years before beginning the process of assessment for
intervention.”

To figure out which kids are at risk and need inter-
vention in the Tier 1 phase, the researchers recommend
short screenings like the two-minute tests developed by
Marilyn Jager Adams of the Harvard Graduate School of
Education or the Texas Primary Reading Inventory de-
veloped at the University of Texas-Houston Medical School.
(For more examples, see the online “Reading Assessment
Database for Grades K-2” compiled by the Southeast
Educational Development Laboratory, www.sedl.org/pubs/
catalog/items/read02.html.) Berninger, too, has developed
an assessment instrument as part of the Process Assess-
ment of the Learner package, the PAL Test Battery for
Reading and Writing, which can be used at each tier of
the model.

Atthe Tier 3 stage, kids who haven't made gains despite
the special help offered under Tier 1 or the curriculum
tweaking done during Tier 2, should get an indepth
assessment for learning disabilities. Berninger recom-
mends using what she calls a “multimodal” approach, one
that draws on many sources, many tools—for instance,
interviewing parents. Scouring student records. Giving all
sorts of tests (standardized, normed, and criterion-
referenced). Mecting with the student. Looking at port-
folios and work samples.

“A MESSAGE OF HOPE”

A small but burgeoning body of research backs up the tiered

7 i

THE HIDDEN DISABILITY


From that clarity four goals
emerged. The school set out to
increase:
© Student achievement in language
arts, reading, and math
© Attendance (to help boost
achievement)
© Social skills, anger management,
and problem solving (to decrease
violence)

Meaningful parental involvement
After visiting schools that are
using various “off-the-shelf” school

reform models and sizing them up
against Pablo’s goals, the staff de-
cided almost unanimously to adopt
Success for All, a widely used pro-
gram developed by Robert Slavin
and colleagues at Johns Hopkins
University. (For more about this and
other models, see NWREL's Catalog
of School Reform Models at www.
nwrel.org/scpd/catalog/aboutshtml.)
They liked its systematic reading and
language arts approach, and the
solid research that seemed to vouch
for results. But what really clinched
the choice, according to Johnson,
was that Success for All rests heavily
on cooperative learning strategies
—groups of kids discussing a piece
of literature, for example, or pairs of
students deliberating over “mean-
ingful sentences” (they call the ac-
tivity “think, pair, share,” or “buddy
buzz”). Studies have shown that be-
cause Indian children are raised in
aculture of mutual support and

‘Students par up for reading, which is “sacred time” at Pablo Elementary School

collaboration, they are often un-
comfortable in competitive or highly
individualistic settings (see “Teach-
ing to the Rainbow,” Page 28). With
Pablo leading the way, a number of
Montana's reservation schools—
Heart Butte, Browning, Poplar,
Lame Deer—have since adopted
Success for All

“The cooperative learning strate-
gies are very culturally congruent
for Native American students,”
Johnson notes. “And cooperative
learning is a linchpin of the Success
for All program. Heart Butte was
ecstatic with their scores last year.
So we may have been the first, but
we're not the last.”

The cultural fit shows in the
comfort level of the kids exploring
the nuances of “Dream Wolf” in
Pardini’s reading group. As.part of
their study of the story's vocabulary
(words such as kiraship, quantities,
incomplete, shelter, wounded,
roamed), the mixed-aged class,
fully engaged and on-task, looks for
“inferential clues’—hints in the
surrounding words and context—.

that tell them what the word means.
They work in pairs to create sen-
tences about /wilight. They collabo-
rate to write, edit, and embellish
their descriptions as a class. The
imagery that emerges captures not
only the poetry of that magical
merging of daylight and darkness,
but draws upon the landscape of
northern Montana and the personal
histories of the children who live
there. The students speak of owls
hooting and coyotes howling. Of
frogs croaking and crickets ‘singing
the song of the night.” Of the eve-
ning star rising bright above the
mountains and of neighborhood
friends “sneaking around in the
shadows” before running home

for dinner.

Adiscussion about the word cen-
Jury brings up images of ancestors
and antiques and ancient trees. Sa-
fara shares a sentence that reads,
“My great, great grandmother had
a pair of moccasins that was 100
years old.”

Moving on, the teacher guides
the class through a talk about

29

Goble’s story of a wolf who rescues
some children lost in the woods. She
uses the Success for All “Treasure
Hunt” study guide, which poses a
series of probing questions about the
text, as a starting point. But Pardini
expands and localizes the discussion
wherever she can. Starting from
speculation about whether the wolf
that visited Tiblo in the cave was
real or a figure ina dream, she
draws the kids into talking about
the “spirit animals” that people the
mythology of many Indian tribes.
After a pause to marvel at a sud-
den snow flurry falling unseasonally
late, even for Montana, outside the
classroom window, she moves on to
recent news about the Ninemile wolf
pack that roams nearby Glacier
park. The pack, reintroduced in
northern Montana a decade ago and
struggling to survive where wolves
had been all but eradicated years
before, has stirred strong passions
among environmentalists and
ranchers in the area. “I think this is
alittle different story for us than for
someone in St. Louis or even

CLOSING THE GAP

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toring with DIBELS twice a month
—wice as often as their classmates.
The extra instruction is not a pull-
out but an add-on. At Clear Lake,
the additional time is sandwiched
between moming and afternoon
kindergarten. A van collects and de-
livers the afternoon extended-day
kids early, and takes the moming
group home half an hour later than
their classmates.
The curriculum for this extended

kindergarten (playfully named the
“Reading Raccoons”) is Early Read-
ing Intervention (ERI), developed
by Kame’enui and Simmons and
field-tested in the Bethel district be-
fore being published recently by Scott
Foresman. During the half-hour les-
son, the instructors—teachers and
educational assistants—move al-
most seamlessly from one activity to
the next, hardly wasting a breath.
Speaking smoothly and sometimes
thythmically, they deal out and
sweep up manipulatives such as let-

ter tiles, le white boards, al-
phabet and picture cards, tracing
cards, game boards, pencils, and
paper. As they do, they model and
test children on very specific phono-
logical skills, for instance, the ability
to isolate particular initial and final
sounds.

Teacher Jane Sterett’s group of
five Reading Raccoons is all atten-
tion as she passes out yellow plastic
letter tiles—clink, clink—, 4, s, m,

and / to each child. In front of each
child is a laminated strip printed
with a row of three squares. The
teacher holds up a picture card.

“This is cat,” she says, then
asks, “What is this?”

“Cat,” they chorus.

Then, following her instructions,
the students move their index fin-
gers along the strip, pointing to
each square as Sterett slowly says
each sound: /k/, /aaal, /I/.

“Where is ///?” she asks, The
students point to the last square.
“That's right, // is the last sound in
cat. Now find the letter for the sound

/¢/ and put it in the last square.” The
plastic tiles clink as each child finds
the “t" and places it on the strip.
Each daily lesson offers many
chances for children to respond in-
dividually and as a group. Though
ERI is highily scripted, experienced
teachers often fit in even more op-
portunities for responses, while still
delivering the program as intended,
says district reading coordinator
Rhonda Wolter, who along with Cole
is a reader for the U.S. Department
of Education's Reading First grant

proposals. The 126 lessons take stu-
dents along a skills continuum—

PAGES 30-31: first-grade leacher Vivian Ewing leads her class ina esson on letter sounds.
LEFT: Kindergariners wie lelers curing smal-group literacy instruction
ABOVE: First-graders gesture when Ewing calls out words wit the long i sound

from learning letters and sounds to
segmenting and blending phonemes
in sequence to reading words and,
finally, to reading sentences and sto-
rybooks. Each lesson includes writ-
ing and spelling activities as well as

ee fod
‘THE: HIDDEN DISABILITY i v 3


ED 478 246

RC 024 128

Northwest Education, Volume 8, 2002-2003

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Office of Educational Research and improvement
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION
CENTER (ERIC)

This document has been reproduced as
received from the person or organization,
originating it.

Minor changes have been made to improve
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BEST COPY AVAILABLE



he new teacher was alarmed to
discover that so many of his third-
graders were hapless readers—
seemingly stymied by the written

word. But he was certain that won-
derful stories, engagingly told, could unlock the myster-
ies of print for any child. So he lavished upon his students
the riches of literature, steeped them in the magic of good
books. When June rolled around, however, he was deeply
dismayed to find that the very same children who could
barely read in September—fully one-third of the class—
were no less lost as they headed home for summer break.

“Their reading remained slow and effortful, the time it

took to read text was so great that they could not remem-
ber what they read, and their spelling was still lousy,” the
teacher recalled several decades later. “The only change I
could discern was that their motivation to learn had waned,
and their self-esteem had suffered substantially.”

The teacher felt he had failed his young charges. He
abandoned the classroom—but not the profession. Today,
he is a leading voice for science-based interventions for
struggling readers.

G. Reid Lyon of the National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development (NICHD) told the story above to
Congress in 2000 as he made a case for more and bet-
ter research on how kids learn to read and why so many
bright children can’t crack the code. The big challenges,
he says, are twofold: one, to unravel the secrets of learn-
ing disabilities that keep kids shut out of literacy. And two,
to overcome those disal
Ina world driven by the written word, the damage done
by untreated reading problems can be devastating—to
kids, to families, to society.

“Reading disability is not only an educational problem,”
Lyon wrote in the Washington Post in 1996, “It is a
major public health and economic concern.”

ities with proven interventions.

A “COCKTAIL” OF DISABILITIES

In recent years, a lot of old theories about learning dis-

abilities have been discredited. Among the ideas that sci-
ence has trashed: That learning disabled (LD) kids see
backwards or upside-down and hence are more likely to
reverse letters and numbers (not so, researchers now say).
That boys are more likely to be LD (girls just don’t get
identified as often because they tend to behave nicely). That
learning disabilities stem from poor parenting or laziness
(not a whiff of truth). That LD kids will “grow out of it”
(in fact, learning disabilities are lifelong conditions).

Ever since learning disabilities were officially recognized
by the federal government in the late 1960s, researchers
have been chipping away at the myths. But suddenly, in the
mid-1990s, a couple of scientific advances coincided to
revolutionize the field. Powerful new technologies have let
research teams at the University of Washington and Yale
capture real-time images of the brain at work. And the mon-
umental Human Genome Project, which mapped the
infinitely complex genetic code, has helped unmask other
clues for these and other NICHD-funded teams.

Learning disabilities, it turns out, stem from faulty
wiring in the brain. LD kids—far from slacking off—are
working mightily when they tackle even the simplest lan-
guage tasks. In fact, ina 1999 test involving word pairs,
they used nearly five times the brain area as other kids,
the UW team found. The brain imaging tools reveal a clear
“neural signature’—that is, a distinct pattern of brain
activity for disabled readers. “Ifyou have a broken arm,
we can see that on an X-ray,” Yale researcher Sally Shay-
witz told Education Week in September 1999. “These
brain-activated patterns now provide evidence for what
has previously been a hidden disability.”

The other big new finding: Learning disabilities have a
genetic link. Just as kids can inherit olive skin, migraines,
or musical talent from Grandma, so, too, can they inherit
her learning disorder. Of the 20 genes associated with the
reading process, UW researchers Jennifer Thomson and
Wendy Raskind recently singled out several pos:
on five different chromosomes that have been implicated
in reading and writing disorders.

le sites

AM.

‘THE HIDDEN DISABILITY

3


, IDEAS WORTH BORROWING
hat motivates students to write? As the following stories
from Northwest classrooms illustrate, inspiration is every-
where: in the science lab, in family fairy tales, in local history.
Examples vary in grade level and approach, but they share
common themes: asking students to write about subjects that
matter to them, providing time and opportunity for feedback
and revision, and connecting young writers with readers by
having them share their work with an audience.

LIFE STUDIES
MONTANA STUDENTS
TELL THE STORY

OF A PLACE AND

ITS PEOPLE

By SUZIE BOSS

FLATHEAD VALLEY,
Montana—‘he paintings catch
your eye firs-—a weathered saloon,
purple mountains, winding road,
cascading stream. But it’s the words
that draw you in and encourage you
to linger there on the city sidewalk,
reading and learning about a place
and its people:
I sit and listen
As he paints the pictures
Of a time long ago
Upon the canvas of my mind
—Eric Herriges
Laser School, Kalispell, Montana
Across the Flathead Valley,
poems and pictures are sprouting
on the sides of theaters and restau-
rants, banks and title companies.
‘The vibrant collection of murals is
the work of a community-based

72

NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002

education effort called the Mural-
Poetry Project.

Founder Laura Keller, an artist
and poet herself, launched the non-
profit project on a shoestring five
years ago. Her early glimmer of an
idea has grown into a bright vision
of what education can accomplish
when it connects young minds with
seasoned citizens, when it integrates
the telling of stories with the making
of art.

‘The murals draw inspiration
from local history, with students in-
lerviewing older residents to gather
ideas for their poems and accompa-
nying images. So far, students rang-
ing from fourth-graders to high
school seniors have completed
14 murals in the communities of
Whitefish, Kalispell, and Eureka. In
the process, they are creating a new
face for their communities to show
the world, and a new way for young,
people to view their hometowns, their
neighbors, and even themselves.

Keller, 43, started the project in
her adopted hometown of Whitefish,


36

PRINCIPAL'S NOTEBOOK

A PLACE OF CALI
By Richard Erdrich

KETCHIKAN, ALASKA—Most
seventh-graders make a quick ad-
justment from the self-contained
Classroom of elementary school to
the hectic pace of middle school.
They move from class to class,
subject to subject, with relative
ease. But for some students, the
exciting newness of middle school
fades into confusion as they travel
from one room to the next every
46 minutes—bumping shoulders
with 400 other students surging
through the hallways, adjusting to
anew teacher and a new group of
classmates every period. Every-
thing becomes blurred, distracting
Finally, as the D's and F's pile up,
many of these students drop out in
discouragement.
Staff members here at Schoenbar
Middle School were all too aware
that academic failure loomed large
for many students who entered mid-
dle school unprepared to function
in amultiperiod, multiclassroom
environment. We were retaining an
average of six to eight students a
year at both the seventh and eighth
grades—far more than we were
willing to accept.
In search of solutions, we set out
to identify traits that are congruent
among these students. They:
© Lag behind grade level by one
to two years
Frequently fail classes in basic
subjects

© Struggle to complete work

© Have poor organizational skills,
often failing to turn in work that
they have completed

Have poor attendance and
frequent tardies

© Are likely to have been retained
in an earlier grade

At about the same time, the
Alaska Department of Education
and Early Development, in cooper-
ation with community organiza-
tions, began working with schoo!
districts to combat FASD (Fetal

NW Education / Spring 2003

Alcohol Spectrum Disorder). After
a two-day inservice on FASD, the
teachers, counselor, and | were
struck by the similar profiles of our
struggling students and FASD chil-
dren. Many kids diagnosed with
FASD are overlooked and untreated.
Often identified as “conduct disor-
dered,” these kids occasionally are
picked up under the umbrella of
special education, but they don’t
have a special designation under
federal disability laws requiring
appropriate accommodations.

We learned that students with
FASD have a greater need for rou-
tine and structure in their educa-
tional experience than other children.
But we were very aware of the flip
side of the coin: That we need to
make our Classes active and en-
gaging to hold students’ interest
and attention. As teachers, we were
being pulled in two directions.
While part of the class needed
stimulation, the other part of the
class was being pushed over the
edge because we were overlooking
the need for quiet and calm—
tough to achieve with 32 middle
schoolers.

A SEPARATE PEACE. We set
about to design an alternate envi-
ronment for these students who so
Clearly learn differently from others.
We talked to local agencies—Gate-
way Center for Human Services
and Ketchikan Indian Corporation
—that might partner with us, and
sought their input specifically re-
garding how students with FASD.
learn. We also got inservice train-
ing on techniques geared for this
population.

With those techniques as a focal
point, we decided on a home-room
model for our FASO kids and oth-
ers with similar learning problems,
some with identified learning dis-
abilities. They would spend three
periods in a core classroom for
reading, writing, math, and social
studies. They would then transition
to other subjects, such as PE, shop,

4

music, and life skills. Science, too,
would be a separate class because
of required lab activities. But the
students would all move to science
class together. Instruction in class-
room skills and organization—a
particular challenge for this group
of kids—would be an important
component of the curriculum
Based on research findings on
small schools and middle schools
that show the importance of rela-
tionship-building for adolescents,
this program would give students a
chance to bond with one academic
teacher instead of trying to forge a
felationship with three separate
‘subject-area teachers. And transi-
tions from subject to subject would
be accomplished without frequent
four-minute dips into hectic hall-
ways and the constant struggle to
be in the right place at the right time.
Subject matter would not be wa-
tered down: In keeping with district
curriculum and state standards, ac-
tivities would be challenging and
Qoals would be high, yet reachable.
The students would still have a top-
quality educational experience de-
signed and delivered in sync with
the unique needs of this population.
To identify students for the pro-
Qram, a referral form was developed
to serve as a rubric. Staff, students,
and parents were asked to rate stu-
dents in 10 areas, inclucing atten-
dance, organizational skills, work
habits, learning rate, ability to follow
directions, social skills, distractibil-
ity, and tardiness. Two key ques-
tions were also asked: Was the
student more than one year below
grade level? Was the child likely to
fail academic classes without the
assistance of the program?

SECURITY BLANKET. The pro-
gram that emerged—Students Tak-
ing Academics Responsibly (STAR)
—provides a self-contained class-
room for up to 20 students with a
full-time teacher and instructional
aide. The atmosphere in class is
comfy and nurturing—kids sprawl

156

Principat Richerd Erich
Schoentar Middle Schoo!

on the carpet or plop into beanbag
chairs to work or listen.

It wasn't long before math scores
started to rise. Students began read-
ing—and enjoying it. Self-esteem
was up. One eighth-grader with a
“Linus syndrome’—he needs to be
wrapped in a blanket to feel safe—
had a place where he could cocoon
without ridicule. Of last year's orig-
inal group of 20 seventh-graders
—who got only 12 weeks in the
program because it didn't get off
the ground until spring—15 moved
to the eighth-grade program. This
year's group should do even better
after a full year in the program.

The program has been partially
funded by a FASD grant from the
state education department. To be
sustainable, however, it will need
financial support from other out-
side agencies. Our hope is to even-
tually provide training to other
educators, parents, and paraprofes-
sionals who want to implement a
similar program for their students.

If we as educators are to be suc-
cessful with a student population
with diverse educational, emo-
tional, and physicai backgrounds,
we must make changes in our
delivery. It took many months of
thinking outside the box to come
up with a program geared to stu-
dents who can't cope with the
stresses of a traditional school
environment. We believe this pro-
gram sheds a new and promising
light on serving students with
learning disabilities. G2



They buy in to the idea
that they are making

books—something that
will last a long time, be

found in homes and
local libraries, be read
by people they know. 9

J

character, is legendary. “My first
couple weeks in his class—I thought
he was nuts,” says Loyal. “I was like,
‘What ds this?’ But pretty soon it was
my favorite class. He definitely gets
you into it, because he’ so into it.”

With more than a decade of
teaching experience behind him,
McKay has never stopped looking for
new ways to challenge his students
and himself. During the 1999-2000
school year, he decided to take a
deeper look at his writing instruc-
tion. Frustrated with his inability to
get all his students motivated to do
their best work, he decided to try
something different: a yearlong
project to research, write, publish,
and sell an entire book. “I needed
an assignment that would take stu-
dents to a higher level,” McKay says.
“Being published is attractive to
many students. They buy in to the
idea that they are making books—.
something that will last a long time,
be found in homes and local librar-
ies, be read by people they know.

Itchallenges them to raise their

standards to another level.”

‘The next step for McKay was to
choose a subject that would not only
engage the students, but also be
a meaningful contribution to the
community and a financial success.
“We do a market study to determine
how many books to publish for each
project,” he says. “It's very impor-
tant to be accurate. The sales need
to cover the cost of making the
books. Without sales, projects in
the future might not happen.”

McKay wanted something that
would tap into the deep community
spirit and colorful history of Aber-
deen, a community of about 16,000
located on Grays Harbor, about
50 miles west of Olympia. McKay
quickly recognized a good subject.
‘The tradition of a Thanksgiving Day
football game between Aberdeen and
neighboring Hoquiam dates back to
at least 1906. “This is the most in-
tense rivalry | have ever seen,” says
Mckay, “and the entire community
is ‘in on it”

With the full support of the

school’s administration, McKay sent
his students into the community to
interview their parents, families, and
community members who had grad-
uated from either high school be-
tween 1906 and 1973. Students went
into assisted-living centers and local
restaurants to get as much firsthand
information as they could about the
early days of the rivalry. In the end,
they had gathered more than 100
oral histories. From there, McKay
sent students to the library. They
looked in old newspapers and school
annuals, double-checked the facts,
and collected articles and photo-
graphs, Every student was required
to submit a written document.
McKay then chose one Junior En-
glish class to compile and edit all
the materials into a professional-
quality manuscript.

‘When the manuscript was com-
plete, McKay sent it to a nearby book
publishing company and ordered
1,000 copies. Within two months,
the first run had sold out. With the
help of the district office, McKay had

“3 83

secured $10,000 toward the publish-
ing costs, but the book immediately
paid for itself. Another 500 copies
were ordered, and they, too, sold out.
It was an enormous success with the
community.

It was also a hit with students.
“Itwas fun, and it was really chal-
lenging,” says Leslie, now one of
McKay's senior students. “You wanted
it perfect because you knew people
were going to be reading it. It defi-
nitely wasn't something you were
just going to do in one night to get a
grade.” For Jason, the subject matter
made it interesting. “Pretty much
anything went,” he says. “Some
pretty colorful stuff has happened
over the years, because of how strong,
the rivalry is, but he [McKay] let us
keep it in. As long as we had a source
for it, it went in.” Loyal agrees, “It
was interesting stuff you actually
wanted to hear about. Everyone
could relate to it.”

For McKay, success has led to
success. Sales of the book added up
to twice the investment for printing,

FOCUS ON WRITING


and it remains one of her favorite

classes. But she chafes at the
school’s inclusion policy. “You can
only go as fast as the slowest person
in the class,” she says, “and it can
take forever sometimes.” The girl,
who is white, says she would prefer
to be taking all honors classes. “But
teachers at Iale consider an honors
track elitist,” she says, “and racist.”

Principal Benson acknowledges
that the girl has hit on a hot-button
issue. “It's an ongoing discussion.
We do honors here,” he points out,
“but it's offered within the inclusive
classroom. It’s that idea of differen-
tiated instruction,” in which learn-
ing goals are high but teaching
strategies are targeted at the needs
of individual leamers.

Hale veteran Elaine Wetterauer,
also aware that there are dissenting
views, elaborates: “We want to offer
all kids work that is challenging. In
English, students read books in in-
clusive classrooms that we used to
offer only in honors classes.” 7hings
Fall Apart is now standard sopho-
more fare. All sophomores also
study Othello, Wetterauer's 11th-
graders read Middle Passage.

Under the old system, Wetterauer
remembers, a sorting process took
place that wasn't always equitable.
“Sure, honors classes tended to at-
tract the brightest kids. But some
were only there because their par-

ents wanted them to be—it was an

CLOSING THE GAP

Principal Benson
(alks with
students over
lunch.

entitlement issue. A lot of minority
parents didn’t know to ask for hon-
ors classes for their kids. They didn’t

‘ealize it was an option. To close the

achievement gap,” Wetterauer insists,
“you have to expect more of all kids.
It has to be rigorous for all. That's
the only way it's going to be fair”

At Nathan Hale, teachers do
much more than pay lip service to
amotio like “high expectations for
all.” Within their critical friends
groups—through which 85 percent
of the faculty participate in profes-
sional development—teachers push
each other to examine their own
practice. “We are much more inten-
tional about meeting the needs of
all kids,” says Wetterauer, who has
taken the intensive training required
to become a critical friends coach.
Looking back, she sees how far the
staff has come. “‘It used to be, you'd
hear teachers complaining. It was
‘the kids this ... the kids that ...”
Now, we don’t blame the kids [if
achievement scores don’t meet
goals]. We ask ourselves: What can
we do as teachers to improve student
achievement? To meet the needs of
all leamers? We're much more col-
laborative. Our goal is to close the
gap. We don’t always agree about
how to accomplish that,” she ad-
mits, “but you don’t hear anyone
dissenting about the value of help-
ing all kids succeed.”

Changing the culture and prac-

tices of a comprehensive American
high school “is a hard nut to
crack,” admits Benson, who has
eamed high praise and hefty awards
for doing just that. In 2001, Benson
won Seattle's highest honor for a
school administrator: the Thomas
B. Foster Award, which comes with
a $50,000 prize.

Although he's pleased at the
school’s progress, Benson knows
that the finish line remains always
just out of reach, He doesn’t have
time for complacency. At the end of
a busy lunch hour spent monitoring
the cafeteria line, Benson pauses to
exchange greetings with a student.
The boy, who has Down syndrome,
tells Benson about the role he played
ina recent classroom video about
Rosa Parks. His pride is obvious, his
smile dazzling. “Acceptance may be
the real story here,” Benson says as
the boy heads off to his afternoon
classes. “This has become a more
personal place for kids. When that
happens, then the other stuff—clos-
ing the achievement gap, differenti-
ating instruction—all of that can
start to fall into place. But you have
to win their hearts first. Then you
can do the rest of it.”

19

MEASURING UP

Supporting students who have not
traditionally enjoyed academic suc-
Cess has been a goal of schoo! reform
efforts at Nathan Hale High School.
Here's a look at key indicators that
show the school is making progress
in closing the achievement gap.
Washington Assessments of Student
Learning (WASL) for 2001 showed
Nathan Hale students of color still
lagging behind their white classmates
on key indicators, but outperforming
students of the same race from across
the Seattle district. For example:
© For African American students,
88 percent at Hale met standards for
listening compared to 58 percent of
Airican American students district-
wide; 16 percent met math stan-
dards compared to 6 percent for
the district; 48 percent met reading
standards compared to 26 percent
districlwide; 24 percent met writing
standards compared to 17 percent
districlwide.
‘© For Hispanic students, 87 percent
at Hale met standards for listening
compared to 60 percent of Hispanic
students districtwide; 53 percent
met math standards compared to
17 percent districtwide; 67 percent
met reading standards compared to
36 percent districtwide; 50 percent
met writing standards compared to
23 percent districtwide.
© For Native American students,
100 percent at Hale met listening
standards compared to 77 percent
districtwide; 44 percent met math
standards compared to 26 percent
districtwide; 78 percent met reading
standards compared to 44 percent
districtwide; 56 percent met writing
standards compared to 32 percent
districtwide.
On other measures, as well, Nathan
Hale students are showing improve-
ment. Between 1995 and 2001
© Dropout rate declined from
T percent to 3.2 percent
Attendance rate increased from
83.5 percent to 91 percent
Disciplinary actions declined
from 21 percent to 8 percent


12

paying attention, when I zvas taking
the information in, it was gone the
next day.

NW: What was the diagnosis
you got in second grade?
LEWIS: They said I had a learning
disability involved with language.
NW: How did the disability
play out in your classroom
experience?

LEWIS: The paragraphs on the
page, the text, didn’t really form
letters—they formed shapes. They
were whatever my imagination
made them.

NW: You mean that you expe-
rienced the blocks of text as
visual patterns on the page,
rather than seeing discrete
letters and words with
meaning?

LEWIS: Yes.

NW: Was it your choice or
your parents’ to enroll in
the arts magnet?

LEWIS: It was my choice, but my
parents supported me in it. I was
good at art, and it was fun—
pleasing. | felt 1 was accomplishing
something. Art was the one way that
L understood to express myself.

NW: Did other kids hassle
you about your learning
problems?

LEWIS: They teased me, but it
didn’t really have anything to do with
my concept of myself, with my self-
worth. My parents helped me to un-

derstand that teasing was just how
those kids got out their aggression.
NW: It sounds like you kind
of sailed through school
without many storms. Does
your experience match the
experiences of other LD kids
you know?

LEWIS: No. They had very different
experiences. They have told me very
distraught stories. | know many LD
kids who are just now, in high
school, understanding their self-
worth, understanding how they fit
into the big picture.

NW: In your carly years, you
were pulled out of your core
classroom once a day for
remedial work in a resource
room. Do you think that
approach was helpful to you?
LEWIS: It took a lot of time out of
the class, out of the curriculum, and
I think I actually suffered a little
because of that. Some would say,
‘What's the point of taking a student
out of the curriculum to catch them
up to it?’ | would tend to agree with
that.

NW: But you're doing well
now. You made the honor roll
your first semester in high
school. So clearly, you have
caught up.

LEWIS: A lot of the catching up
that has been done has been done
by me. | realized that I’m going to
need to take care of myself and pro-

vide for myself. There are things I
care about, and if [ want to do those
things, I'll have to get a job and
have an income. I'll need an educa-
tion to do that. So I basically started
paying attention.

NW: Why did you choose the
international baccalaureate
program, knowing that it
would be pretty tough?
LEWIS: For the intensity—I knew
it would prepare me for college.
Initially, there was some skepticism
about whether or not I could perform
because of my disability. But my first
year in high school proved to any-
one who doubted that I could cer-
tainly do it. My GPA was a 3.7, and

{ made many friends and contacts.

I did what I was called upon to do.
NW: What's your biggest pas-
sion outside school, besides
your art?

LEWIS: Most of my time is con-
sumed with activism. Sometimes it
isn’t a lot of fun—long meetings,
rallies, organizing, canvassing, But
| do it not only because no one else
is going to do it, but because it's

the right thing. There's a meeting
tonight for planning how to rally
voters and youth for Measure 28 to
try to save the schools. [EDITOR'S
NOTE: Oregon Ballot Measure 28,
which would have raised income
taxes temporarily to address a state-
wide funding crisis was defeated by
voters in January.)

Je

NW EDUCATION / Spring 2003,

NW: Do you expect to expand
your activism beyond the
local community?

LEWIS: One of my goals is to start
an international activist network,
where those who are heavily involved
in activism have a place to go and
rally with others. It would be a start-
ing point for those who are just be-
coming enlightened about what's
going on in the world of government
and politics.

NW: What are your plans for
after high school?

LEWIS: | have standards for where
I want to go to college, but I baven’t
chosen any particular place. I’m
looking at Stanford, Evergreen State
College, Lewis & Clark, Willamette,
and Seattle Pacific. I’m looking for
college that has room for me to
grow, room for me to decide what
I'm going to do. I’m looking for a
true environment, a real enyiron-
ment, and a bustling city with cul-
ture and politics.

NW: What message would

you like to share with other
LD kids?

LEWIS: | really think that if kids
understood that you can do what-
ever you want, be whatever you
want, even with this leaming dis-
ability, it would evoke some hope. 0


18

Seeing Yourself Sitting There

‘Teacher Dan Tibbetts draws upon the wounds he got and
the wisdom he won growing up with dyslexia

MEETING Thle ChIALUENGT

Hell-bent 0. discovery,

Danny Tibbetts couldn’t wait to ditch
his books and head out after school.
Lying on his stomach in the reedy

marsh near his suburban home, the
little boy learned firsthand about the
habitat and life cycle of frogs. Tinker-
ing in the dusty half-light of the
garage, he uncovered the inner
workings of small engines. Scaveng-
ing scraps of wood and metal, he de-
signed and built all sorts of wheeled

NW EDUCATION / Spring 2003

rigs powered by batteries and imagi-
nation. Those were his happy hours.
His classroom hours, however,
were agonizing. Danny got off to a
bad start, failing to nail down his
ABCs and having to repeat kinder-
garten. Things never got much
better. After years of pullout remedi-
ation and private tutoring, he gained
the ability to decode words up toa
third-grade level. But when he left

high school at age 18 without a

138

diploma, he still couldn’t read for
comprehension

Danny’s story, however, doesn’t
end with a low-wage job at a car
wash or pizza parlor, This most un-
likely candidate for college, deeply
determined not to be “a loser,” even-
tually made his way to the university.
And the boy who couldn’t decipher
even the most basic basal readers
ended up in the most unlikely of

places—back in the public school


Says Stacey May: “I liked staying
overnight at Memaloose State Park
and the history behind the island
out in the middle of the river. The
most interesting part was the guest
speaker who answered many ques-
tions about how they know if the
sites are really in the right location.
T kept thinking about that later
when Mr. Ellingson said we were
standing at one of their camping
spots.”

Ellingson begins his class by
looking at the Northwest in the mil-
lennia before Native people appeared.
Evidence of prehistoric Willamette
Valley cultures is a stone's throw
from Ellingson’s classroom and ar-
chaeological research is old news on
this campus. Students examine the
impact of the Missoula flood on the
Columbia and Willamette river sys-
tem and pose questions about early
peoples in their own valley region,
still a rich and diverse farming area.

A human hair dating back 10,000
years is one of the artifacts uncov-
ered at the high school dig site. Vol-
unteer archaeologists from Portland
and the Willamette often join the
students on research projects.

MEETING HIGH STANDARDS
Students then examine Thomas Jef-
ferson’s detailed set of instructions
to Lewis—a letter 16 pages long
describing what the officers were to
watch for, measure, and write down
in daily journals. The instructions
are comparable to the education
standards students today are ex-
pected to meet in order to graduate.
Jefferson’s mission statement be-
came the final test for Lewis and
Clark just as Oregon’s Certificates of
Initial and Advanced Mastery are the
way students are proving they can
meet society's expectations in this
century.

Ellingson’s syllabus for the class
aligns with Oregon standards for
history and science, and students
rarely see the difference as they
blend research with hands-on expe-

DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING

rience. The journals kept by Lewis
and Clark are the one constant
reading and research tool, supple-
mented by Paul Russell Cutright’s
Lewis and Clark: Pioneering Nal-
uralists, a step-by-step record of the

expedition’s biological discoveries
for Westem science. Before semester
ends, students will learn and apply
the same botanical preservation and
classification skills that Lewis and
Clark used—often finding those
same plants still growing in the
Willamette Valley and along the
Columbia River today.

During the final weeks of the
course, Ellingson introduces post-
Lewis and Clark issues that have
emerged during the subsequent 200
years: decline of the fur trade and
westward expansion, tribal disper-
sion, the reservation system, treaties
still in force, extinction of species,
damming of rivers, declines in
salmon runs—but always pushing
students to examine each issue from
all points of view before coming to
their own individual conclusions. 0

133

Previous page: Woodburn
High Schoo! teacher David
Ellingson (second from left)
poses with alums of his his-
tory/science course on Lewis
and Clark—some students
“enlisted” for the class more
than once.

Above: Woodburn students
Isidro Mejia, Sophie Lopez,
Kristian Bloomkvist, Issac
Guzman, Margi Felix, Jacob
Bagdhanov, Megan Melton,
Javier Ayala.

BEST COPY AVAILABLE



front of the school. They donated all
of the plants, helped students with
the design and planting, and con-
tinue to be closely involved with its
upkeep. The garden is more than
just a pleasant green space—it is
also directly tied to the curriculum
of the class. “All of the plants are
chosen from among the 176 that
Lewis documented in his journals,”
says Lampi.

Lampi focuses her students’ at-
tention on plants common to the
Lower Columbia region. “We choose
those that are specific to our area, so
not only can kids study them in the
garden, they can also find them in
the local forests or even in their
neighborhood,” she says. While
parts of the larger story are fre-
quently discussed, Lampi tises this
same localized approach for the en-
tire curriculum, focusing on the
Lower Columbia, from the former
Celilo Falls near The Dalles—
which disappeared after the river
was dammed—to the river's mouth
near Astoria.

A WEALTH OF MATERIAL
“Lewis's journals are an amazing
resource for educators,” says Lampi.
“The fact that he documented all of
these plants allows me to tie to-
gether a variety of subjects—I can
teach kids about the native plants in
their area, but I can also bring in
the story of the expedition.” The end
result for students, she says, is a
much broader understanding of
their region. “They know more
about the natural environment that

NW EDUCATION / Summer 2003

surrounds them and they know
more about the human history that
has taken place here. The journals
personalize this in a way kids can
relate to—the adventures, the hard-
ships—it's a very compelling story.”
On this drizzling, late afternoon
in March students seem happy
enough to brave the elements—the
winter hardships that the Corps of
Discovery endured at Fort Clatsop
perhaps not yet firmly etched in
their minds. Their brief tour of the
garden is soggy, but refreshing after
a long school day. Reluctantly, stu-
dents head back into the warm, dry

-comfort of the classroom. Lampi

quickly gets them back on task. “I
want you to look through these
books and find your plant,” she
says, while passing out copies of
Plants of the Pacific Northwest
Coast by Jim Pojar and Andy Mac-
Kinnon (1994) and Ethnobotany of
Western Washington by Erna Gun-
ther and Jeanne R. Janish (1973)
Soon, fingers are flying through in-
dexes and tables of contents as stu-
dents look for the familiar names.
At the beginning of each new.
term, Lampi has her students pick
one plant to focus on. During the
rest of the year they will come to
know this plant as an old friend.
They will find passages in Lewis's
journals that describe it, and they
will research current literature
about it. They will know how Native
people used it and what place it had
in their cultures, and they will lear
about its modem medical and di-
etary uses. They will document what

they learn, using everything from
pencils to PDF files, journals to
JPGs. And along the way, they will
have a chance to plant and tend to it
in the garden, to know what it
smells like, to watch how a season
changes it, and to search for it along
the banks of the river that Lewis and
Clark followed to the sea.

TOOLS OF DISCOVERY

“J want you to write down this Web
page address,” Lampi tells her stu-
dents, as she uses her laptop to take
them on a tour of Thomas Jeffer-
son’s Monticello home. “You can
actually do a virtual-reality tour. It's
like flying around the room.” The.
students don’t seem the least bit sur-
prised to be exploring 200-year-old
subject matter through the portal of
modern technology. On their jour-
ney to discover more about their re-
gion, Lampi and her students will
use every digital-age tool they can
get their hands on, and surfing the
Web is only the beginning. Thanks
in part to the Rediscovery grant, stu-
dents will be documenting their
chosen plants in ways Meriwether
Lewis could not have imagined.

One of the distinctive features of
the program is this mix of the an-
cient and the up-to-the-minute,
both in subject matter and in pro-
cess. Students keep journals, make
drawings, and consult written mate-
tials, much as Lewis and Clark
would have, But they also use digital
cameras, software programs, and
satellite mapping systems.

A journey in itself, Lampi walks



Godoy-Gor
immerses his Stu

learned, “is a never-ending story.”
In his classroom, writing has
been the key to unlocking students’
understanding of science. Many of
his students arrive fron Mexico and
other countries with little formal
schooling to build on. “They may
not have best to so many places yet,”
the teacher notes, or had classroom
exposure to scientific concepts. So
when he was launching into a
unit on environmental science, he
started at the beginning. “I asked
them, what do you think the envi-
ronment és?” He drew a planet and
encouraged them to share ideas.
“We talked about good and sad
things about the Earth.” The con-
versation picked up steam as these
farm workers’ children shared their
firsthand knowledge of soil, water,
air On an impulse, he took their
words and created a rhyme. “Then
I thought, maybe we should all
write poetry as a way to express our
concerns about the environment.”
‘That broke the ice. Writing
poems “made these students realize,

NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002

we can do this. We can write about
science,” he says. “For many of my
students, writing an essay seems too
hard. It takes so many words,” many
of which are technical. By the time
they look up a scientific term in the
dictionary, “they have lost the sense
of where they wanted to use the word
in their writing.”

With poetry, however, students
found their voice. “Poetry gets the
brain and the heart working to-
gether,” Godoy-Gonz

says. When
students asked him if they could mix
English and Spanish words in the
same poem, he granted them artis-
tic license. “I tell then, it's your
heart writing, Find the words to
express whiat you feel.”

And they did, as these elemental
poems illustrate:
Water
Water, vital liquid
Rejuvenate us, take away our
thirst
Keep us fresh and clean. Amen.
Air
Air looks pale and sick,

Leaving the city, going away.
Go! Find a better place to
breathe.

Always eager to add more di-
mensions to his teaching, Godoy-
Gonzalez shared ideas about writing
poetry that he had learned through
the Central Washington Writing
Project, affiliated with the National
Writing Project. He showed students
how poetry can take many forms—
haiku, acrostic, quatrain. Working
in peer groups, students offered one
another feedback for revision and
improvement of their poems. And
they were learning another lesson:
“Writing never ends. You're always
improving, revising, expanding,”

What's more, students saw that
their teacher was no longer up in
front of the class but sitting among
them, shaping and revising his own
writing. “Kids saw that | became
part of it. | was their partner. We all
got into it,” the teacher says.

Ever since, he’s been using po-
etry across the curriculum. When
students study ancient Egypt, they

78

might write poems from the point of
view of a pharaoh. “This makes
writing not so hard. It becomes
more like a game.”

Once students gain confidence
as poets and learn to improve their
work through the process of revision
and peer editing, they are ready to
tackle longer pieces. By their second
year in his classroom, Godoy-
Gonzalez’s students are busy polish-
ing letters that they send to recipi-
ents in the “real world.” He explains:
“T have them present ideas, make
arguments, or request information
by writing letters. They state at the
top of their letters: | am an ESL stu-
dent, working to improve my lan-
guage. I need someone to read what
I've written, and would love to get
a reply.” Frequently students do re-
ceive feedback, and it often includes
the encouragement to keep writing.

After two years in the ESL pro-
gram, Godoy-Gonzalez’s students
enter mainstream classes. Many are
thriving there, meeting graduation
requirements and preparing for

BEST COPY AVAILABLE


32

training programs. As a result,
Native students are denied valuable
tole models as part of their educa-
tional experiences. Both statistical
and observational research suggest
that the absence of adequate num-
bers of Native teachers and the lack
of specialized training for both
Native and non-Native teachers
may place Native students espe-
cially at risk for attrition. White stu-
dents, too, are being deprived of the
chance to learn from teachers of
color who embody the increasingly
diverse world in which they are
growing up.

This disparity led WSU and NWIC
to develop a partnership to train
more Native teachers. The partner-
ship is founded on the belief that
properly trained teachers can de-
velop trusting relationships with
students and make the difference
between promoting negative stereo-
types and portraying realistic and
empowering views of Native peo-
ples. It focuses on recruiting and
training Native teachers on or near
their communities because these
students come into the classroom
with prior life experience with
Native language and culture.

Itis our firm belief that both Na-
tive and non-Native teachers bene-
fit from training that focuses on
American Indian and Alaska Native
learners. At present, however, most
mainstream universities provide
little or no training pertaining to
Native learners. As a consequence,
teachers being trained today do not
necessarily know how to translate
cultural sensitivity into teaching
techniques proven effective with
Native students, especially if those
students come from an array of
different tribal cultures.

Teacher instructional styles
do have a significant influence on
Native students’ classroom partici-
pation rates and academic success.
It is essential that teacher prepara-
tion programs provide teachers
with the knowledge and experience
of how to incorporate Native stu-
dents’ learning strengths into class-
room instruction. Teachers must be
taught to build on Native students’
existing learning repertoires in
ways that do not compromise their
cultural identities or spark their
resistance.

social justice prientation and consciousness that stems
from their experiences with inequality.”

TOWARD
A MORE
EQUITABLE
FUTURE

Recruiting teachers
of color is essential
for reaching an
increasingly diverse
student population

By Armando Laguardia

Recent studies are detailing the
significant impact that teachers of
color can have on student perfor-
mance and institutional change.
Their presence in our classrooms
has untold potential power. (See
“The Power of Their Presence:
Minority Group Teachers and
Schooling” by Alice Quiocho and
Francisco Rios in Review of Edu-
cational Research, Winter 2000).

36

Minority teachers are more likely
to bring a critical social justice
orientation and consciousness

that stems from their experiences
with inequality. They are ideally
positioned to communicate with
students from minority cultural
backgrounds in ways that encour-
age them to participate in their
education, and are having a posi-
tive impact on student achieve-
ment. And they tend to have a
greater sense of how to develop
culturally relevant curriculum
and to understand the human,
social, and communal nature

of teaching and learning,

For these reasons, there is
strong need to encourage our col-
leagues in teacher preparation
and the educational systems to set
as a professional goal increasing
the number of minority students
interested in becoming teachers.
America is facing a general
teacher supply crisis. Administra~
tors, policymakers, and legislators

NW EDUCATION / Fall 2002


est children at North Star Elementary
School, laughs, remembering that day.
It's a funny story as he tells it, but he's
making a point. Even coming from rela-
tive privilege and having English skills,
he'd felt frustrated and isolated behind
a language and culture barrier. It cut an
indelible impression in his memory, and
he thinks of that episode sometimes

as he teaches some of the youngest
who've found themselves strangers in

a strange land.

“Children adapt faster than adults to
new cultural settings, but that doesn’t
mean they don't go through hard times.
This is a huge school,” he says of North
Star's 530-student population in which
29 different languages are spoken and
two-thirds of students live in poverty.
“Most of these [bilingual] students come
from a rural place. Some have never
been to schoo! before. Everything is
different, from the way the classroom
looks to the clothes, the food, and the
sounds. Then, they go home to some-
thing that’s no longer the way it used to
be, either."

TELLING THEIR STORIES

Perhaps more than others, bilingual
children struggle with identity. “Teach-
ers need to be aware of that and to open
‘spaces in their classrooms for these
kids to have existential identities,” says
Quintero, “which is difficult when you
are out of one culture and not quite in
the other culture.”

Allowing children to tell their own
stories, particularly in writing, is one
of the surest ways to help them reveal
their true selves, he says. “Writing is
the most difficult thing to teach [bilin-

641 TRAITS.

gual) students, but writing—more than
speaking—gets closest to meaning.
You can get closer to a person through
his writing than by talking with him.”

That's because the act of writing
enriches your thinking, Quintero says.
When you write, you make all kinds
of choices—about vocabulary, ideas,
organization—thal reveal your deeper
thoughts and personality. You layer
Meaning, connect ideas, make revi-
sions, all with the building blocks of
words, grammar, and syntax. And this
artifact of your thinking is evidence of
who you are.

Even if they speak minimal English,
bilingual students can use language—
their home language as well as their
emerging English skills—to share their
‘own stories and ideas in the classroom.
This speeds them along their way to
mastering English and taking their
places in society, says Quintero.

At North Siar, Quintero and other
teachers use the 6+1 TraitTM Writing
model, a nonprescriptive approach
for teaching and assessing writing that
draws on students’ own ideas and expe-
riences. The model, developed by class-
room teachers and writing experts from
the Northwest Regional Educational
Laboratory (NWREL), has helped to cre-
ate a common vocabulary in the schoo!
for talking about the aspects of good
writing. From kindergarten through sixth
grade, students and teachers know what
is meant by these trails: ideas, organi-
zation, voice, word choice, sentence
fluency, conventions, and presentation.
This common vocabulary not only
crosses grade levels, it crosses lan-

guages as well.

“The guiding concepts around which
you organize the writing process are
applicable for any language,” Quintero
says. This transferability has been vitally
important here, in one of the most lan-
guage-diverse schools in an increas-
ingly diverse school district. Children
living in Anchorage, a city of about
260,000, are increasingly from Mexico,
Korea, Vietnam, Ukraine, Romania,
South America—from any place in
the world. In four years, predicts the
Anchorage School District, ethnic mi-
nority students may well comprise the
majority of the student population.

A WELCOMING PLACE

While a third of North Star's students
do not speak English at home, many do
not have homes at all. Fifty children of
homeless families are attending North
Star Elementary this year. They are de-
livered to the school's door each morn-
ing by vans {rom local homeless.
shelters or by city bus, their tokens paid
for by the Anchorage Schoo! District's
Child in Transition/Homeless Project.
The program, run by the district's Title |
program and housed at North Star,
serves about 1,000 children each year
in schools throughout the district. It
helps to coordinate services provided
by community agencies, the district,
and schools, including transportation,
counseling, purchasing of schoo! sup-
plies, tutoring, family activities, and
parenting classes.

Ina recent count, the district had
‘more than 1,500 homeless students.
Obviously, i's a big problem in this
far north city, says Anchorage Schoo!

107

Board member Harriet Drummond. Her
sons were students at North Star Ele-
mentary in the mid-1990s, when home-
lessness and other family misfortunes
contributed to a student mobility rate
topping 90 percent. She recalls her
youngest son having a hard time mak-
ing friends because he didn't know who
would be there from day to day. Home-
lessness, like the language gap, con-
tributes to students’ sense of isolation
As PTA president, Drummond saw first-
hand the determination of the then-new
principal, Myrna Moulton, to slow the
turnover by caring for the needs of her
students at every front.

“Myrna has made it a warm and wel-
coming place,” she says, “and they
have a wonderful number of innovative
programs” that are helping to improve
student achievement and lower mobil-
ity, now at about 60 percent. The school
was honored for its successes by the
U.S. Department of Education in 2000,
when it chose North Star as a Distin-
guished Title | School. “Even if parents
have to move out of the school's atten-
dance area, she makes it possible for
them to keep their kids at North Star,”
says Drummond.

Drummond lives a few blocks from
North Star in a well-to-do enclave of
Spenard, one of Anchorage's oldest-—
and, some say, notorious—sections of
town. Neighborhood bars like the popu-
lar “sourdough” saloon, Chilkoot’s, and
the more hip Fly By Night, a hot spot
for jazz and poetry slams, like to tout
Spenard’s old reputation as 2 red-light
district. But today, the area is a richer
mix of corporate and mom-and-pop


Stephens, “and what's fun about it

is that it’s never going to be done.
It's the process that’s important.”
FIVE HUNDRED
STRONG

‘Today, Government Hill has almost
500 students: 325 in the dual-

CLOSING THE GAP

language program and 175 in the
neighborhood school, and standard-
ized test scores are in the top 10
schools in the district. Bridging the
divide between the two programs
remains a challenge, however, and
will continue as long as high mobil-

ity and poverty affect low-income
areas such as Government Hill. The
district has begun to address the
problem by initiating a district-
community task force to explore
what can be done to support fami-
lies staying in place, at least
through a school year. Looping two
grades with the same teacher has
also been effective, the district has
found, because children are more
engaged with school, and they pres-
sure their parents not to move.
“There’s no question the
achievement gap has been narrowed
at Government Hill,” says Comeau,
“and I think Sandy has done an in-
credibly good job of pooling and
transforming all the state and fed-
eral programs into a coordinated,
integrated model.” Comeau contin-

ues cautiously, “This model can
be duplicated, but it takes extra re-
sources, and a staff committed to
avision and willing to stay put for
awhile and really go through the
struggle and challenges.”

But beyond achievement and test
scores, Government Hill has become
avital educational hub that invites
visiting, participation, and commit-
ment. It’s a place where Leo’s father
stoops to hug Carlos in the hall,
where Wyatt's grandmother volun-
teers five momings a week, and
where one sixth-grade teacher in the
neighborhood school goes swim-
ming on Saturdays with her students.

: 43

“T love the feel of this school,”
Stephens says. “In my old job I went
around to the 61 elementary schools,
and I know all schools do not feel
the same. It was really important to
me that this school feels good to ev-
eryone: parents, teachers, kids, and
people from the community.” (1

39


Educators living
along the route
traveled by Lewis
and Clark infuse
their teaching
with modern tools
for exploration.

Story and photos by Suzie Boss

LEWISTON AND KAMIAH,
Idaho—Sometime this summer, if
all goes according to plan, members
of Congress will sit down with a
troop of veteran explorers and hear
about the discoveries made along a
route that cuts across North Amer-
ica, bound for the future. “We will
be reporting back to the Congress on
the success of our mission,” ex-
plains Robert Kearney, one of the
leaders of the expedition.

If this scenario sounds a bit fa-
miliar, it’s no accident. Two centuries
ago, Lewis and Clark reported back
to Congress about the success of
their mission. This time around, the
explorers are all educators. Their

NW EDUCATION / Summer 2003, hat

mission, Keamey explains, “has been
to infuse technology into K-12 educa-
tion.” And they have much to report.
‘The Lewis and Clark Rediscovery
Project involves 54 teachers from
eight states spread along the route
traveled by the Corps of Discovery.
Based at the University of Idaho with
the Potlatch School District serving
as fiscal agent, the project is one of
100 Technology Innovation Chal-
lenge Grants funded by Congress.
Five-year funding of more than $7
million has resulted in extensive
professional development and the
creation of new online resources to
help teachers harness technology to
enhance leaming. The Rediscovery

168

Project also uses the epic story of
Lewis and Clark as a theme for con-
necting communities and bringing
a sense of adventure to the act of
leaming.

Although the Rediscovery Project
was launched at the dawn of the
2st century, participants are still
heeding the call issued by President
Jefferson 200 years earlier. “Learn
all you can” were Jefferson's parting
words to the original Comps of Dis-
covery. His message continues to in-
spire today’s educational explorers.

THE JOURNEY BEGINS
Keamey, former chair of the physics
department at the University of


The National Writing Project, based at the
University of California Berkeley, provides pro-
fessional development to improve the teaching
of writing and improve learning in the nation’s
schools. Teacher knowledge, expertise, and
leadership are the cornerstones of this madel,
which has spread to include programs in all
50 states.

Every state—including the five states of the
Northwest region—has at least one NWP-
affiliated program that offers summer institutes
where teachers examine their classroom prac
tice, conduct research, and develop their own
writing skills. During the schoo! year, the same

lers continue to co'laborate and provit

one another with ideas, support, and more for-
Mal training in the “writing-to-learn” approach.
Local sites also develop programs that address
particular needs in their communities, such as
effective writing assessment or strategies to
help students meet state writing benchmarks.
For more information about the National
Writing Project, start at the Web site

www writingproject.org. A variely of resources
and publications are available, as well as infor-
mation about NWP activities.

For example, NWP Interactive is a growing on-
line community of teachers, writing project site
directors, and staff members who share tools,
resources, and strategies about teaching writing.
A variety of other initiatives are being deve!

NW Education / Winter 2002

In the Northwest region, NWP-affiliated pro-
grams offer a variety of resources for teachers,
including:

ALASKA: Alaska State Writing Consortium,
which involves school districts working
gether to promote and improve the teaching
of writing in the state. Web site: htip://pec.
alaska.edu/aswcpage.htm|

IDAHO: Northwest Inland Writing Project,
based at the University of Idaho, Web site:
www.uidaho.edu/ed/niwp1

MONTANA: Montana Writing Project, based
at the University of Montana. Web site: www.
umtedu/english/mwp.him.

OREGON: Oregon Writing Project includes
programs on several colleges’ sites around the
State. For local contact information, visit the
NWP Web site (www.writingproject.org), then
select “Find a Local Site.”

WASHINGTON: NWP programs include the
Central Washington Writing Project (Web site:
www.cwu.edu/~Cwwp/e) and the Pug und
Writing Project (Web site: hitp:/

washington edu/pswpweb/)

68


32

leave first grade as nonreaders—

phenomenal for any school, and
especially given the low socioeco-
nomic status and high mobility
rates of Bethel students.

Before the initiative, the num-
bers were discouraging. In those
days, 15 percent of kids left first
grade unable to read. Second-grade
special ed referral rates were soaring
—hitting 17 percent at one schoo!
in 1996-97. Worried, the district
began analyzing its approach to
reading. Recalls Carl Cole, special
services director, “We were concerned
about the high number of kids iden-
tified as learning disabled, and when
you're talking about kids who are
learning disabled, you’ re almost
exclusively talking about kids with
reading disabilities.”

Looking into the matter, the dis-
trict found that the problem was not
with the assessments and identifica-
tions of the referred students. They
were accurate, But assessments of
kids were not tied to what was hap-
pening in the classroom, instruc-
tionally. Sometimes the evaluation
team referred kids to special ed to
make sure students would get in-
struction of a kind not available in
the regular classroom. “When it was
discovered that kids were discrepant
Teaders, we didn’t use that informa-
tion to say, ‘What are we doing in-
structionally that’s causing this?”
Cole recalls.

NW EDUCATION / Spring 2003

What they were doing instruc-
tionally was, as at many districts
across the country, “a recipe for dis-
aster,” says Cole, particularly for
astudent population in this low-
income community where transient
hotels and homeless shelters are
plentiful. Because the district hada
site-based approach—allowing
each school to choose its own read-
ing program—there was no consis-
tency from school to school, grade
to grade, room to room. Different
textbooks were in use across schools,
within schools, and even within
grade levels at the same school.

Also, the district’s half-day
kindergarten was mainly a social-
readiness program, not an instruc-
tional program. Had Brandon
entered a Bethel kindergarten back
in the old days, he would not have
been tested and monitored regularly
on indicators of progress toward
reading. His exposure to letters and
letter sounds would have been inci-
dental, not direct. If he didn’t seem
to be catching on—if, for instance,
he had nothing to contribute when
his teacher asked the class to brain-
storm for words that start with a b—
his teacher would have concluded
that he was just “not ready for
reading,”

District administrators became
convinced that most kids ID'd as
leaming disabled are actually “in-
structionally disabled.” So they set

h

out to build a reading program that
would be effective for all students.
They joined forces with University of
Oregon's Institute for Development
of Educational Achievement, di-
rected by nationally known reading,
researchers Drs. Edward Kame’enui
and Deborah Simmons. A four-year,
$700,000 grant from the U.S. Office
of Special Education Programs was
committed to the development, im-
plementation, and evaluation of
Bethel’s reading initiative.

“The amount of support we had
was phenomenal,” says Cole. Besides
bringing in the expertise of Kame’
enui [say ka-may-ah-NEW-ee] and
Simmons, the grant paid for staff
development and a new position—
reading coordinator

Today, Bethel’s approach to read-
ing is more than an instructional
model—it’s also a prevention model,
designed to head off many learning
disabilities at the pass. The model
includes:

* Measurable district goals for each
grade level

Regular and frequent assessment
and monitoring

¢ Research-based curricula that in-
volve direct, explicit, and systematic
instruction

© Protected time for reading

© Instruction in small groups at
each child’s skill level

* Leadership role for principals

© Training for all teachers and edu-

152

cational assistants in using the cur-
ricula and assessment measures

Research shows that the “wait-
and-see” attitude toward reading
problems—common at many
schools—is a mistake. Instead,
Bethel takes an “as-early-as-possi-
ble” approach. In the second week
of school, a building assessment
team (typically, the Title I and spe-
cial ed teachers, plus educational
assistants) tests kindergartners for
initial-sound fluency and letter-
naming fluency, using a set of indi-
cators and benchmarks developed
at the University of Oregon. The
DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of
Basic Early Literacy Skills), which
each take about three minutes per
student to administer, are reliable
predictors of later reading perfor-
mance, according to research find-
ings. Based on these assessments as
well as subsequent teacher observa-
tions, students are placed in small
groups in one of three categories:
“benchmark,” which means on
track to meet district goals and ulti-
mately state standards; “strategic,”
meaning progressing but behind;
and “intensive,” meaning at risk of
failing to meet goals, a category that
embraces the lowest-performing 20
percent.

By the beginning of October, the
at-risk kindergartners are getting an
extra 30 minutes of reading instruc-
tion. They also get progress moni-


A Spanish immersion
program bri
Hill Elementary back from

the brink
Story and photos by Judy Blankenship

Government

‘Closing the achievement

gap absolutely can be done,
but it takes well-trained

mt, and
extra resources. I just can't
say that often enough.”
—Carol Comeatt,

: Anchorage School District
f ona frosty April morning, a five-
minute drive north from dowgtown
Anchorage takes one across the long
expanse of the C Street Bridge, span-
ning the tracks of the Alaska Rail-
toad and the fishing docks of the
Cook Inlet. Straight ahead is Gov-
emment Hill, named in the era of
the great federal government
Alaskan railroad construction proj-
ect, from 1914 to 1923, when thou-
sands of job seekers and adventurers
poured into Anchorage. The workers
and their families lived up on this
. hill, out of the muddy lowlands of
ie Ship Creek, as Anchorage was then

yu called. Today, the area still has a

A

transient feel, with strip malls of

. launderettes, small stores, and
quick-food restaurants, and blocks
of low-rent apartment houses and

trailer parks,

Just off the main road, right next
door to Elmendorf Air Force Base,
sits Government Hill School, one
of 61 elementary schools in the An-
chorage district. A sign in Spanish at
the main entrance signals to a visi-
tor that this is no ordinary school:
“Dele a su hijo el regulo de dos
lenguas,” it says. “Give your child
the gift of two languages.” In the
hallway on the way to Sefiora
Zamora’ first-grade room, a small
boy who appears to be heading for
the bathroom, hall pass swinging,
from his wrist, greets a man walking,
in the opposite direction. “Hey, Car-
los! What's happening?” the man
says, stopping to hug the child be-
fore going out the exit. “Is that

your father?” a visitor asks Carlos.

“Nah,” he says, “that’s my friend
Leo's dad.”

This affectionate encounter be

tween a child and a parent would
never have happened 10 years ago,
according to anyone who remem-
bers Government Hill school then,
when parent involvement was nil,
a series of principals had come and
gone, teachers fled after a year or
less, discipline problems were high,
and test scores were rock-bottom low.
The school had already closed once
in the late 1970s for meager enroll-
ment. As Alaska’s boom-and-bust

20

economy shifted from oil-based to
service-based, immigrants from
Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Ecuador, and many other countries
were drawn to Alaska seeking job
opportunities in hotels, restaurants,
and other tourism-oriented sectors.
One of the city’s pockets of low-rent
housing where these families settled
was Government Hill. By 1992-—
reduced to just 165 students—it
was on the verge of shutting its
doors again.

“All the neighborhood parents
who could had left the school, and
those students who remained were
for the most part from poor homes
in the largely transient population
of the area,” recalls Carol Comeau,
director of elenfentary education in
1990-1993 and now superintendent
of the Anchorage School District.
“We were having serious discussions
whether to close the school and put
the students on a bus to some other
school, or do something totally dif-
ferent and designate the school as
an alternative program.”

Fortunately for the neighbor-
hood, and for the city, the second
option won out.

‘Today, Government Hill is one
of the great success stories of the
Anchorage district, with nearly 500
students and an award-winning
Spanish immersion program that

35


reading aloud each others’ entries.
“T constantly used their stories to
teach,” Gruwell says. “We read
aloud, edited aloud. I could take
something from a journal and com-
pare it to a story by T.C. Boyle or
Any Tan or Gary Soto. We could
look at the work side by side, juxta-
posing themes or comparing literary
techniques. It’s an authentic way to
teach.”

Authenticity was another key les-
son. “We talked about being real vs.
dramatizing. You can’t embellish,”
Gruvwell says, “or it takes away from
the sincerity,”

Gradually, Gruwell and her stu-
dents realized the importance of
sharing their work with a larger au-
dience. “It's much more real when
read by others,” she says. In the tra-
dition of the Freedom Riders of the
1960s, they called themselves the
Freedom Writers. They began reach-
ing beyond the confines of Room
203, sharing stories and touching
lives all around the world. Eventu-
ally, their stories brought them face-
to-face with their new heroes: Zlata
Filipovic, author of Zlata’s Diary,
and Miep Gies, who gave shelter to

Anne Frank.

.

Diary 108:
°

I didn't realize writing was so

hard. It’s very tedious and over-

whelming, but satisfying at the

same time. The writing assign-

FOCUS ON WRITING

ments I do for Ms. G's class require
draft after draft until everything is
perfect. | can't begin to imagine
how hard Naney Wride bas it
when she goes through everything
over and over to finish a story.
That's what she does, she tries to
matke her work perfect for the Los
Angeles Times. Nancy Wride is a
wonderful reporter who just wrote
a story aboul us. ... When Nancy's
story was published, it fell as if the
entire world had read it and then
decided to call Room 203.

It takes not only honesty but,
often, many drafts to produce pow-
erful writing. That's another mes-
sage that Gruwell’s students learned
while honing their diaries into pub-
lishable pieces. She leamed to teach
the writing process while a graduate
student, and coached her students
through the steps of drafting, revis-
ing, peer editing, and more revising.
She brought in professional writers
to talk about their own process for
producing polished work. And she
used herself as a model, writing and
revising right alongside her students.

Many students were struggling
academically when they arrived in
Gruwell's class. She used exercises to
engage all types of students, includ-
ing auditory, visual, and kinesthetic
leamers. “I used a number of
modalities to encourage writing.

We did a lot of hands-on things,” to
give students experiences that would

at
uh

improve their writing. A favorite
classroom metaphor: the hamburger.
“We talked about a hamburger vs.
cheeseburger vs. a double double.
‘The plain burger is just meat and
bun. What makes the double double
so special? It's the meat and the bun
and the sauce and the cheese.” Writ-
ing can be plain or delicious with
details, too. Gruwell used all kinds
of props to make sure her message
got though— including, of course,
“lots of burgers.”

Not only did students have free-
dom to explore tough topics in their
diaries, but they were free to “break
away from the five-paragraph frame.
I encouraged them not to use the
standard format. | didn’t want them
to feel so confined that they'd wind
up bitter about writing.”

Instead, the Freedom Writers
wound up becoming ambassadors
for tolerance, winning national
recognition, and having their di-
aries published as a book. A film is
in the works. They have been heard
by politicians and entertainers, and
helped by generous patrons. Many
are now in college—30 of them are
back together this year with Gruwell,
only this time it’s at California State
University at Long Beach where
she’s a distinguished educator
“They're such a unified family.

They feel infallible,” she says of
her community of young writers.

“They aren't rock stars,” adds

71

Gruwell. “They're kids who changed
their personas,” and, just maybe,
the world, “Education is the great
equalizer.” As one student shared in
‘The Freedom Writers Diary, Dav
177: “Days like this create memories
worth living for.”

Education Now and in the
Future will take place February
10-11, 2003, at the Portland
Hilton, with researchers and
practitioners addressing a wide
range of topics. Erin Gruwell
will deliver her keynote address
during lunch on February 11.
The same afternoon, she will
participate in a workshop
called Our Lives in Our Own
Words, which will explore the
power of personal narratives
for academic and personal
growth, Conference informa-
tion and registration materials
are available online at www.
murel.org/enf. To receive a con-
ference catalog by mail, e-mail
a request to enf@murel.org or
call 1-800-547-6339, ext. 187.

Starting February 12, Port-
land State University’s Graduate
School of Education is offering
more indepth training on
Gruwell’s tolerance-based writ-
ing curriculum. For informa-
tion about the continuing
education course, see the
ontine description at www.
ceed. pdx.edu/freedom. 0

il


RESOURCES

TRAIL FOODS

Mary Gunderson's work is so un-
usual that she coined a term for it:
paleocuisineology*. A food writer
and culinary historian from South
Dakota, Gunderson dives into pri-
mary historical documents to un-
earth the foods and recipes thal
graced tables—and tents—in by-
gone eras. She's written about the
“cuisine” of the Corps of Discovery
in two tantalizing and fact-filled
books that will inspire teachers,
parents, and kids to tuck in for
hours of fun and learning.

The Food Journal of Lewis &
Clark: Recipes for an Expedition
(History Cooks, 2003) includes
the sophisticated cuisine that
Thomas Jefferson enjoyed as well
as the savory wild game, hominy,
and plum tarts the Corps members.
dined on along the trail.

Cooking on the Lewis and Clark
Expedition is part of the series
Exploring History through Simple
Recipes (Capstone Press, 2000).
The books, written in consultation
with a curriculum consultant, are
designed for kids in grades three
through six.

“Lewis and Clark wrote about
food almost every day,” says Gun-
derson. “There are really nice mo-
ments in the journals about the
food on the trip, then there are
things that are startling to us
today,” such as reports that each
Corps member ate 10 pounds of
meat each day. (Gunderson thinks
it was more like five.)

“Food really does help tell the
story of where they were, culturally
and geographically. It helps tell
the story of the trip across the
continent,” she says.

Using food as a “time machine,”
she recreates the tastiest of the
Corps members’ meals—many
of them inspired by Hidatsa and
Mandan Indians—such as corn
with sunflower and black beans.
And she wouldn't dream of leaving
out Charboneau's famous Buffalo
Boudin Blanc.

~ Recipes

for: an Expedition

Usually, this is just what a kid
needs to perk up his or her ap-
petite for learning about the Lewis
and Clark expedition and its impor-
tance to the history of the nation
And it fits right into cross-curricu-
lar learning, she says: “It’s about
culture, nutrition, geography, so-
cial studies, history, and it’s about
math and measuring—creative
teachers are having a lot of fun
with it.”

Gunderson is a frequent visitor
to classrooms where, in no time,
she fills the air with delicious
smells. For more information,
visit her Web site: www.History
Cooks.com/.

IN THE WORKS

Portland writer and filmmaker Ron
Craig is developing a PBS docu-
mentary on the African American
slave, York, who was a member of
the Corps of Discovery. His chil-

NW Education / Summer 2003

dren's book about York will be
published this year by National
Geographic Society. Additionally,
he was instrumental in having
Portland's NW York Street be offi-
cially named for the only black
Corps member who, along with
Sacagawea, was allowed to vote
with their white counterparts.

Ron Craig frequently speaks at
schools, telling students about the
participation of York in the historic
journey (filmworksnw@attbi.com).

MORE BOOKS
A Charbonneau Family Por-
trait: Biographical Sketches
of Sacagawea, Jean Baptiste,
and Toussaint Charbonneau by
Irving W.A. Anderson (Fort Clat-
sop Historical Association, 1992)
The Expeditions of Lewis &
Clark and Zebulon Pike: North
American Journeys edited by
Washington state educators

we
194

oy

Richard D. Scheuerman and
Arthur Ellis. A collection of pri-
mary source materials and study
guides, the book aligns with edu-
Cation standards (Demco, 2001)

Going Along With Lewis &
Clark by Barbara Fifer (Montana
Magazine, 2000)

In Search of York: The Slave
Who Went to the Pacific With
Lewis and Clark by Robert B.
Betts (Colorado Associated Uni-
versity Press, 2001)

The Incredible Journey of
Lewis & Clark by Rhoda Blum-
berg (Turtleback Books, 1995)
This book for young readers high-
tights the contributions of Native
people to the expedition.

The Journals of the Lewis
and Clark Expedition Online
is a Web version of Gary E. Moul-
ton’s 1983 Journals of the
Lewis and Clark Expedition
published in 13 volumes by Uni-
versity of Nebraska Press (http://
lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/)

Lewis and Clark Among the
Indians by James P. Ronda (Uni-
versity of Nebraska Press, 1984,
2002)

Lewis and Clark: Pioneering
Naturalists by Paul Russell
Cutright (University of Nebraska
Press, 1989)

Lewis and Clark Trail Maps,
volumes | and Il, by Martin Plam-
ondon II of Vancouver, Washing-
ton, show—for the first time in
200 years—the courses of the
Missouri, Snake, and Columbia
rivers as they were when the Corps
of Discovery traveled their water-
ways, and as they are now. Ex-
cerpts from the expedition diaries
are included (Washington State
University Press, 2000, 2001).

Or Perish in the Attempt:
Wilderness Medicine in the
Lewis & Clark Expedition by
David J. Peck (Farcountry Press,
2001)

J


10

/\

commerce, high- and low-income
housing developments, littered alleys,
and pristine parks.

The students at North Star, naturally,
are just as diverse. While many struggle
with literacy—either because English
isn't their native language or they come
from poor, “print-deprived” homes—
others come to school with good reading
and writing skills. Closing this literacy
divide in the classroom is something
Principal Myrna Moulton and her staff
members have made a priority.

NO MORE REVOLVING DOORS

The first thing they recognized was that
pull-out programs weren't working. So
many children needed bilingual and
speciat education that classrooms had
“revolving doors,” with children coming
and going all day long to attend support
classes down the hall. So they scrapped
the pull-out programs. Instead, Title |,
‘Special education, and bilingual teachers
all began supporting students’ learning
in their homerooms, collaborating with
the regular classroom teacher-—every day.

“We just have a huge need here and
providing services directly in the class-
foom, rather than pulling out a bunch of
kids from the classroom several times
a day, meets their needs better,” says
Amy Lyman, a Title | teacher.

There's one important exception:
the language center. About 40 students
of all grade levels who need intensive
bilingual education because they have
scant, if any, English skills, spend
Mornings from nine to noon together in
the tanguage center. They learn English
largely through writing and reading. Af-
ternoons, they rejoin their classmates in

MW EDUCATION / Winter 2002

Children's picture books provide excellent examples of good story telling that can inspire he youngest writes,

their homerooms. The language center
allows Quintero, who designed the pro-
gram, and four bilingual aides to pre-
pare monolingual students to go beyond
mere survival English and begin mas-
tering “academic” language.

“Students are able to learn what we
call ‘social’ English quite fast” because
it's highly contextual, says Quintero,
but academic language is about ab-
stract ideas that require more complex
language skills. Mastering these skills
can take five to eight years, he says. But
by teaching English through writing and
reading, rather than solely through
vocabulary drills and rote exercises—
traditional methods of bilingual ed—
Quintero and his colleagues are trying
to shorlen that period of time.

“At the same lime that they're learn-
ing how to speak English, they're learn-
ing how to read and write in English, so
it has an immediate value in their regu-
lar classrooms," he says.

Bilingual students who are more
proficient in English spend the whole
day in their homerooms, receiving indi-
vidualized support in the classroom from
bilingual aides. Afternoons, students
of all language abilities are together in
their homerooms.

WORKING TOWARD GOALS
Moulton brings a lot of resources to
bear on supporting students’ language
acquisition. By coordinating some spe-
cial programs, she and her staff have
been able to create block time in read-
ing and language arts, as well as
mathematics. They're continuing a suc-
cessful reading incentive program in-
volving parent volunteers, as well as
First Steps Reading, a model linking
classroom instruction with child devel-
opment. Rotary Readers, volunteers
from the Anchorage International
Rotary, tutor students in reading and
sponsor activities and book purchases.
Moulton and her staff carve out pre-

108

cious hours for professional develop-
ment from staff meeting limes, inservice
days, and support classes, using the
time to hone their instructional strate-
gies in reading and writing.

The school is in a five-year partner-
ship with NWREL, which is helping it
to devise efficient ways to work collab-
oralively toward school priorities. All
teachers now serve on committees that
help the school meet its goals in writ-
ing, reading, math, technology, safety,
morale building, grant writing, science
and social studies, student discipline,
and fine arts. Authors Nighi is one pop-
ular activity organized by the writing
committee, providing a forum in which
students read from their own stories to
an audience of parents and families.

All of these efforts have helped boost
student learning, Moulton says. Though
high student mobility makes it very dif-
ficult for the schoo! to show consistent
gains in student achievement scores,


and a quote from the Lewis and
Clark journals describing the species.
© Meeting the Comps: Students draw
names of expedition members and
create a life-sized model of “their”
Corps member, including period
dress and equipment. Students also
write a paper, using at least three
sources, about their Corps member.
For most students, it's their first
major research paper assignment.

* Journaling: Students lea to use
journal writing to record their field
observations, respond to what they
are reading, and make sketches.
Students personalize their own
handmade journals, including such
features as covers made of tooled
copper.

Before they head outdoors, stu-
dents also get up to speed on using a
variety of technical tools. They learn
about global positioning system
(GPS) receivers,
handheld units
that allow users

to plot coordinates
and download data
into computer
mapping software.
They have a
hands-on lesson

in using digital
cameras and soft-
ware for editing,
images. They lear
about protocols for
gathering scientific
data. Like mem-
bers of the Corps of
Discovery getting

171

‘Siave Cranting and Jentior dontor eg students Meta Selnte,
Utena) Gal, Caras Wagner, and lam Catemnam-—end ators —
created e cafe con ay etles of tautstem, stag 200 yaar
@aenye.

ready to embark back in 1803, or
today’s astronauts preparing for a
space launch, students share the
excitement of gearing up for an
adventure into parts unknown to
them.

When it's finally time to move
to Musselshell Meadow, students
plunge into three days jam-packed
with adventures, They live, breathe,
and even eat history. Meals are
cooked in the open air. Members of
the Nez Perce tribe prepare a tradi-
tional salmon bake, followed by
drumming and dancing. An expert
at cooking with Dutch ovens makes
a feast that doubles as a history les-
son. Forestry experts guide students
on field research, helping them
become keen observers of nature.
‘There are no showers, but at least a
few students can be counted on to
plunge into the cold river water. To
the amazement of Woods, this is the
first camping experience for at least
a few students every year. “I assumed
all kids growing up in Idaho would
go camping,” she says. Shaking her
head and laughing, she adds, ““lurns
out was wrong.” So basic outdoors
skills have been added to the lesson
plans.

Although presenters vary from
year to year, some have become
comerstones of the curriculum. A
local Nez Perce family arrives with a
string of horses to explain the tribe's
expertise as breeders and equestrians.
In 1805, when the Comps switched
from horseback to canoes to com-
plete their joumey west, Lewis and

DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING


10

Evoking Some Hope

By his example, student Bryan Lewis demonstrates that the sky’s the Timit for LD kids

MEETING While ChUAUUEN Ge

Bryan Lewis justson of

shrugs off his lifelong troubles with

literacy skills. From Bryan's perspec-

tive, his learning disability is no
more or less important than other
traits that characterize him—his
brown skin, his tall frame, his long
hair, which he sometimes twists,
strand-by-strand, into a dramatic
mane. No more significant than his
artistry with pencils and brushes—
the way he sketches objects that pop

NW EDUCATION / Spring 2003

off the page with 3-D realism or
paints bold abstracts with unflinch-
ing colors. Or his steady gaze as he
speaks of things that matter ina
tone of quiet surety,

“The disability doesn’t play much
of a role in my life,” the Cleveland
High School junior class co-president
says matter-of-factly. “I've kind of
surpassed it. It's not something I
think about.”

To look at the nine-page résumé

130

of Bryan’s school and community
accomplishments, you'd never guess
that anything was amiss. From the
Portland Public Schools arts mag-
nets he attended in elementary and
middle school, he went on to tackle
one of the district's most demanding
high school programs—the inter-
national baccalaureate. And, follow-
ing a family tradition of activism,
he has dived deeply into local social
and political causes. Nearly every


adversity. Eide attempts to offer his
students minority role models other
than the professional athletes and
musicians that so many children
idolize. He hopes to show his stu-
dents that “reading is the road out”
of poverty.

Lively notes that her first-grade
students arrive at school with “a
lack of oral language. They haven't
been given much opportunity to
converse,” she says, “to talk or be
talked to. And in order to under-
stand written language, they have
to be masters of oral language.” So
Lively gives them opportunities to
speak in class. Additionally, she says,
“many of these kids don’t have the
life experiences that other kids have.
And if you haven’t had much expe-
rience beyond the four walls of your
house or your neighborhood, it’s dif-
ficult to draw connections to what
you're reading.” For this reason,
Lively plans educational field trips
throughout the year—to a chil-
dren’s theater production, for exam-
ple, or to a fish hatchery, or even to
a local pet store. This gives students
common experiences to talk and
write about. Additionally, it awakens
an interest in reading because stu-
dents return to school anxious to
lear more about what they have
just seen.

According to Indgjerd and other
teachers, much of the credit for
Grant's impressive test results in

CLOSING THE GAP

mathematics belongs to one staff
member. Karen Yamamoto, a vet-
eran teacher with more than 30
years of experience, was originally
enlisted to work with struggling
math students on a pull-out basis.
When those students’ performance
rose above other students’, people
took notice, and she became math
specialist for the entire school.

While teachers employ math
textbooks aligned with state and dis-
trict learning goals, they also rely
heavily on Yamamoto’s approach to
teaching math. She moves through-
out the building, guiding some
teachers in math instruction and
team teaching with others, Her trav-
eling show includes a stuffed side-
kick, the popular monkey Curious
George, and a bag of tricks to help
students get a fix on math patterns
and find solutions to problems.

One such trick, called “Granny
Subtract,” helps students solve sub-
traction problems by envisioning

a scenario where Curious George
needs to travel “x” number of
blocks from home to Granny's
house. But his mother—a working
mom whom the kids can identify
with—can only drive him partway.
‘The students have to figure out how
many blocks are left to travel to
Granny's house—or to the bank
two blocks past Granny's or to the
grocery store two hlocks beyond that.

‘This fun, practical approach “works
e

for students,” says Yamamoto. So
do her procedures for identifying
numeric pattems and solving math
problems. Even skeptical teachers
have eventually been won over by
her approach.

“We start out concrete, often
using manipulatives,” says Yama-
moto, “then go abstract.” Addition-
ally, she says, “We try to teach
strategies so that students can do
problems and self-correct their
own work.”

Because of Yamamoto’s coach-

ing, Stueckle says, “We use the same

terminology and concepts through-
out the school.” This benefits stu-
dents. “Consistency and collabora-
tion,” she says, “have been key to
helping students at Grant succeed.”
Grant offers a multitude of pro-

grams to support students’ leaming.

In fact, the list of extra educational
programs and support groups reads
something like a Chinese menu
with a dizzying array of choices.
There is the After-School Homework
Center where K~6 students can
tackle schoolwork or get tutoring.

‘The Literacy Center provides one-to-

one tutoring for second- and third-
graders who need help with reading
Lunch Bunch offers students the
chance to build their math skills by
playing educational computer
games in the technology lab at
lunchtime. The Technology and
Annual Club allows fifth- and sixth-

43

grade students to receive training in
the use of digital cameras, scanners,
computers, and software graphics
programs. Mentoring programs like
Big Brothers Big Sisters offer needy
kids additional attention and sup-
port. There are ESL, Title I, special
education, and Reading Recovery
specialists on staff to work with stu-
dents in need.

“We can’t change their home
life or their economic status,” says
Lively, “but we can create an envi-
ronment to help them succeed.” 1

45


BILL SHERWONIT
SHERWONIT IS AN OUTDOORS
JOURNALIST FOR THE ANCHOR-
AGE DAILY NEWS AND EDITOR
OF DENALI: A LITERARY
ANTHOLOGY.

In school, | was never much into

writing, though I had good teachers
who taught me the basics of telling
a good story through the written
word. I was more of a science and
math guy and eventually got a mas-
ter’s degree in geology. But, after
working awhile as a geologist, I de-

THE OWL IN
THE MASK
OF THE
DREAMER

cided I didn’t want to spend my life
doing that, so | returned to school
and got interested in journalism—
and discovered I loved it. Sports
writing was my first passion, then
outdoors writing. Nowadays, I’m
increasingly interested in creative
nonfiction, especially the personal
essay. It allows me to explore my re-
lationship with wild nature and bet-

ter understand my place in the world

Though | don’t have vivid mem-
ories of learning—or loving—to
write when | was young, I know that
my teachers gave me the strong
foundation that allows me to earn a
living from writing, while also help-
ing me, through my stories, to better
understand my relationship with
people and the natural world.

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

JOHN HAINES
AUTHOR OF THE OWL IN THE
MASK OF THE DREAMER (1993),
AND OTHER BOOKS OF POETRY,
HAINES IS A FELLOW OF THE
ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS
AND A RECIPIENT OF A LIFETIME
ACHIEVEMENT AWARD FROM THE
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, AMONG
MANY OTHER HONORS. HE NOW
LIVES IN MISSOULA, MONTANA,
BUT RETURNS REGULARLY TO
HIS ALASKA HOMESTEAD.

I did not leam to write as a student
in a classroom or a typical “work-
shop.” My student background

was primarily in the visual arts, in
painting and sculpture. My back-
ground in literature is founded on
the reading I did as a boy and a
young man. I was introduced to
books by my father who was a good
reader and who read to me from an
early age. I had also one very vivid
experience as a junior in high
school, when our teacher introduced
us to Chaucer and The Canterbury
Tales—in Middle English, not
translation! Those opening lines
from the Prologue to the Tales have
never left me.

It is true that my years of study
and work in the visual arts had con-
siderable influence on my vision as
a poet and writer, in helping me to
see, to define in a visual sense the
physical world in which I was in-
volved, whether in the Alaska wilder-

91

FOCUS ON WRITING

ness or the social and political envi-
ronment of the city and of people. As
many of my later poems can illus-
trate, the art fed the writing and in
one way or another continues to.

| have for long understood the
connection between our language,
our use of words, as well as the forms
we choose in our various arts, and
the fundamental forms and move-
ments of what we call Nature. I have
over the years given a good deal of
thought to the subject, and I owe to
my years of life in the Alaska wilder-
ness as well as the reading I've done,
the understanding I’ve come to in
my later years.

Great poetry, great music, great
art take account of all the potential
variety in nature: image, sound,
rhythm, the play of mind, the play
of ideas—all that is like the play of
light, of shadow, of leaf and water in
the great world. So that it becomes
possible to speak of the mind as a
kind of imitation, or reflection of
the world.

31


with the weakest academic foundations,” Haycock laments
in Education Leadership.

Providing well-qualified teachers is one of the top rec-
ommendations in a report released last year by the 600
members of the National Black Caucus of State Legisla-
tors. The report, Closing the Achievement Gap, urges
states and districts to increase teacher pay, provide al-
ternative routes to teacher certification, develop induc-
tion and retention programs for new teachers, and come
up with incentives to recruit more male and minority can-
didates into teaching. Minority teachers really do make
a difference for minority kids, researchers are finding.
Thomas Dee, a professor at Swarthmore College in Penn-
sylvania, found that kids with teachers of their own race
scored three to four points higher on standardized tests
than kids with teachers of other races.

LITTLE KIDS, BIG GAINS

When it comes to education, there is no such thing as too
soon to start. The importance of early intervention can-
not be underestimated. About half the gap between black
12th-graders and their white peers might be closed by
“eliminating the differences that exist before their children
enter first grade,” asserts The Black-White Test Score
Gap, edited by Christopher Jencks and Meridith Phillips.

Past findings on the impact of early childhood programs
have been mixed. A couple of new studies, however, have
gone a long way toward proving the power of well-de-
signed programs for preschoolers.

One is the Abecedarian Project (named for a student
who is learning the alphabet). This widely cited 20-year
study, conducted by the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, found all kinds of promising outcomes
among children who participated in an intensive, year-
round child-care program from infancy through kinder-
garten. Funded jointly by the U.S, Education Department's
Office of Educational Research and Improvement, the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, and the David

NW Education / Fall 2002

and Lucile Packard Foundation, the study showed that par-
ticipating kids were twice as likely to go to college as other
kids, They scored much better on tests of intelligence,
reading, and math all the way through young adulthood.
They also tended to delay parenting.

Another key piece of research, the Chicago Early Child-
hood Study, achieved similar results. Financed by the
National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of
Education, the study followed graduates of urban
preschools for 15 years. Researchers at the University of
Wisconsin tracking 1,500 Chicago children from age 5
until after age 20 concluded that “programs like Head Start
could pay dividends long after children had learned to
read—provided the programs are highly structured,”
Jacques Steinberg of The New York Times reports in
May 2001. Funded by Title 1, the programs under study
“adhere to rigorous reading lessons,” Steinberg notes, as
well as requiring parents to work with their kids on
homework and helping families arrange medical care and
social services.

In an editorial accompanying findings from the Chicago
study published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association in May 2001, Edward Zigler, one of the cre-
ators of Head Start in the 1960s, argued that the results
of the program could be replicated. The findings, he
writes with co-author Sally Styfco, “contradict the naysay-
ers who believe that public schools cannot be fixed or that
poor children cannot be helped because of nature or
nurture.”

A MISSION, NOT A JOB

‘The Department of Education—sponsored study of nine
top-performing urban schools found that success crys-
tallized around one key component: staff commitment.
“The true catalyst (of the change effort) was the strong
desire of educators to ensure the academic success of the
children they served,” the Charles A. Dana Center at the
University of Texas concluded in its 1999 report, Hope for

The conven-
tional wisdom
suggests that
parental involve-
ment leads to
improved achieve-
ment; however,
in these schools,
there was also
evidence that the
reverse was true—
improved school
achievement led to
increased parental
involvement.
—Hope for
Urban Education,
Charles
A. Dana Center
University of
Texas, 1999



tudies and news stories

on the U.S. crisis in mi-

nority education have
created a veritable Mount
McKinley of paper and elec-
tronic output since the mid-
1990s. That's when national
and local test data began to
alert researchers to an alarm-
ing trend: The achievement
gap, which had narrowed in
the '70s and ’80s, was yawn-
ing yet again. White students
were once more outpacing
black, Hispanic, and Native
students in the classroom.

Bust about every educational,

journalistic, and political
group has weighed in on the
issue: the NAACP and the
College Board. The National
Black Caucus of State Legis-
lators and the U.S. Congress.
The Phi Delta Kappan and the
New York Times—to name
a handful. As philosophically
divergent and geographically
scattered as the studies and
the discussions are, they nev-
ertheless coalesce around
one common call to action,
tanking even as a national
imperative: Close the gap. Do
it, they say, for the kids who
ought to have a chance to be-
come physicists and physi-
cians, photojournalists and
playwrights, politicians, pros-
ecutors, professors, princi-
pals, pharmacists, psycholo-
gists, paleontologists, per-
cussionists, painters, potters,
and every other possibility in
a world of endless possibili-
ties. In a democracy whose
long-term viability rests on
equality of opportunity, the
varied voices agree, every
child must get the best edu-
cation available.

Lihis call is arguably the
toughest challenge facing
schools today. Some say it
can’t be done without deep
social change. As long as
kids come from poor homes,
broken families, and violent
neighborhoods, they reason,

Slavin identifies three keys
to success:

schools can’t hope to do bet- Begin to think of all chil-

ter. But the research tells a
different story. Studies by the
U.S. Department of Education
and others have turned up is-
lands of excellence in a pic-
ture that is admittedly bleak.
There are schools beset by
poverty and burdened by

dren as being “at promise.”
Slavin counsels: “Build on
cultural and personal
strengths. Accept nothing

but outstanding performance.
Respond immediately and in-
tensively if children start to
fall behind.”

past failures that have turned ([fMStart early. “Research on

things around for their minor-
ity students—schools where
the staff has refused to settle
for a status quo that limits
the possibilities for children
of color.

To magic formula will bring
minority kids to parity with
their peers. But researchers
and practitioners have turned
up a wealth of promising
ideas—both strategies and
attitudes—that make a differ-
ence. “No single policy or
program can ensure the
school success of every
child, but a combination of
approaches can,” renowned
researcher Robert Slavin
writes in an issue of Educa-
tional Leadership titled
“Reaching for Equity” in
December 1997/January
1998. “Research in education
is increasingly identifying the
kinds of approaches we could
use if we decided as a society
to end the poor academic
performance of so many
of our children.”

(in his article, “Can Education
Reduce Social Inequity?”

programs for three- and four-
year-olds,” he says, “finds
consistent and powerful im-
pacts of high-quality early
childhood programs on the
cognitive performance of
young children.”
8, Work on many fronts at
once. “Effective schooling an-
ticipates all the ways children
might fail,” Slavin notes, “and
then plans how each will be
prevented or quickly and
effectively dealt with.”
fn this issue of Vorthwest
Education, we take you ona
journey to some of the bea-
cons of equity within the
Northwest where ideas like
these are yielding results.
You'll travel from the Flathead
Indian Reservation in Mon-
tana’s remote Rockies to the
congested inner cores of
Portland and Seattle; from the
agricultural heartland of East-
ern Washington to a neigh-
borhood of immigrants and
blue-collar workers in
Anchorage
—Lee Sherman
shermanl@nwrel.org



34

activities for phonological aware-
ness and alphabetic understanding.
Another research-based curricu-
lum, Open Court is the core reading
program at Clear Lake and most
of the district’s seven elementary
schools, where it is used for daily
whole-group instruction, K~3. Dur-
ing the small-group instruction that
follows, three educational assistants
join the teachers for instruction
geared to the kids’ skill levels. The
“strategic” group gets ERI. The
“benchmark” group might read
decodable or leveled books. And the
“intensive” group gets a “double
dose” of reading, reinforcing the
same concepts they encountered in
ERI, but with different materials.
‘The extra instruction for at-risk
readers continues through the pri-
mary grades, “Part of what has been
really successful with our model is
that for kids who need interventions
like this, we always try to make it rz
addition to the regular program,”
says curriculum director Drew
Braun. “In the past, it was ‘instead
of.’ For example, when you broke
into reading groups, if you were
‘Title | you went to Title I. Now Title I
and other services are a second dose
for those kids—not instead of, be-
cause kids are not going to get caught
up unless we give them extra.”
Another “extra” is the district's
five-week summer school for stu-
dents who are not meeting bench-

marks or are in danger of losing
ground over the break. “They're
kids that we're not sure how much
support they're going to get over the
summer, whether anybody's going
to get them to the library, so we give
them the opportunity to continue
practicing their skills,” says Wolter.

‘The district's commitment to
reading is paying off. For children
who have been in the Bethel reading
program since kindergarten, second-
grade special education referrals are
now between 4 and 6 percent, even
though students are actually enter-
ing school with lower prereading
skills than before.

“T think one kind of kid we catch
isa kid who has trouble paying at-
tention,” says Wolter. “We have a lot
of those kinds of kids. In a big group,
they start losing out on what's going
on. By doing our small groups, we've
been able to capture those kids, keep
them in a structured setting, and
work with them.”

Some kids, despite the research-
based curricula, the twice-monthly
assessment, and the early and extra
intervention, still don’t make prog-
ress. In that case, says Wolter, “a
whole series of checks” happens.
“Has the student been absent a lot,
does the student have health prob-
lems, has their vision been checked,
their hearing?” Wolter says. “Maybe
it's in the instruction. Maybe the in-
structor's been shaving off five min-

i

utes because the kids have been
coming in late. Are they in a group
too large? Is the program being used
with fideli

Going down this checklist usu-

ally roots out the problem. Some-
times, it's found in surprising places
—literally. Last year, a doctor tumed
up foreign objects—a bead and a
twisted piece of aluminum foil—in
the ears of a boy whose progress in
extended kindergarten had stalled.

FLIP OF A SWITCH

‘The reading initiative has wrought
changes on a lot of levels. At the dis-
trict level, it broke down a dividing
line between regular and special ed-
ucation. These days, Cole—the spe-
cial ed expert—might run a general
curriculum meeting, while Braun
—the generalist—might facilitate
aspecial ed meeting. “It’s just a
continuum,” says Braun. “We've
taken a lot of the bags of tricks of
special education and put them in
the regular classroom because they
work really well.”

Kindergarten teachers were resis-
tant at first to the new instructional
methods and assessments when the
program began to phase in spring
of 1999.

“It was very, very difficult—I
got my phone unlisted,” Cole jokes.

Clear Lake Principal Betsy Fer-
nandez, too, recalls some tension.
“Some of the teachers in my build-

154

NW EDUCATION / Spring 2003

ing were pretty outspoken in the
questions that they asked —‘What
about the pressure that's being put
on kids academically? What about
the whole developmental approach
to teaching kindergarten?” she says.
“They were tough questions. And
now my kindergarten teachers are
some of the most dedicated to the
program, and the results they're get-
ting are really good.”

‘The change, she says, came when
teachers began seeing the hard data
after the first half-year. “It was like
the flip of a switch,” she remarks.

Kindergarten teacher Elizabeth
Radke notes that “having more in-
tentional instruction and more di-
rect instruction to their levels was
helping” the strugglers.

‘The other thing that changed
kindergarten teachers’ minds, he-
sides the data, was the depth of the
district’s investment in the program.
“We couldn't do it without all the
support,” says kindergarten teacher
Linda Tindal. “It wouldn’t work if 1
had to try to run four reading groups
by myself. But our district is very
‘committed to it, and it’s wonderful.”

With students entering first grade
more prepared, they catch on more
quickly. To accommodate those
stronger leamers, teachers are mak-
ing adjustments. Reading coordina-
tor Wolter had to scramble for
appropriate reading materials when
the first wave of better-prepared stu-


42

An urban school in a socioeco-
nomically challenged neighbor-
hood, Grant Elementary has a
student population of 570 that is
one of the most culturally diverse in
the state. Kids represent a huge sam-
pling of ethnic groups, including
Afghani, African American, Ameri-
can Indian, Asian, Chinese, His-
panic, Hmong, Russian, and
Ukrainian. More than 80 percent of
the student body qualifies for free or
reduced-price lunches. Sixteen per-
cent are ESL students, many of them
recent immigrants. The mobility
rate currently stands at 30 percent.

Many of these students have dif-
ficult home lives. There are those
being raised by single parents strug-
gling to provide even the basic ne-
cessities. There are those being
raised by grandparents while par-
ents are serving time in prison or
living in unknown locations. Some
of Grant's children live in crowded
apartments with extended families
and multiple siblings. Some are
forced into the role of caregiver
themselves, left to tend younger
brothers and sisters while their
own guardians are at work.

It would be easy to explain and
accept low scores by pointing out
these harsh realities and citing the
well-known link between poverty and
poor academic performance. But
teachers at Grant Elementary refuse
to buy into that oft-bandied argu-

ment. “We're not going to make ex-
cuses for these children,” says first-
grade teacher Monica Lively. “We
must be a driving force to getting
these kids to succeed, no matter the
environment they come from.”

Adds Principal Steve Indgjerd:
“Our staff has the belief that poverty
does not determine intelligence. We
need to do everything we can to help
these kids succeed.”

And, despite the formidable ob-
stacles piled in their way, they are
suoceeding. In the past few years,
student performance has risen
steadily at Grant. Back in 1997, only
26 percent of Grant students passed
the Washington Assessment of Stu-
dent Learning (WASL) in reading.
By 1999, reading proficiency had
risen to 46 percent. It jumped again
in 2000 to 55 percent. The numbers
in math, too, are impressive. Grant
fourth-graders topped the district in
the math portion of the Comprehen-
sive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS) in
1999. It was the first time in eight
years that a high-poverty school
outperformed other schools in
Spokane on the math test. In 2000,
52 percent of Grant students passed
the math portion of the WASL, dou-
bling their 1997 scores and beating
both the state and district averages.
As a testament to these steady gains,
the U.S. Department of Education
honored the school nationally as. a
Title I Distinguished School in 2001.

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

population is making

Yo 2
High Expectations i)
Grant’s remarkable j jinprOrement
has come about through a collabo-
rative effort among school staff; par-
ents, and community. It began in
1994-95 when an intensive needs
assessment was conducted and,
based on that data, a comprehensive
schoolwide program developed to
promote the success of every Grant
student. Key elements of the pro-
gram include setting high expecta-
tions for behavior and academic
performance, providing early inter-
vention services, and offering ex-
tended learning opportunities. “We
use a variety of strategies to reach
students,” Indgjerd notes.

“A lot of these kids come in feel-
ing they can’t succeed,” says Lively.
“If you think a kid can’t do it, they
won't.” The whole staff, she reports,
“buys into the idea of high expecta-
tions and the belief that every one
of these kids can succeed.”

But to set the stage for success,
teachers must take into account
the special needs of these students.
Safety is a big concer. Beyond the
conflict, insecurity, and even vio-
lence that many of these kids en-
counter at home, the increasing
danger in the wider world affects
them emotionally, too. “These kids
watch a lot of TY,” Stueckle ob-
serves, “and they saw what hap-
pened on 9/11. These children
are dealing with a lot.”

46

NW EDUCATION / Fall 2002

- he ‘As Maslow’s Avis

“theBry points out, children will not
be able to attain higher brain func-

tion until their basic life needs are
met. “Unless they’re fed, clothed,
and safe,” Stueckle says, ‘they can’t

lear. So my main concem is help-
ing them to feel safe when they get
here. They may not be safe at home
or on the bus, but they know that
when they get to school, they will
be safe and they can leam.”

Inevitably, a number of Grant
students arrive with behavior prob-
lems rooted in anger, fear, and frus-
tration. “These kids are coming
from poverty and sometimes scary
backgrounds,” says Indgjerd. “They
haven't had good models” to learn
to deal with behavioral issues, ‘so
we developed a schoolwide behavior
plan where we teach them the nec-
essary skills.”

A few basic rules guide student
behavior at Grant. Along with fol-
lowing directions and being where
one is supposed to be, students are
asked to become “self-managers”
—that is, partners in their own
learning, accountable for behaving
in school and striving to be good
students. When students demon-
strate that they are effective self-
managers (as more than 90 percent
do), they eam the coveted self-
manager badge and the privilege
of qualifying for involvement in spe-
cial activities. One such activity is


the classroom, says Bixby. ‘Teachers are under terrible pres-
sure to cover a broad range of topics. But coverage is an-
tithetical to deep historical inquiry in which you ask your
own questions and come up with theories to pursue.”

Researchers Virginia Causey and Beverly Armento say,
“A more indepth approach would allow for more inter-
disciplinary content and encourage the development of
more critical thinking skills as students grow to under-
stand the complex causes of events.”

In their chapter “Strategies for Increasing Achievement
in History” in the 2001 book More Strategies for Edu-
cating Everybody's Children, they write: “An indepth ap-
proach would also facilitate the use of primary source
documents and the exploration of social, political, eco-
nomic, and cultural aspects of events and issues.”

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Lewis & Clark College has moved to the forefront of
scholarship about the Lewis and Clark expedition with the
acquisition of several major collections of primary doc-
uments related to the Corps of Discovery, the release of
an important new book for scholars, and the marshaling
of resources and professional development opportunities
for K-12 teachers (www.thejourneycontinues.org/).

The college has partnered with the Oregon Council for
the Humanities to provide a series of annual institutes and
other activities for teachers during the Lewis and Clark
bicentennial. Teachers will be engaged in the kind of
historical inquiry that historians do: reading primary
sources, interviewing people with specialized knowl-
edge, doing fieldwork, evaluating the context of histori-
cal documents, consulting multiple sources to gain deeper
understanding of historical events and people, commu-
nicating their findings to colleagues, and fostering a pro-
fessional community.

Planners hope that these experiences will inspire teach-
ers and better equip them to engage their own students
in such historical inquiry. It would mark a big shift in the
way students usually learn history, but Jane Hunter, chair

‘eff 165

of the college’s History Department, believes even young
students are capable of historical inquiry.

“History lends itself to hands-on experimental and ex-
periential investigations,” she says. “Students can be en-
couraged to pose the questions, encouraged to hazard a
guess, and then sent off to available sources to attempt to
confirm or correct their hypotheses.”

The Lewis and Clark journals offer particularly rich op-
portunities for such historical investigations, she says. “An
interesting topic is to get students to figure out what we
learn about Sacagawea from the journals themselves and
to compare it with some of the popularizations of that
story,” she says. It’s a project that her first-year college stu-
dents have done to good effect.

“The modern version of the Sacagawea story actually
dates from the Lewis & Clark Exposition in Portland in the
early 20th century when supporters of women’s suffrage
saw in her a figure they could use to help celebrate
women in the Lewis and Clark story,” she says.

And the historic places along the Lewis and Clark trail
also create wonderful opportunities for experiential
learning. Causey and Armento urge teachers to use the
community as an historical resource, saying, “The local
community provides opportunities for field experiences
that use historic places to bring history alive.”

“Places have powerful stories to tell,” writes Marilyn
Harper in her paper, Including Historic Places in the So-
cial Studies Curriculum, for the ERIC Clearinghouse on
Social Studies/Social Sciences, October 1997 (www.
ericfacility.ne/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed415178.html).
Harper is an historian at the National Register of Historic
Places of the National Park Service.

“These places provide physical evidence of how broad
currents of history affect even small communities. Sup-
plemented with primary or secondary written and visual
materials, they also teach such skills as observation,
working with maps, interpreting visual evidence, evalu-
ating bias, analysis, comparison and contrast, and prob-
lem solving.”

DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING


C Students saw that
their teacher was no

longer up in front of
the class but sitting
among them, shaping
and revising his own

writing. JJ

EVERYBODY
WRITES

ENGLISH LANGUAGE
LEARNERS DISCOVER
THEIR VOICE

By SUZIE BOSS

ROYAL CITY, Washington—
His Chilean accent offers the first
clue that he didn’t grow up amid
the farms and apple orchards of
eastern Washington. Like most of
his students at Royal High School,
teacher Mario Godoy-Gonzalez
began life in another country,
speaking Spanish as his first lan-
guage. But it’s his message, not his
accent, that gets students excited
about learning.

In his two-year classroom for
English language learners, Godoy-
Gonzalez teaches students to har-
ness words to amuse, to enlighten,
to inquire, to persuade. He teaches
“six subjects in two languages,”
using English and Spanish to teach
math, physical science, biology,
world history, and two levels of

FOCUS ON WRITING

English. Writing cuts across all sub-
jects. In this classroom, everybody
writes—including the teacher, the
teaching assistant, and even the
principal if he stops to visit.

“Writing is the key when it comes
to getting kids more involved in
class,” Godoy-Gonzalez says.

Fostering student engagement
was a priority when he was asked to
develop the English as a second lan-
guage program nine years ago. An-
other teacher was already working
with ESL students at the middle
school level, ‘“‘and trying to keep
an eye out for them when they got
to high school,” he explains. But
even though the local population
of Spanish-speaking children was
growing, “most of these kids were
quitting school after the eighth
grade. There was nothing for them
at the high school.”

‘These days, Godoy-Gonzalez’s
students find a world of leaming
opportunities awaiting in his class-
room. The teacher has leveraged his
many awards and grants to purchase

we

high-powered scientific and techni-
cal equipment. He also has expanded
his own knowledge base in biology,
botany, and biotechnology so that
he can guide students through the
process of scientific inquiry—which,
of course, they write about.

Godoy-Gonzalez’s approach to
teaching science has earned na-
tional attention, including honors
from the National Environmental
Education and Training Foundation
and a $10,000 Toyota Tapestry grant
for a curriculum on ethnobotany.
‘The Migrant Teacher of the Year for
Washington state in 2000, Godoy-
Gonzalez insists he’s an unlikely
candidate to be guiding students
through the DNA analysis of wheat
or the extraction of chemicals from
herbs grown on local farms.

“I'm a teacher of English. I like
history, and I know a little math
But science was scary to me,” he
admits. “‘After high school, I never
took another science class. And in
high school, it was: read the book,
answer the questions, take the test.

©9

ca

We never did real science.”

As he sought ways to engage his
students in the high school class-
room, he was attracted by the hands-
on nature of doing “real” science.
When students peer into a micro-
scope or gaze at the stars through a
telescope, they experience the thrill
of discovery. That can be a spring-
board for developing their language
skills, as they seek to communicate
what they have observed.

He also appreciated the chance
to show students that their 44-year-
old teacher was learning alongside
them. A summer institute in life
science, offered at the University of
Washington and sponsored by the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute,
gave him a foundation in scientific
methods. He has continued seeking
opportunities to learn alongside sci-
eritists willing to serve as his mentor.
The Science Education Partnership
Program at the Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Research Center offered “‘an-
other great science leaming experi-
ence.” Science, Godoy-Gonzalez has


Photoo!asnowy 4
cabin accompanies @
young writer's pot
in Away From Almc

Everything El

that, despite bad reports in the
media, “teens today are capable of
complex, sophisticated work of high
quality.” To help them achieve this,
he says teachers must employ prac-
tices “such as cooperative learning,
authentic assessment, integrated
technology, and interdisciplinary
teaching.”

While writing was integral to the
study of all subject areas, language
arts were front and center during the
second part of the project when the
environment became the inspiration
for poetry. Students first studied
works by several poets, including
Robert Frost and. e. cummings.
‘Then they took a field trip to nearby
Bishop Creek, a salmon-rich water-
way that winds through a heavily
wooded area and feeds into the Cook
Inlet. They spent time observing the
natural wonders and scribbling ideas
for their own poems. They then re-
tumed to school for a monthlong,
process of writing, engaging in peer
and teacher reviews, and editing
multiple drafts.

NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002

The idea of writing as a process
was new to most of Christian’s stu-
dents who were well-practiced at fill-
ing in the blanks on worksheets, but
intimidated by the directive to ana-
lyze a rough draft and see how it
could be improved. Because they
were motivated to produce a quality
publication, they saw the value of
honing their work to create the best
piece of writing possible.

Christian helped by modeling
the process of writing. He subjected
his own rough drafts—mistakes
and all—to his students’ criticism,
and revised his work to make im-
provements. “If it’s OK for the teacher
to make mistakes and do five revi-
sions,” he says, the students decide,
“It’s OK for me.” He adds: “There's
avery different environment when
teachers are writing—when teach-
ers present themselves as writers and
show kids the idiosyncratic nature of
writing, It makes it more real and
accessible.”

Poetry turned out to be a perfect
medium for these teens. “Their

school identity is what happens in
middle school. They really decide
who they're going to be,” Christian
observes. “Poetry is a way to process
what they're thinking and feeling.”
He adds: “One way or another, they'll
express themselves. This is a positive,
directed way to do it.”

At Bishop Creek, “kids picked up
images and connected them to their

lives,” Christian says. “That was
thrilling to see.” Jessica, for exam-
ple, saw two bald eagles perched in
a tree and compared them to herself
and her mother, using the metaphor
as an opportunity to explore this re-
lationship. When Jason saw trees’
Toots exposed and dangling over the
creek bank “grasping for life, wish-
ing to be on rich soil,” he compared
this natural erosion of the environ-
ment to the process of human life
where, he writes, people move
“closer and closer to deathy And
those who grow on the edge/ Will
fall early.”

Anumber of students found a

voice through the process, and some

88

even found peer acceptance. At the
outset, “Jason did not see himself
as a writer,” Christian says. “He was
very quiet and saw himself as an
outsider.” When classmates expressed
how impressed they were with his
poem, telling him, “You're like
Shakespeare,” there was a real
transformation. “That was his entry
into the eighth-grade group.”
Writing scientific field reports
turned out to be more of a challenge
for students. Because these reports
were factual and objective—le-
scribing the step-by-step process by
which they collected samples of
plant life from a two-by-two-foot
plot of land at Bishop Creek and
then cataloging and identifying the
species—students had to leam to
write in what seemed another lan-
guage entirely. “It was hard for kids,”
says Christian, after the first-person
narratives of the oral histories and
the emotive, imagistic language of
poetry. “It's like using a different part
of your brain,” he says, “writing in
anew voice, to. a new audience.”


DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 478 246 RC 024 128

AUTHOR Sherman, Lee, Ed.; Boss, Suzie, Ed.; Weeks, Denise Jarrett,
Ed.

TITLE Northwest Education, 2002-2003.

INSTITUTION Northwest Regional Educational Lab., Portland, OR.

SPONS AGENCY Department of Education, Washington, DC.

PUB DATE 2003-00-00

NOTE 198p.; Published quarterly. Photographs and a few colored

pages may not reproduce adequately. For volume 7, see ED 464
798. For individual articles, see RC 515 704-711, RC 515 825-
831, RC 515 966-968, and RC 516 117-123.

CONTRACT ED-01-CO-0013

AVAILABLE FROM For full text: http://www.nwrel.org/nwedu.

PUB TYPE Collected Works - Serials (022)

JOURNAL CIT Northwest Education; v8 n1-4 Fall-Sum 2002-2003

EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MFO1/PCO8 Plus Postage.

DESCRIPTORS *Achievement Gains; *Educational Practices; Elementary

Secondary Education; *Gifted Disabled; *History Instruction;
Learning Disabilities; Minority Groups; United States
History; *Writing Instruction

IDENTIFIERS *Lewis and Clark Expedition; *United States (Northwest

ABSTRACT

This document contains the four issues of Northwest Education
published during the 2002-03 school year. Issue themes are: (1) "Closing the
Gap: How Northwest Schools Are Raising Minority Achievement"; (2) "Focus on
Writing"; (3) "The Hidden Disability: When Bright Children Struggle To
Learn"; and (4) "Discoveries in Learning: Lessons from Lewis & Clark."
Typically, each issue consists of a lead article that reviews current
research or provides an overview of matters related to the theme, followed by
articles describing model programs and practices or profiling relevant
experiences in schools of the Northwest--Washington, .Oregon, Idaho, Montana,
and Alaska. Issues also contain information on related resources, book
reviews, letters from readers, and practitioner commentary. (SV)

Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made
from the original document.



G41 traits OF WRITING ASSESSMENT

BRIGHT

Continued from Page 12
She went on to earn, first, a degree
in education, then a master’s in
English. from University of Mon-
tana in Missoula and a doctorate in
education from the American Uni-
versity of Asturias in Spain. Her
graduate adviser, Beverly Ann Chin,
a past president of the National
Council for Teachers of English,
is still a close friend and wrote the
foreword to her book

For the next 15 years, Culham
—being chosen Montana's English
Teacher of the Year—taught mid-
dle school in Missoula, and got
married and had a baby. When her
husband was offered a job in Port-
land, Oregon, she accepted a posi-
tion with the Beaverton School
District, teaching high school En-
glish. She was in mid-career, at a
time when burnout can easily set
in, but she was coteaching with
a beginning teacher who kept her
“energized” and open to new ideas.
Now, this is what she tries to do
for other teachers at her workshops.

“When you start teaching, there's
a kind of missionary zeal that you
have; you believe that you have
something to offer the next genera-
tion, and that sustains you for a
while.” she says, “but for so many
teachers, by mid-career, they've
gotten dragged down by politics,
by demands of their district.

“To be really good, they have
to rediscover their talents and their
zeal for teaching. And that's what |
try to lead them back to, by creat-
ing opportunities for them to redis-
cover themselves as teachers.”

Culham says she gives them
“permission” to let go of some of
the old chestnuts of teaching lan-
guage arts, such as relying overly
on spelling tests, memorizing

vocabulary lists, and penmanship.
Instead, she urges them to connect
language learning with other as-
pects of the school day by integrat-
ing reading and writing with other
subjects, and encouraging dialogue
by asking children open-ended
questions about their ideas and
reasoning.

When assessing students’ writ-
ing, she advises, assess one trait
ata time, respecting students’
drafts by not marking every single
error. “Squeeze it once, and let it
go,” she says, passing on a favorite
phrase of the author Ralph Fletcher.
There’s amole opportunity, through
the revision process or in another
writing assignment altogether, to
address other things that need
attention.

“AS a trainer, you've got to vali-
date teachers’ good work, but also
give them something they can use
to move on to another level,” says
Culham. “I try to find a way to help
them tap into that energy they had
when they started teaching. They
didn’t go into teaching for the
money or the summer vacation;
they went into it because they
wanted to help kids.”

Culham came to the Laboratory
in 1991, joining a team of people
who'd begun to develop, with the
help of classroom teachers in
Montana and Oregon, a model for
teaching and assessing writing
“When | came to the Laboratory,
there was all of this positive work
going on by Rick Stiggins, Judy
Arter, and Vicki Spandel. | came in
as someone with the most class-
room experience among us. So |
started working on what | knew
best, developing classroom
lessons” that focused on each key
trait of good writing: ideas, organi-
zation, word choice, sentence

fluency, conventions, voice, and
presentation. “It was like going
to school, working with them. |
learned so much.”

Stiggins went on to found the
Assessment Training Institute
in Portland, and Arter joined him
there. Spandel now works for
Houghton Mifflin's Great Source
Education Group. Under Culham's
care over the past 11 years, the
Laboratory's 6+1 TraitTM Writing
model has been developed into a
leading professional development
and assessment model that is
used across the United States and
abroad, and is the basis for some
State writing assessment tools.

“! feel like I've done a lot in 11
years,” she says. What will the
next decade of work look like for
her? Scholastic already wants her
to write another book, a 6+1 TraitTM
Writing guide for primary teachers.
There's a NWREL study underway
of schools that have been using
the model successfully. Culham
would like to help determine what
strategies they're using to make
the model so effective in their
schools. And it's time to update
Picture Books, an annotated bibli-
ography of picture books catego-
rized by the traits they exemplify.

But there are two others things
Culham’s always wanted to do:
write a children's chapter book,
and start a school that could be a
demonstration site for best prac-
tices. Perhaps another well-timed
poem will give her just the lift she
needs to make these wishes come
true, too,

“The stars are shining bright,”
she says with a smile.

To order 6+1 Traits of Writing:
The Complete Guide, contact
Scholastic, Inc. at 1-800-
SCHOLASTIC.



Expeditions
"Learning

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN THE COLUMBIA
GORGE “ENLIST” IN A COURSE THAT SENDS THEM

INTO THE DEEP WATERS OF PROJECT-BASED LEARNING.
Story by Larry McClure, Photos by Denise Jarrett Weeks

STEVENSON, Washington—
Nearly 200 years ago Wishram,
Wasco, and Chinook Indians.
watched incredulously as Lewis
and Clark’s dugout canoes plunged
through several falls of the
Columbia that even today’s avid
whitewater thrill-seekers would
avoid. The final long chute near
present-day Stevenson, Washington,
was so rough and rocky the expedi-
tion had to portage boats and bag-
gage around it.

Most students at Stevenson High
School have grown up along a much
lazier Columbia River, tamed by
dams built by their grandparents.
So when a new two-credit interdisci-
plinary course called The Lewis and
Clark Expedition was listed in the
2002-2003 curriculum guide, it
sounded like a no-brainer, easy-
elective-credit yawner.

Senior Amy Fowler wrote a children's book about

the Corps of Discovery

Yet, as the school year is ending
this spring, student Expedition
members and their teacher-captains
are feeling much like the original
Corps of Discovery as it headed
down the Columbia Gorge toward
the Pacific: whiplashed by unantici-
pated whirlpools, yet full of antici-
pation and still headed downstream
toward their goal.

DISCOVERY BY DESIGN
Located an hour east of Vancouver,
this rural district is still transition-
ing from a timber-based economy.
‘The upscale Skamania Lodge and
nearby Columbia Gorge Interpretive
Center have helped make the town
a tourist destination, but without re-
placing high-paying forestry jobs.
Some families, including teachers,
have lived in the area for several
generations, loyal to the lifestyle
of the Gorge and its legendary
scenery and outdoor
attractions.

Thanks toa
grant from the

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
Stevenson High School is engaged
in a wall-to-wall reform effort. It
launched the Expedition course

to test the notion of project-based
learning as a strategy for raising
academic achievement. The grant
also provides scholarships to stu-
dents from low-income families.
The Gates Foundation, through the
Washington Education Foundation,
gives out 500 scholarships to stu-
dents at “Achiever” schools around
the state—each scholarship is as
much as $8,500 a year for five years.
For students in a town rebounding
from the loss of its timber economy,



It wasn't until Ramsey and Ruff
had the child evaluated by a special-
ist with Portland’s Language Skills
‘Therapy tutoring program that
they got a precise diagnosis: Jon had
“dyslexia,” a barely familiar term to
them in those days. (See Page 22 for
more on the Language Skills Ther-
apy program.) The disability was
moderately severe, the specialist
said. So for the next four years,
Jon’s parents paid for thrice-a-week
private tutoring to supplement the
help he got at school.

In the meantime, Ramsey had
started to educate herself on the
complexities and vagaries of special
education—the research, the termi-
nology, the law—and the current
strategies for teaching kids with
leaming disabilities. As part of that
process, she dove headlong into an
activist role. Serving on the school
district’s parent advisory council in
special education for more than a
decade, she also chaired the local
site councils at Ainsworth Elemen-
tary and Lincoln High School and
did a stint on the citizens’ budget re-
view committee. Her growing exper-
tise put her in demand outside the
district, as well, where she has served
on such statewide bodies as the Ore-
gon 21st Century Schools Council,
the Oregon Reading Consortium
and, currently, the Oregon Reading
First Leadership Team, which is ad-
vising the Oregon Department of

Education on allocation of federal
funds under the No Child Left Behind
Act. The governor appointed her to
the Oregon Advisory Council to Spe-
cial Education, which she chaired
last year. And she’s now serving a
two-year term as president of the
Oregon Branch of the International
Dyslexia Association.

As for her child, the little boy
who couldn’t read is now majoring
in international studies and Spanish
at the University of Oregon. Nearly
fluent in Spanish, Jon Ruff is spend-
ing his junior year in Cuernavaca,
Mexico, fulfilling his degree require-
ment for study abroad.

Sitting in the family’s 1910
Craftsman-style bungalow, recalling
the road she has traveled with her
son, Ramsey recently shared her tra-
vails and hard-won insights with
Northwest Education,

NORTHWEST EDUCATION:
How did you feel in those
early days when Jon was
struggling in school?
BETSY RAMSEY: You feel kind
of desperate when your kid’s really
hurting. You feel panicked because
you know he only gets to go through
school—through childhood—one
time, and it’s all messed up. You
don’t want it to be all messed up for
him. You want to fix it. When your
child is born with a learning disabil-
ity, it’s a hidden disability, You think
wed

‘THE HIDDEN DISABILITY

you have this perfect child—he has
all 10 fingers and toes and sparkling
eyes. He’s walking at the right age
and talking at the right age. You
have all these dreams and aspira-
tions for him. And then all of a sud-
den it hits you, and you have to face
the reality that what you thought
you had, you dort have. You just
have to change your thinking. You
have to accept this person for who he
is and then set about to make him
as successful as his potential will
allow. In our case, as in many cases,
that potential is far greater than you
can imagine when you see all the
hurdles ahead.

NW: Was the twice-weekly
pullout with a resource
teacher an adequate inter-
vention on the school’s part?
RAMSEY: No. Jon needed specific
instruction in reading, writing,
spelling, and math. And he needed
it every day. But we didn’t know
enough about the special education
laws at the time to argue with the
school that he should have more
than he was getting. People at the
school were really nice and well-
meaning, but they didn’t know that
much about working with LD kids
—and I think we had some of the
better-trained teachers out there.
One of the big problems in the field
of leaming disabilities is that teach-
ers are very poorly prepared in the
current system to deal with it, espe-

135

cially in the general classroom. They
have very, very little background in
how to teach kids who leam differ-
ently. Sometimes, these kids learn so
differently and think so differently
from the way the teacher thinks that
she can’t even imagine how they
lear. Teachers need to take an in-
quiry approach to problem solving
around that kid—trying different
things, measuring progress, and
then trying something else if that
doesn’twork.

NW: Is it realistic to expect
teachers to address all these
learning styles?

RAMSEY: It’s a very, very difficult
job. Teachers have many, many kids
with many, many needs in their
classrooms. But it gocs to the whole
idea of multiple intelligences—we
all have strengths and weaknesses.
Dyslexics happen to have weaknesses
in reading—one particular task
that’s hard for them to do—which
happens to be a crucial skill in our
culture. Because reading is some-
thing that is so integral to success in
our society today, people who can’t
do it have great difficulties in life. If
we lived in a hunter-gatherer culture,
it wouldn’t matter. In fact, people
like Jon might have certain kinds

of advantages in their thinking that
would actually make them highly
successful in a nonreading culture.
lve often used the example of music:
What if music—carrying a tune—

15


ferson envisioned Meriwether Lewis and William
Clark’s mission, writes James P. Ronda in his
classic Lewis & Clark Among the Indians.

“Lewis and Clark were to gather material for ... the
empire of the mind, the kingdom of knowledge,” he
writes, ‘Jefferson wanted the expedition to make a last-
ing contribution toward the scientific understanding of
North America.”

Guided by President Jefferson's list of questions about
all manner of phenomena they would likely encounter, the
captains prepared to investigate the indigenous people,
plants, wildlife, and weather of the regions they would be
passing through.

They charted their own ethnographic and scientific
course, gathering data and interviewing primary sources
of information: Indians, trappers, and traders. They used
the most advanced technology of the day. They consulted
scientific literature—lugging a small but precious li-
brary with them every step of the trek. And through it all,
they wrote and wrote.

‘To read the journals and jottings of the diarists in the
Corps of Discovery is to be pulled into the gale of time,
to the rivers and their banks of 200 years ago. Their
writing is descriptive, immediate, often humorous, and
alive with human feeling.

The journals of Lewis, Clark, and Corps members
Charles Floyd, Patrick Gass, John Ordway, and Joseph
Whitehouse invite students of history to “discover” the past
by doing historical inquiry as historians do.

Across the country, teachers and students are taking the
opportunity of the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark ex-
pedition, 2003-2006, to rediscover their nation’s early
history and the changes that have occurred during the past
200 years. Through historical inquiry they are learning
about the events of the Lewis and Clark expedition and the
consequences of it for Native people, the environment, and
westward expansion of the new nation.

163

“literary expedition” is how President Thomas Jef-

HISTORICAL INQUIRY

The diverse stories surrounding the history of the Lewis
and Clark expedition, and the ever-increasing availabil-
ity of primary source documents on the Internet, create
an exciting catalyst for change in the way history is taught,
some say. And none too soon.

Historian Ira Berlin states bluntly in an essay for the Or-
ganization of American Historians (www.oah.org/pubs/nl/
2002aug/berlin.html) that the nation is experiencing “a
deep crisis in history education.”

Student performance on the U.S. history portion of
the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
in 1988, 1994, and 2001 has been consistently poor. On
the latest NAEP, more than a third of fourth- and eighth-
graders, and nearly 60 percent of 12th-graders, didn’t
even achieve Basic, the lowest level ranked.

The NAEP results come after at least a decade of vigorous
debate and research about how history should be taught
in the schools and what content should be included in the
curriculum. In 1987, the Bradley Commission on History
in the Schools spurred a reform movement in history ed-
ucation. At the same time, an increasing number of
researchers in diverse fields—history, education, psy-
chology—were beginning to study the teaching and learn-
ing of history. In 1992, the National Council for History
Standards was established, and after rancorous dispute
about how best to represent the nation’s history, voluntary
national history standards were released.

Yet, none of these developments has addressed a per-
sistent problem: a great number of teachers teaching
history when they haven't formally studied history them-
selves. Too many are struggling to cover simply what's in
the textbook and are unable to “bring history alive” for
students.

Indeed, students by and large think history involves
memorizing a textbook’s facts about people and events that
have no relevance to their lives. Yet, historical inquiry, as
it's practiced in the profession, is anything but that. It is

DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING


1
FALL 2002

ON THE COVER:

Exnest L. Estes, shown here as a junior at
Portland's Benson Polytechnic High School,
perlorms an experiment on the heat of fusion

inhis honors chemistry class. Now a senior with
43.9 GPA, Emes plars acareet as an
electroengineer in the audio industry.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MOUNT BURNS.

40

46

52

Closing the Gap

How Northwest Schools
Are Raising Minority Achievement

ARTICLES

To Realize the Dream
Old assumptions about ethnicity, poverty, and school performance
are crumbling under the weight of compelling new evidence.

Winning Their Hearts
At Seattle's Nathan Hale High School, students are mentored,
nurtured, and valued in a climate that respects every individual.

TOM and Tough Love

The kids at Applegate Elementary School are reaching
impressive heights of achievement in an unexpected
place—Portland’s inner city

From Division to Vision

Hemmed in by the Rocky Mountains, the Flathead Indian
Reservation is overcoming school and community strife
for the good of the children.

Teaching to the Rainbow

Researchers and scholars at Washington State University's
College of Education are making great strides in the struggle
to raise minority achievement.

The Gift of Two Languages

A failing school in Anchorage nearly closed its doors before
launching an innovative dual-language program that has given the
school a new lease on life—and students a new lease on the future.

Nothing but the Best

Performance has risen steadily among a wildly diverse population
of kids at Spokane’s Grant Elementary School in response to the
staff's commitment io excellence.

Taking Care of Business
Three students and a teacher at Portland's struggling Jefferson
High School find plenty of room for optimism and hope.

DEPARTMENTS
Letters


WEB SITES

A Bethel School District 52
Curriculum Project

The Lewis and Clark Expedition
Bicentennial
www.bethel.k12.0r.us/
lewisandclark/

This Oregon school district
invites teachers and students in
grades K-12 to participate in
shorl- and long-term projects,
WebQuests, and classroom-to-
classroom activities in reading,
science, history, and more
Discovering Lewis & Clark
www. lewis-clark.org/

This Web site includes general
background on the Corps of Dis-
covery, including a 19-part synop-
sis of the expedition by historian
Harry Fritz with illustrations from
the Lewis and Clark journals, pho-
tographs, maps, and audio-video
presentations.

Jefferson's West

Monticello: The Home of Thomas
Jefferson
www.monticello.org/jefterson/
lewisandclark/

A Lewis and Clark study re-
source for teachers and students
includes background essays,
Classroom activities, timelines,
maps, and links to books and
other resources. A link to Discov-
ery Paths: Native Nations provides
video clips of oral histories from
tribal experts and more.

Lewis & Clark College
www.thejourneycontinues.org/

‘Throughout the bicentennial,
the college is offering confer-
ences, lectures, symposia, ex-
hibits, publications, and special
events for teachers and others.

A summer institute for teachers
will involve working with primary
source documents to create grade-
appropriate curricular materials.
The coliege’s collection of Lewis
and Clark historical books and
other materials is the most com-
prehensive in the world. This site
also features “200 Years Ago This
Week,” summaries of the Lewis

and Clark journals.

Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage
Foundation
www.lewisandclark.org/

The Foundation’s curriculum
guide, An American Legacy. The
Lewis and Clark Expedition, in-
Cludes ideas and source materials
linked to national standards in
language arts, social studies,
geography, human behavior, life
skills, Native American cultures,
visual arts, music, and natural
science, Included are many other
resources and links to state chap-
ters where teachers can get in
touch with Foundation members
who are willing to help schools
interpret the expedition stories.
National Council of the Lewis
& Clark Bicentennial
www.lewisandclark200.0rg/

This site has up-to-the-minute
information about bicentennial ac-
tivities around the nation. It in-
cludes links to individual state
bicentennial offices and the Coun-
cil of Tribal Advisors, which works
to clarify tribal roles and promote
cultural sensitivity and the stew-
ardship of sacred and historic
resources
National Geographic Society
Lewis & Clark Online Base Camp
www.nationalgeographic.com/
lewisandclark/index. html

This site offers fun, interactive
learning adventures for kids and
classroom resources for teachers.
National Lewis and Clark
Education Center
University of Montana
www lewisandclarkeducation
center.com/

At this site, teachers and stu-
dents will find ecological and spa-
tial information collected along the
Lewis and Clark trail by NASA re-
mote-sensing technology. As they
explore regions of the trail, they
will find a variety of resources
available from satellite imagery,
historical lithographs, maps, jour-
nal entries, and collected data.

185

National Park Service
Lewis and Clark National
Historic Trail
www.nps.gov/lecl/

This site's Education link fea-
tures books, curricula, and other
useful Web sites. It also provides
information about the Corps of
Discovery Il, a traveling interpre-
tive center that will exhibit along
the Lewis and Clark trail during
the next three years. The exhibit
includes a Tent of Many Voices
where experts and entertainers will
make presentations and perform.
Representatives from Native Amer-
ican tribes will be featured at each
stop and may also be available for
local school visits.

Northwest Regional Educa-
tional Laboratory

Lewis & Clark's Expedition:
Curriculum Ideas & Education
Resources
www.nwrel.org/teachlewisand
clark/home.him!

Teachers will get lots of good
ideas from this site that features
the completed project, “Teach
Lewis and Clark: Updating the
Journals Nearly 200 Years Later,”
in which teachers and students
studied their communities to find
out what had changed since the
journey of the Corps of Discovery.
Also featured are newspaper arti-
cles from The Legacy Grows:
Lewis & Clark Special from The
Oregonian and guidelines for
communicating the multiple sto-
ries surrounding the Lewis and
Clark expedition, particularly
those of Native people.

Oregon Public Education
Network
www. open.k12.or.us/oregon/icb/

This portal includes video and
audio recordings from a 15-week
statewide videoconference for Ore-
gon teachers. Historians, archae-
ologists, musicians, and Native
American tribal experts share their
knowledge and wisdom with
teachers who want to draw on
community resources to develop

DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING

rich classroom learning experi-
ences based on the Lewis and
Clark stories.
Public Broadcasting System
www. pbs.org/lewisandclark/
This site is a companion to the
documentary “Lewis & Clark: The
Journey of the Corps of Discov-
ery” by Ken Burns and Dayton
Duncan. Teachers and kids will
find stories about the world of
Lewis, Clark, and the rest of the
Corps of Discovery, Indian tribes,
maps and journals, interviews
with historians, and classroom
resources.
Rediscovery Project
Technology Innovation Challenge
Grant, U.S. Department of
Education .
http://rediscovery.ed.uidaho.edu/
This is a national project in
which teachers along the Lewis
and Clark trail are using technol-
ogy to enhance their instruction
of history, science, math, reading,
and more. Watch this site for news
about University of Idaho online
Courses on how teachers and stu-
dents can use computer technol-
ogy to document 200 years of
change in their local communities.
For a free compact disc providing
background narratives, graphics,
and artwork on the Corps of Dis-
covery, e-mail: shelleyh@
uidaho.edu.
www.lewisandclark200.gov/
A partnership of 32 federal agencies
This is an easy-to-use portal to
online information about Lewis
and Clark historical places,
events, education resources,
and more.
—Larry McClure,
Denise Jarrett Weeks



PRODUCYS
1 GUIDE
While
WRONG
PROGESS

FROM BOOKS TO
VIDEOS TO VISUAL
AIDS, A GROWING
COLLECTION OF
MATERIALS.
SUPPORTS THE

6+1 TRAITTM MODEL.

By CATHERINE PAGLIN

The 6+1 TraitTM Writing Assessment and
Instruction Model has spawned a small
industry al the Northwest Regional Edu-
cational Laboratory. While the inhouse
writing-trait gurus haven't added a night
shift, they do stay busy conceiving and
crafting the 6+1TM Trait resources teach-
ers need and demand: everything from
customized sticky noles to training
videos to an assessment model for
Spanish writing. More than 40 such
items are now available.

The latest product out the door is
Ruth Culham's 6+1 Traits of Writing:
The Complete Guide, published by
Scholastic, which bills it as “everything
you need to teach and assess student
writing with this powerful model.” The
Complete Guide includes writing sam-
ples, scoring rubrics, student guides,
and hundreds of lessons and activities
for grades three through 12.

“Scholastic wanted this book be-
cause publishers see how widespread
the use of the traits is, from classrooms
in every state, to the influence of the
traits on state assessment,” says Cul-
ham, unit manager for NWREL's
Assessment Program.

Filled with real-life examples and
anecdotes, The Complete Guide is writ-
ten in a personable, lively style retlect-
ing Culham’s infectious enthusiasm
about good writing, An easy-to-read,
practical format and children’s drawings
about the traits complement the acces-
sible prose.

Before diving into the traits in detail,
Culham relates how they grew out af
teachers’ need to define the elements of
good writing. Through comparing and

discussing countless student papers,
these teachers arrived at the six traits,
which have been gradually refined over
the years. Culham also reviews research
studies which show that writing improves.
—al the classroom, school, and district
levels—when students learn how to as-
sess their own writing using the traits.

The guide's second chapter explores.
the link between the traits and the writ-
ing process—prewriting, drafting,
sharing, revising, editing, and publish-
ing. Subsequent chapters focus on each
of the traits: ideas, organization, voice,
word Choice, sentence fluency, conven-
tions, and presentation. Each chapter
defines a trait, reviews problems and
highlights of the trait, provides assess-
ment practice, and explores why each
sample paper is scored as it is.

For each trait, the book provides nu-
merous teaching activities as well as
suggestions for adapting the activities
to different grade levels. If, for instance,
a leacher finds her students need to work
on the trait of “organization,” she'll find
help in lessons on writing leads, mak-
ing smooth transitions, sequencing main
points logically, pacing the presentation,
and closing with a satisfying conclusion.

Scheduled for release in December
2002, the 304-page paperback is part of
Scholastic’s Theory and Practice line of
books, devoted to current trends in ed-
ucation. Culham anticipates it will be
used for staff development sessions,
by practicing teachers, and in college
classes. She has agreed to write another
book for Scholastic using the same
format and focusing on the primary
grades.

113

TEACHING THE TRAITS.

Teachers of young writers, however,
need not put the traits on hold until such
time as Culham puls pen to paper again.
Seeing With New Eyes: A Guidebook
on Teaching and Assessing Beginning
Writers brims over with tips for using
the traits in the primary classroom.

New Eyes traces the development of
children’s writing, beginning with scrib-
bles and diclalion, through experimen-
lation with letters, to multiple sentences.
and an expanding vocabulary. We see
that the writing traits manifest them-
selves in students’ earliest writing ef-
forts, and even in pictures. Are students.
pulting a title at the top of the page or
filling a page with text or pictures ina
visually balanced way? Those are signs
of a sense of organization. Do.students
know that English and Spanish prose
usually moves from left to right and that
people usually read from the top to the
bottom of the page? Does a student
enthusiastically place a period after
almost every word in his writing? Such
knowledge and practices show an
awareness of conventions.

New Eyes discusses how the writing
process works at the primary level, how
to teach the traits to beginning writers,
and how to use reading to teach writing
An entire chapter is devoted to answer-
ing teachers’ frequently asked questions
such as, “Do students need to write
every day?” and, “How do | know when
students are successful?” A companion
video af the same name shows young
students at work in classrooms where
teachers use the techniques presented
in the book.

641 TRAITS

15


30

For Pablo, becoming socialized
into American pop culture had not
been a problem: He was into sports,
wore Nike shoes, and watched
plenty of MTV, He also had a great,
almost-native English accent. Yet
when it came to writing lab reports,
literary criticism, position papers,
other conventionalized genres of
writing, or reading his textbooks,
he fared very poorly. In fact, Pablo
was in serious trouble academically.

How can schools assist students
like Pablo? How could Pablo’s
teachers have provided more oppor-
tunities so that he could have had
another shot at learning how to
write a term paper?

Schools that meet the challenge
presented by LEP students such as
Pablo follow practices that are con-
sistent with research on effective
schools. Schools need to:

Have high expectations for
all students. Teachers, parents,
students, and communities need to
hold and communicate high ex-
pectations for LEP learners so we
can have students who value school
and value themselves as learners.

Draw on students’ back-
grounds and experiences.
Lessons begin and revolve around
students’ unique experiences, cul-
tures, languages, knowledge, and
interests.

+ Make learning meaningful;
form will follow. Students con-
struct meaning from reading or
through writing text first, and then
move on to focus on correct lan-
guage structures or genres,

* Offer choices to students.
When students have opportunities
to exercise choice in selecting their
writing topics, books, and research
projects, their interest and chances
for success are increased.

* Organize collaborative ac-
tivities and scaffold instruc-
tion. Design activities that will be
achieved jointly and “scaffold” —
provide support—so students can
eventually work independently.
Engage students in active
participation. Most students
learn by doing, not by observing
Involve parents and com-
munity. Parents, teachers, com-
munity members, and students can
become a community of readers,
researchers, and leamers exploring
topics of interest to the group.

NW EDUCATION / Fall 2002

Engage students in theme-
based curriculum. Organizing
curricular activities around inter-
woven and challenging themes is
especially helpful for LEP students
because they can see the big picture
and recycle vocabulary, both of
which increase understanding ex-
ponentially.

+ Follow the “whole-part-
whole” approach. Lessons
begin with whole texts (for exam-
ple, magazine articles, books,
poems) to maximize understand-
ing, and then move to an analysis
of reading process components
such as strategies, or smaller units
of language (e.g,, spelling, punctu-
ation, tenses), and end with a sum-
mary of major concepts within the
text.

* Immerse students in lan-
guage and print. The best way
to leam a language is by using it.
Classrooms that are saturated with
print and with opportunities to use
language for a variety of purposes
become superb learning environ-
ments.

34

This comprehensive approach
about good teaching strategies is
more likely to be successful than
strict reliance on any one program
or intervention. No single strategy
can by itself bridge the achieve-
ment gap for LEP students. Provid-
ing equal opportunities for all
students will depend essentially
on the degree to which classroom
teachers are able to institute class-
room practices and curriculum
that systematically respond to the
diversity represented in their class-
rooms. However, implementation of
these practices is in fact dependent
upon supportive school staff and
programs, district guidelines, and
state language policies that recog-
nize language diversity as an asset
and not a handicap.

While the recommendations
above are directed to classroom
teachers, the responsibility needs to
be shared by all those in the build-
ing. Only when all the adults in a
school talk about “our” students—
rather than “those” students—
when referring to the LEP students
can all students achieve success.


to enter in a contest. Was that
how you learned?

| really do feel that I taught myself
to write by writing. Not through my
education. | think of writing that
[first novel} as my apprenticeship.
Is there a lesson in that for
writing teachers?

I don’t think writing can be taught.
But it can be learned. You learn it by
the old-fashioned method of prac-
ticing a lot. But a teacher can pro-
vide the time and motivation, and
a teacher can show you ways to get
to your goal sooner. She will show
you the pitfalls. The things you can
avoid. Kind of steer you back onto
the road if you're starting to drive off
into the ditch. Teachers can be use-
ful. I certainly benefited from one
writing teacher, at least. In 1981, I
took a writing workshop from Ur-
sula LeGuin [acclaimed Portland
author].

What did you learn there?
Ursula was a model for how to
teach. I learned some things about
editing and revision and close read-
ing of work. I learned by the mere
fact that it was set up as a peer cri-
tique group, so I was forced to try

to articulate what worked and what
didn’t work in other people’s writing.
That improved my own writing
tremendously.

A lot of teachers, as early as
elementary grades, are using
the writer's workshop model.

FOCUS ON WRITING

Do you think that’s a good
idea?

It’s risky. When I was a teenager, I
was really shy. I remember showing
astory to a classmate when I was in
late high school. And I was just dev-
astated because she said, “Oh yeah,
this is really good but . ...” I couldn't
handle that. I wasn't ready for cri-
tique at that point. There's a certain
risk attached to peer critiques. It
could stop some kids from writing
forever. Even in the classes I teach
for adults, | make it optional if they
want to share their work.

What other advice would you
offer writing teachers?

I know there’s a lot of emphasis now
in teaching writing on the editing
process. And revision. The idea is you
should write a rough draft quickly.
And then revise. That's fine. And kids
need to know that you don’t have to
get it right the first time. But I'm the
sort of writer who revises as she goes.
I don’t write a rough draft. I’ve never
been able to do that. | revise every
bit as I’m working so when I get to
the end, I’m really at the end. I have
apolished piece. So I think that
teachers who emphasize so much
the rough-draft process and then the
editing need to make a tiny bit of al-
lowance for a writer who's like me.
Who may not be able to work like
that, Teachers should keep that in
the back of their mind.

You've written in many differ-

ent styles, including West-
erns, science fiction, and
fantasy. What advice would
you offer teachers whose
students want to experiment
with different genres?

Often, students writing in those gen-
res are not writing original work
based on a background in strong
reading, Instead, they’re writing
scripts from television and film. If
they're writing stories that look like
they could have been ripped right off
the television, they need to be drawn
up short on that. You should be
pushing books in their direction
that would send them off in a liter-
ary direction rather than a media
direction. There are lots of fantasy
novels out there they would love,

if they knew about them. It’s a big
mistake to be afraid of the fantastic
imagination. You can toy with
metaphor way out on the edges of
things in a way you cannot do in
any other genre. It's why | write in
that genre from time to time. I can
say things and play with ideas in a
way I cannot do in any other field.
Even though there's a lot of bad fan-
tasy out there, there's a lot of really
interesting, good stuff going on as
well. It’s valuable literature. And to
be a writer of fantasy and/or science
fiction is probably the most amena-
ble field for a new writer today. You
can break in more easily. If you
have a student who's an active

93

reader of that field, and actively
writing it and wants to be a writer,
that's a student you should be en-
couraging. That student may be
embarking on something that actu-
ally could lead to a career.

Any last thoughts?

AS far as the few, the handful who
are gifted, those students are going
to be good writers no matter what,
eventually. They just have to get a
certain age before they have any-
thing to say. Mostly, teachers need to
be focused on the mass of students
who need to be able to write a good
paragraph. That's a skill they'll need
for the rest of their lives. As for the
gifted ones, they're going to survive
all kinds of teaching and become
good writers,

But at the least, do no harm?
Exactly! That's the moral of the
story. O

33


Throughout the layers of
he

pictures.

helps them succeed in life.

To engage her students, Lovato
says she tries to employ “projects
that are not only authentic, but cul-
turally appropriate,” making use
of students’ prior experiences as a
springboard for learning. “Students
are not blank slates,” she says. “I
find it so important to tap into what
the students bring to the classroom.”

One such project is called the
Tree of Life. Lovato got the idea at
the 2002 California Association of
Bilingual Education conference
early last year, Educators and au-
thors Yvonne Freeman, David Free-
man, and Sandra Mercuri delivered
‘4 presentation on their book, Clas-
ing the Achievement Gap: How to
Reach Limited-Formal-Schooling
and Long-Term English Learners,
and on the Tree of Life project dis-
cussed therein, whereby students
explored their family trees, cultural
traditions, and ultimately their own
identities through writing. Although
the project was originally intended

. for middle school students, Lovato

NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002

decided to adapt the project for her
own second- and third-graders.
Earlier in the year, Lovato had
engaged her students in a project
where they read published autobi-
ographies by others with multicul-
tural backgrounds—Just Like Me:
Stories and Self-Portraits by
Fourteen Artists, edited by Harriet
Rohmer, and Family Pictures by
Carmen Lomas Garza, for example
—and watched Lovato model writ-
ing her own autobiography. They
then immersed themselves in writing
their own autobiographies and fam-
ily stories, from rough drafts, through
peer and teacher reviews, revisions,
and ultimately to “publication.”
Through the Tree of Life project,
Lovato saw an opportunity to rein-
force earlier lessons and take leam-
ing a step further. The project has
each student create a colorful lami-
nated paper “wheel” that carries the
stories and images of his or her life.
Lovato compares these 1 1-inch-

* diameter wheels to the fruit bome

on trees. “The tree serves as a com-

mon metaphor for life,” she ex-
plains. “Each of us is like a tree,
and what we encounter in life—
our experiences and so forth—
yields fruit.”

Like the complexities of life,
each wheel is layered. The top layer
bears an illustration of a road, sym-
bolic of each student's path through
life, and includes a clear laminate
triangular “window” which, when
rotated, reveals slices of the layer be-
neath. Featured on the top layer is a
three-stanza autobiographical poem
written by the student, Each stanza
of this poem begins with the words
“Yo soy” (“I am”) and the student's
first name, and then continues on
to respectively reveal stories of the
student's past, present, and future.
Among this group of bicultural stu-
dents, similar themes often appear.

For example, in “past” poems,
students who have immigrated often
write about their lives before and
after coming to the United States.
Olegario, for instance, writes about
the poverty his family endured when

88

he was a young child in Mexico.

le tells how his father moved first to
the U.S. to find work so that he could
send money for food and clothing
home to his wife and children. Shar-
ing like histories is empowering for
these kids, reports Lovato. In a main-
streamed classroom, they might not
have the confidence to share these
stories of struggle, but here they find
their voice.

In “present” poems, many stu-
dents focus on their school and
teacher, as well as their wish to be-
come bilingual. Already, it seems they
grasp the value of being at home in
both Hispanic and American cultures.

In “future” poems, students re-
flect on their dreams and ambitions.
Many plan to go to college, prompted
not only by their teacher, but also by
parents who see that education is
the key to opportunity for their chil-
dren. A girl named Kimberly writes:
“All of my life, am going to make
good decisions. 1 am going to con-
tinue being a good student in school,
so that I can go to the university. I


12

A decade ago, Hale High shoul-
dered a tough image. “This was
known as a thug school,” admits
Wetterauer. “There were problems.”
Because Seattle Public Schools gives
families a choice of where to enroll
their children, a bad rap means low
enrollment. And negative percep-
tions are slow to change. “Through
all those years, there were great kids
and great teachers at the school,”
Wetterauer stresses, “and we [teach-
ers] tried hard to improve the
school’s image. But we felt trapped.”

Instead of arriving with his own
agenda, Benson issued an invitation
to the faculty. “He said, ‘Let’s get out
of the building. Let's see what else is
out there,” Wetterauer recalls. It was
another low-key idea with a big pay-
off. “In 25 years,” she says, “I'd never
been encouraged to look at other
schools, to explore alternatives.”

One fall night in 1992, Benson
invited any interested teachers to
join him for dinner at the University
of Washington to hear Theodore
Sizer and John Goodlad, prominent
educators with powerful ideas to
share about school reform. Eight
Hale staff members attended. It
tumed out to be an auspicious eve-
ning—and has hecome the first
entry int “The Trek,” a logbook the
school maintains about it ongoing.
journey toward excellence.

Fyentuall\, Nathan Hale joined
the Coalition of Essential Schools,
an organization Sizer—the author

/
{

(

of Horace’s Compromise and
Horace’ Hope—founded in 198+
to promote school reform. Although
Coalition schools adhere to a set

of common principles, each charts
its own course toward school
improvement.

At Hale, the overarching strategy
has been to promote a more person-
alized learning environment to fos-
ter success for all students. The
transformation has been guided by
a design process that involved the
eutire school community. School
improvements are ongoing, and
many challenges remain. But grad-
ually, the school has reorganized
around key features, including:
© Ninth-grade academies that create
three smaller schools-within-a-
schoo! for the freshman year, with
team teaching and block scheduling
© Integrated studies in 10th grade,
with ninth-grade teachers typically
looping up with their students for
the two-year cycle

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© 11th-grade American studies
teaching teams with | teachers shar-
ing the same students

Mentoring, in which every teacher
— including the principal—is
assigned a small group of students
to shepherd through high school
Inclusion, which means mixed-
ability classes rather than tracking
© High expectations for all (for ex-
ample, all students tackle challeng-
ing service projects during their
junior and senior years—projects
that previously would have been
assigned only to students in an
honors track)

“Critical friends” groups to
promote collaborative professional
development within the faculty

i6

NW EDUCATION / Fall 2002

© A belief that every adult on
campus—regardless of job title—
has something to teach

“Tt’s all about personalization,”
summarizes Benson. “If you can
get to that point, then you might
have a chance to close the [achieve-
ment] gap.”
CHANGING THE‘ .
When he first came to Hale, Benson
noticed that discipline was getting
in the way of leaming and teaching.
Walking the hallways, he would
overhear “toul language, a lack
of respect. There were fights.



ding NWREL,

Watch for coming issues

Winter issue

Focus on Writing: With a Special Report on the Six-Trait Model

Spring issue

Back From the Brink: Saving Kids With Learning Disabilities From Failure
Summer issue

Discovery Learning: Lessons From Lewis and Clark

You are invited to send us article ideas,

identify places where good things are happening,
provide descriptions of effective techniques being used,
suggest useful resources, and submit letters to the editor.

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eal
co


‘Timber & too Steep to be tilled.”

He couldn't have been more
wrong. Today, from the air, one can
see that the Montana plains are a
Mondrian canvas of winter wheat,
barley, and hay fields. The soil is the
ichest of clay loam. Thousands of
miles of irrigation ditches funnel
water from the rivers to the crops.
Anheuser-Busch is a big buyer
around here. And Angus and Here-
ford cattle, instead of the vast herds
of buffalo and elk of Lewis and
Clark’s time, now graze on the
grasslands,

“Things have changed,” says
Mapston, “very much.” °

Nevertheless, this stretch of the
Lewis and Clark trail—perhaps 300
miles from the Yellowstone to the
Marias—is the least changed of the
entire route. Tourist guidebooks still
warn travelers that it’s difficult to
visit the Missouri Breaks. There are
few roads and the hiking is tough.
For residents, isolation is both a
blessing and a challenge. For Ken
Mapston and his wife, Cindy, an
elementary teacher at the Denton
School, it’s a 90-mile drive to go
grocery shopping in Great Falls.

‘The Denton School, a K-12
building with 131 students, is part
of the Golden Triangle Cooperative.
About 35 rural school districts,
arrayed across 40,000 square miles
in north central Montana, pool
resources and expertise to address
curriculum, assessment, and profes-
sional development needs of the 50
member schools.

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Four years ago, Cindy Mapston
joined five other teachers from the
cooperative in a project that has led
them along their own journeys of
discovery. On a winter day when foul
weather had closed the airports, the
six teachers met for the first time as
they climbed into a van and set out
down the highway for Moscow,
Idaho. There they would meet other
teachers from schools spanning the
length of the Lewis and Clark trail,
from St. Louis to Astoria, for the
kick-off of the Lewis and Clark
Rediscovery Project. The road trip
sealed a bond among these rural
Montana teachers. By the time they
pulled into Moscow, they knew they
were embarking on friendships as
well as professional growth.

‘The five-year project, a federally
funded Technology Innovation
Challenge Grant, aims to help teach-
ers master technology and foster its
use in teaching and learning. Using
the impetus of the Lewis and Clark
bicentennial, teachers and their stu-
dents examine life along the historic
and present-day Lewis and Clark
trail, using technology to study local
segments of the trail as they were
200 years ago and as they are today.

175

their modet boats.
2) Front: Jace

It's now spring of the fourth year
of the grant, and Cindy Mapston’s
fifth-graders at the Denton School
are looking backward, into history.
‘They've been trying to solve the
problem Meriwether Lewis had in
putting together his collapsible
“iron boat.” The men of the Corps
of Discovery had hauled the iron
frame all the way from Harpers
Ferry, Virginia, to the Great Falls of
the Missouri in Montana. The idea
was to assemble it after they'd
portaged 18 miles around the five
great “cataracts” of the river and
transfer their supplies from the
heavy wooden canoes into the
lighter weight iron-frame boat. But
they couldn’t concoct a reliable
sealant from materials on hand to
keep the elk-and-buffalo skin boat
from taking on water. With great
disappointment, Lewis abandoned
it, instructing his men to bury it
along with other “trivial articles.”
Never again mentioned or found,
the iron boat has inspired mystery
and speculation.

And it has inspired Mapston and

DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING

her students to collapse time by tak-
ing on the personae of Corps of Dis-
covery members, investigate why the
boat failed, and design and build a
better one.

Crowded into the computer lab
this morning are “York,” “Charbon-
neau,” “John Ordway,” “Patrick
Gass,” and other Corps members
dressed in fur and peaked hats and
“buckskin” coats,

“George Drewyer” (aka Karyn)
slides into a chair at one of the ta-
bles to put finishing touches to her
team’s blueprint, though their
model boat is already finished. The
Endurance, a handsome keelboat,
rests on the tabletop, its sails in
seemingly full blow.

Other team members gather at
computers, preparing PowerPoint
presentations that will display digi-
tal photos of their models and enu-
merate the innovative features of
their boats, Anticipation is high, as
they'll soon be meeting Meriwether
Lewis and President Thomas Jeffer-
son (their costumed teachers) who
will hear them out as they attempt
to convince the men that their boat



ON thls

WRITING
ASSESSMENT
VANGUARDS
MAINTAIN
CONSISTENCY
FROM COAST TO
COAST.

By SUZIE BOSS

Contrary to popular myth, there are no
Six-trait police roving the world’s class-
rooms, enforcing the proper way to as-
‘sess word choice, organization, anc all
the rest. Instead, a select group of vel-
eran writing teachers and trainers works
collaboratively to keep the 6+1 TraitTM
Writing Assessment and Instruction
Mode! “on the same page,” whether it's
being used in Delaware or Denver, Texas
or Tokyo.

Since 1994, the Writing Assessment
Vanguards have been convening for an
annual invitational summer conference.
This year’s event in Portland, Oregon,
was a typically enthusiastic affair, with
Vanguards traveling from all corners of
the country to share ideas about what
makes for good writing assessment.
Participants describe the annual ses-
sion as a shot in the arm, invigorating
their teaching with fresh ideas and giv-
ing them a chance to reflect on their
own evolution as educators.

Ruth Culham, who coordinates six-
traits assessment for the Northwest
Regional Educational Laboratory, says
assembling this team of expert teachers
and trainers is essential, “because all
of a sudden, the whole country is doing
6+1 TraitsTM. We're seeing an exponen-
tial leap, so it’s more important than
ever to connect and reinforce what we're
doing.” Culham and Janice Wright from
NWREL's assessment program maintain
a busy travel schedule, conducting in-
stitutes on the traits all over the country.
To meet increasing demand for training,
Culham often refers local school districts
or state agencies to her colleagues from
the Vanguards. With so many players

involved, Culham says, the network of
experts “helps keep our message on
point.”

This collaborative approach to qual-
ity control is in keeping wilh the grass-
roots spirit that led to the development
of the traits two decades ago. As Cul-
ham recounts, teachers who taught
writing back in the 1980s were growing
frustrated with multiple-choice assess-
ments that tended to focus only on me-
chanics, or holistic assessments that
graded the overall impact of a piece of
work but failed to give specific guid-
ance for improvement. Teachers who
sought a better model began by asking,
“What is good writing? What are the
parts and pieces, the criteria of quality
writing?” Working on similar tasks in
Gifferent communities, teachers from
Oregon, Montana, and elsewhere com-
pared reams of student work and dis-
cussed the qualities or traits that all
“good” writing samples shared. Six
traits emerged as the cornerstones of
quality writing: ideas, organization,
voice, word choice, sentence fluency,
conventions. Later, presentation was
added to the list.

During the two decades since then,
as the 641 TraitTM framework has spread
from Oregon to every state and to many
countries around the world, maintaining
consistency has become a challenge.
Culham and her Vanguard cohorts often
find themselves debunking myths about
the traits. Most common: mistaking the
traits for a program to teach writing. Far
from it, Culham stresses. “They are a
tool to use with your writing program,
which we believe ought to be firmly

100

NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002


design of a Web site, and document-
ing class activities for posterity. Pre-
sentations to the school board were
important milestones along the way.

Teachers draw on their particu-
lar expertise: Neyenhouse sets crite-
ria for student written work; McKee
oversees physical conditioning, CPR,
boat handling, and safety skills; and
LaCombe advises students on con-
struction technologies.

In June, students who've passed
muster throughout the course will
make a four-day paddle journey
down the Columbia to Astoria, using
the two boats they’ve made them-
selves, as well as other boats sup-
plied by willing parents. Along their
route, they will camp near historic
campsites of the Corps of Discovery.
And it doesn’t escape some of the
students’ notice that they are about
the same age as the teenage Saca-
gawea when she made the same trip
in the fall of 1805.0

DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING

Dramatic Action

Five Stevenson High School
students with an interest in
drama and playwriting took on
the daunting task of research-
ing and writing a play on the
theme of the Lewis and Clark
expedition.

Ben Bliss, a senior who plans
to study art after graduating,
said the team was attracted to
the “ballot,” or vote, that deter-
mined where the Corps of Dis-
covery would spend the winter
of 1805-1806. Now covered
by asphalt east of the Astoria
Megler Bridge, Station Camp
was the site where Sacagawea,
a Shoshone woman, and York,
Clark's slave, had their votes
recorded along with the other
Corps members.

name can't be listed as the au-
thor. This becomes the central
dramatic conflict: Shall per-
sons be judged by the merit of
the gifts and talents they bring
or by traditional social status
and stereotypes?

Though they didn’t all study
drama in high school, all five
of the student playwrights—
Ben and classmates Darby
Roeder, Crystal Lopez, Ryan
Accetta, and Sarah Davis—
are good writers, says English
teacher and drama coach Doug
Johnson who serves as their
senior project mentor. Thanks
to a grant from the Washing-
ton State Arts Commission to
the Columbia Gorge Interpre-

advised the playwrights on
conceptualizing and building
the drama from scratch. “They
have developed a thoughtful,
wonderful play which the com-
munity deserves to see,” she
said.

Students pored over Lewis and
Clark literature, visited muse-
ums, heard presentations by
historians and other experts,
and went to see the National
Geographic Society's IMAX
film on the Lewis and Clark
expedition. Johnson says the
students have become their
own “corps of discovery,”
learning what it takes to be-
come a team, meet timelines,
use primary sources, work
with adults they would

That event fore- never have met nor-
shadowed dramatic mally, create art that
changes to come, must meet commu-
though it would nity standards, and
be nearly 60 years Reseaveh | be historically accu-
before slaves were rate while interpret-
emancipated, 115  : umm jing the story with
years before women today’s eyes.
oo the vote, ane ating The playwrights

0 years before sessions’ hope to stage a
the Voting Rights When ne sters To PLYERTING 7 public reading this

Act assured all citizens the
right to cast their ballots.

Jn the play, a woman is se-
lected by Thomas Jefferson to
write a popular narrative about
the Lewis and Clark journey for
the general public (a task Meri-
wether Lewis never finished).
As was done in those times
when women's contributions
were minimized, she’s told her

tive Center in Stevenson, Port-
land playwright and actor
Lorraine Bahr was commis-
sioned to advise the students
during the eight months of play
development that took place
after school.

“] was tremendously im-
pressed with the hundreds of
hours of historical research the
students did,” says Bahr, who

189

spring, and next year’s drama
students could decide to
mount a full production. And
who knows, if all goes well,
maybe a theatre company will
produce it as part of Washing-
ton’s Lewis and Clark Bicen-
tennial Commemoration.
—Larty McClure

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‘THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE,
Montana—They’re called the
Missouri Breaks: deep incisions
formed by the retreat of the glaciers
and the waters of the Missouri River
watershed. Here, you can see sculpt-
ed cliffs of variegated browns, sand-
stone spires, and rocky shorelines
that awed even the intrepid Lewis
and Clark.

If you’re near the breaks in
springtime and can make your way
across the stubble of winter wheat
that disguises a thick carpet of mud,

amous by

ON THE TRAIL OF HISTORY |
IN MONTANA

Crossing great distances of time and place,
six rural teachers and their students plunge together
to the enduring lessons of Lewis and Clark.

you've a thrill in store. Only at the
instant you reach its precipice do you
realize you've arrived at one of the
breaks, where the ground plunges
below to the river or to one of its
tributaries, Here, just outside Denton
—east of Great Falls—the exhila-
rating abyss is courtesy of Arrow
Creek, a Missouri River tributary,
“Upside-down mountains” is
how Ken Mapston describes the
breaks to an astonished visitor. An
artist, lifelong resident of the region,
and recently retired vocational agri-

fe artis

culture teacher at the Denton
School, Mapston speaks knowledge-
ably about the natural and cultural
history of this landscape.

Pointing north to a distant
range, Mapston says these are the
Bears Paw Mountains where Chief
Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe surren-
dered to the U.S. Army in 1877. Nod-
ding east toward the rolling plains,
he says this is where Indian tribes
from all over the region—Nez
Perce, Kootenai, Salish, Cheyenne,
Sioux, Assiniboine, Peigan Black-

feet—would come together season-
ally to hunt buffalo.

‘The river breaks that cleave these
ancient hunting grounds inspired
Meriwether Lewis to write that they
were “sens of visionary inchant-
ment.” Both Lewis and William
Clark would name tributaries—
the Judith and Marias rivers—
after favorite cousins,

But Lewis also deemed this terri-
tory the “Deserts of America,” doubt-
ing whether “any part can ever be
Settled, as it is deficent in water,



college. One former student is study-
ing to be a doctor. Another has re-
ceived scholarships to fund her
dream of becoming a teacher. Since
he launched the ESL program nine
years ago, the number of Hispanic
students graduating from 300-
student Royal High has been on the
increase: eight in 1994, 20 in 2000,
nearly 30 last year.

As amember of the Latino/a
Educational Achievement Project,
Godoy-Gonzalez is now lobbying the
state legislature to expand financial
aid so that more of these students can
go to college. To legislators and any
others who will listen, he delivers a
passionate message: “These kids are
here to stay in our communities.
‘They are working hard to eam good
grades and meet the standards we
have set for them. Colleges and uni-
versities are willing to admit them,
but their families need help paying
the cost of college. High school can-
not be the end of the road for these
students. We can’t share just part of
the American dream with them.”

TRAVELING

BY POST

“PAPER EXCHANGE
STUDENTS” EXPLORE
THE GLOBE

Their real-life counterparts learn
writing skills and a lot more.

By JOYCE RIHA LINIK

Being squashed flat by a large heavy
object can have its advantages. Just
ask any kid who’s read a whimsical
children’s book by the name of Flat
Stanley. In the story, when young
Stanley Lambchop is turned into a
human pancake by a falling bul-
letin board, he doesn’t despair. In-
stead, he makes the best of the
situation as he discovers the benefits
of being a mere half-inch thick.
‘These include slipping down a street
grate to retrieve his mother’s lost.
ring, posing as the subject of a pas-
toral painting to catch art thieves at
the Famous Museum, and folding
himself into an envelope so that his
parents can afford to send him to
visit friends in California.

FOCUS ON WRITING

Writing for an

audience has
given purpose
to the process
of learning to
write. JJ

It's the last of these feats that has
captured the imaginations of hun-
dreds of schoolchildren throughout
the Northwest and around the globe
who are crealing Flat Stanleys (es-
sentially, paper dolls modeled after
the storybook character) and other
“flat people” (similar representa-
tions created in their own images
and bearing their own “flat” names)
to travel as exchange students to
destinations near and far. Although
Jeff Brown’s book was published in
1964, this practice has only become
widespread in recent years due to the
development of an organized Flat
Stanley Project with a home on the
World Wide Web.

The project (http://flatstanley.
eneoreo.ca) is the brainchild of Dale
Hubert, a Canadian schoolteacher
who saw the potential for Flat Stan-
ley to become a vehicle for class-
room instruction. Hubert’s idea was
to have kids send their Flat Stanleys
to other schools with a letter asking
a host class to show the flat visitor
around and record his daily adven-

tures in a journal, then return him
and his travel journal to his home
classroom. Hubert hoped to inspire
kids on both ends to read and write
letters, improving literacy skills in
the process.

When Flat Kirsten arrived in
an envelope at Bainbridge Island’s
Captain Charles Wilkes Elementary
School, third-grade teacher Alice
Mendoza was puzzled. She had
never heard of Flat Stanley. Fortu-
nately, the paper girl arrived with a
letter explaining the project and re-
questing that Mendoza’s students
show her what life was like on this
Northwest isle, far from her Mid-
western home. Mendoza thought it
seemed like a fun opportunity and
introduced the visitor to her class.

One at a time, student volunteers
took tums hosting Flat Kirsten for
an evening or a weekend, taking her
along on such routine outings as
softball practices and shopping trips,
as well as on sightseeing excursions
around Bainbridge Island and to
Mount St. Helens. A number were

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

79


36

has parents from all over Anchorage
on the school’s waiting list. In 1999,
three years after the alternative pro-
gram was launched, the school was
recognized by the U.S. Department
of Education as one of several dozen
“distinguished” Title I schools in
the country, and the only one in
Alaska. By 2000, the school’s Cali-
fornia Achievement Test scores in
reading, writing, and math had
made the biggest gains in the dis-
trict over a five-year period, and
Government Hill was honored as
the Alaska Bilingual Program of the
Year. In 2001, the school won na-
tionwide recognition as one of only
six schools in the country to be
awarded the National School
Change Award.

A LOTTERY FOR
ENRICHMENT

Back in Marissa Zamora’s class-
room, Carlos joins his classmates
for the morning song of opposites.
As Zamora points to the words in a
big book, enunciating clearly in
Spanish, the children sing and go
through the motions of high and
low, hot and cold, and in and out.
Zamora—an animated woman
with smiling brown eyes who came
to Alaska from Oregon nine years
ago because, she says, “I wanted to
go somewhere where I can ski out-
side my door every day"—moves
rapidly on to practice with numbers,
using speech, writing, fingers to

NW EDUCATION / Fall 2002

count, and coins to figure, all in
Spanish. “How many are absent
today? How many for hot lunch?
What's the date? What combinations
of dimes, nickels, and pennies can
we use to make the date? Talk to
your neighbor.” Children huddle

to discuss the numerical worth of
adime, some in English, some in
Spanish, and some in “Spanglish,”
acreative mix of the two languages.
“Espafiol, por favor,” Zamora, gen-
tly reminds those who slip exclu-
sively into English.

Carlos and his classmates—
about half are native Spanish speak-
ers and half native English speakers
—awill spend the morning in
Zamora’s classroom, where every-
thing from the travel posters to iden-
tifying stickers on the furniture, and
all instruction, is in Spanish. After
lunch, they will go into the class-
room next door, where Zamora’s
teaching partner, Nancy Morris,
conducts the aftemoon lessons in
English. For the native English-
speaking students, who are selected
through a lottery process, Govern-
ment Hill offers an enrichment pro-
gram they are eligible to enter only
up until Christmas of first grade.
For Spanish-speaking children, the
school is a high-quality bilingual
program, open at any level up to
sixth grade. Those who arrive with
limited English are given extra tu-
toring. The goal for all students in

a

Alaska’s only dual immersion pro-
gram is academic achievement at or
above grade level in both languages.

Meanwhile, Denise Rosales is
stationed at a table in a comer of
Carlos’s classroom; pulling aside a
few kids at a time, she helps them
finish a seasonal art project—
ceramic casts of their hands for
Mother's Day spoon-holder gifts.
Rosales, one of several professional
staff who first came to the school
as a volunteer, is a bilingual tutor,
trained to help meet the needs of
any child in the classroom, from be-
havioral problems to remedial En-
glish. Rosales’s three children have
gone through the immersion pro-
gram. “The purpose of sending our
kids here is so they won’t lose their
Spanish, so they can communicate
with their grandparents in
Guatemala,” she says.

Helping Rosales is Gloria Te-
niente, who identifies herself as
“Wyatt's grandmother.” She has
volunteered in her grandson's class-
room five mornings a week since he
began kindergarten. She says, “I
was a working mother when my
girls were growing up and I didn’t
participate, so now I want to pay
back and help out the kids.”

A SIMPLE IDEA

So how did a failing neighborhood
school transform itself into a high-
performing learning community—
a school where grandparents volun-

40

\ . ITM

teer five days week and parents

beconte prof onal staf? Aschiool
that attracts—and keeps—creative
teachers? A school that is able to win
multiyear, federal grants totaling
more than a million dollars?

Like many successful transfor-
mations, this one began with a
simple idea. Back in 1992, Janice
Gullikson, world languages coordi-
nator for the district, had just re-
tumed from visiting immersion
programs around the country—
and been particularly impressed
with a dual-language school in San
Jose, California. Then she found
herself in a meeting discussing
the fate of Goverment Hill. “The
school already had a large number
of students who spoke Spanish,”
Gullikson recalls, “so I suggested
westart a dual-language program,
where native Spanish-speaking stu-
dents would be actively recruited
and seen as an asset.”

Gullikson’s idea met with enthu-
siastic support from the principal at
the time, as well as the district and
several PTA parents who were ready
to fight to keep their children in
their neighborhood school. “We de-
cided to go for a three-year, Title VII
bilingual grant because we knew
the funds were out there,” Gullikson
continues, “and we built in a plan-
ning year to allow us time to get
ready.”

After a year of preparation,

iw


STORIES FROM THE RIVER
AND THE BANK
Sharing her knowledge of native

quincentennial of 1992. “That was
avery dark time for many Indian

happened to the tribes after the
Lewis and Clark journey? Why do
pean ” she says. “It brought alot

plants and the important role they
can play in our lives is only part of
Skelton’s work at Portland Public
Schools. She also provides guidance
and culturally appropriate str: at
for handling Native American coy

peopien move bee? Anger and vic-

ie educators might question

Of
re empowered Asi ie
‘opportunity for heal- _puiz

ing\and f meaningful a “
‘The bicentermiaboffers any of

ar the classroom is an appro-
— a .
forum for discussing such is-

ues. “I think itis,” says Skelton.
iven-younger students can think

lerican histonfhas. cy
rayséen told front Euro-Amgr-
buh of view,” says itelton,, When I'm in the classroom, even at
the fourth-grade level [where these
subjects are usually introduced in
Oregon public schools], students

often ask me questions that go way

ks and documentagit
dition is presented &

the expe-
ghlor-
1 wart tale of agvénture, discovery 1°Z Aimits of th
a jotes Skelton. “You
G4 ot of that king of language: fs math of the journey,
e. Q if Rance, thay A is and ee tt happened after Lewis and
tong nae) Tew i" C Giark went back home. But it’s a
; > rethat needs tore shared. And
ina good way, a as an opportunity for reframing the
One of,theways this can Redone Lewis and Clark story is a reevalua-
isby weaving a current Native ~ in of the space-travel metaphor
Anéican perspective orvoice into Thal many historians have used
f— > whe ing about the journey.
iear historians compare
the journey to a trip to the moon,”
she says. “They emphasize how new

issue. It’s hard {6 capture within the

room and itcan be beyond what the teachers are ex-
pecting. They’ re very interested in
these issues if they're presented in
appropriate ways, and they're very
capable of discussing them.”

One example Skelton points to

istory to share with chil-

me we estill havea long way to wy
OF New Perce, Cherokee, ant,
Chickasaw descent, Skelton works

hopeful way.”

‘Whateve ttt

“You,

density cotitplicated and emo- -

igfially complex. Skelton. makes: Say - rat ereoweage criti and strange everything must have
comparisons beteén the currel mae ings gays Skelton. been for Lewis and Clark. But you
bicentennial and fhe Columbus \\ “Questions like: What do you think can also tum that view around.

very analytically about Native issues.

Native people had been here all
along; it was home to them. From
a tribal perspective, especially for
those who had never seen white peo-
ple before, it must have been like
Lewis and Clark came from the
moon. When you look at it from
that viewpoint, you can present
some interesting questions. For
example, how would contemporary
Americans treat two completely for-
eign explorers today, compared to
how the tribes treated Lewis and
Clark? Kids can really relate to these
kinds of questions.”

Skelton is often asked to provide
educators and students with a Native
American viewpoint. She sees this as
both a privilege and a responsibility,
but she is also quick to point out
that hers is only one voice. “There
are 530 federally recognized tribes
within the United States,” she says,
“which means there are many,
many different points of view. It's
important to let each tribe represent
itself whenever possible.” She en-
courages teachers and administra-
tors to check tribal Web sites and to
contact tribes directly, noting that
most tribes have cultural liaisons
that will visit schools or send appro-
priate materials. “Tap into the
Indian community in your area,”
says Skelton. “You can’t go wrong
when you let Native people tell their
own story.”

ax

ot a i 3 5 DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING


NORTHWEST
EDUCATION (to
the youths): Think
back on your ele-
mentary school
years. Did you
have a favorite
teacher?
SHAWNTENA: | did. Her name
‘was Miss Heidelberg. She was my
day-care teacher. Then she was my
third-grade teacher, my fifth-grade
teacher, she just always ended up
being my teacher. She moved when

I moved.
NW: What did you like about

her?
SHAWNTENA: She was strict, but
she was cool. And I knew her real

NW: What do you mean when
cool"? What makes a

teacher cool?

SHAWNTENA: One who can re-

late, who understands, who kinda

on your level, as a kid. Just down-to-

earth, kinda.

LAMAR: There was one teacher in
iny third grade that was real strict.
Her name was Miss Richardson. For
some reason | just liked her teach-
ing, you know, it was balanced out
and relaxed, and she made us stay
on track and everything.

BAYO: My fifth-grade teacher was
pretty good. She was nice, but she
could be mean. We would get proj-
ects, they would be, like, real fun,

but we would be learning, too. And

she gave out candy. (They laugh.)
BAYO: She was strict, you know. |
guess it was her making sure every-

LAMAR: Mine was African
American.

SHAWNTENA: Mine, too.
BAYO: White

NW: This is a big debate

nong the researchers—how
important is it for kids of dif-
ferent ethnic backgrounds to
have teachers from the same
background so that they un-
derstand their culture and
serve as role models?
hearing you say that this is
important, but that there are
other important considera-
tions as well.

LAMAR: Kids want someone to
relate to. Like if you can understand
akid, be their friend and their

teacher, then I think that kids would

learn more and be easier to teach.

NW: What do you think about
Mr. Kulak here?

BAYO: | can’t stand him. (7hey all
laugh.) No.

SHAWNTENA: Good teacher.
Makes it interesting.

BAYO: He's fun, and he's nice, too.
One thing that stands out is that

when we did our vocabulary in En-
glish class last year (with a different
teacher), it was just like, here’s your
words, and you got to take your re-
sponsibility, study them, and every-
thing. | did the studying, and then
my mind would be blank on the

test. The way Mr. Kulak does it, you
know, | still remember some of the
words if | see them in the books we
read. If we have a vocabulary word,
we write it down and we write the
meaning and then we draw a pic-
ture. If you don’t know the meaning
right off the bat, you can just look at
the picture and you'll know, because
you’re the one who drew the picture.
SHAWNTENA: It's like visual
learning.

LAMAR: | heard Mr. Kulak is a
really good teacher. | talked to some
other kids about that book, Macbeth
—you know, Destin, he's like, “You
should get Mr. Kulak, it’s fun reading
a book with him.” Yeah, | wanted to

have his class, but I never got that
opportunity.

LAMAR: He’ fun.

NW: But at the same time |
think I'm hearing you guys
say that you want to be chal-
lenged. you don't want a

teacher to just come in and

be your buddy.
LAMAR: Yeah. But then it’s good
to have that relationship, too, you

Bf

know what I'm saying?
NW: But reading Macheth is

tough. That's a college-level

work of literature. (/0 Kulak)

How do you approach Mac-
bethi
relate tof
KULAK: We talked about Shake-
speare as a person at that time in

y that Kids can

history. And we watched a documen-
tary, Al Pacino's Looking for
Richard, to get a sense of how peo-
ple who work with Shakespearean
actors approach this and how they
struggle with it. Even people in the
movies who've made all this money
and are very successful still have
these issues with trying to under-
stand these words. Then when we
came to Macbeth, it was about
breaking it down. So first we looked
at who the characters were, and
then we looked at the scenes where
things were going to be happening.
We built journals together-—con-
verting things into your own words,
your own interpretation, and also
keeping track of words that were
new to you and what context they
were in, what do they mean. We
have people reading with partners
right now, and then they have dia-
logue about what they've read. I’m
floating around and answering
questions. There's a lot of self-
discovery that happens. At the same
time, I have my objectives as a
teacher, and I want to see them met.

NW EDUCATION / Fall 2002


go off to school every

morning. He would cry
and dawdle and complain
about an aching head or an
upset stomach. He looked
so miserable as he slouched
off to the bus stop wearing a
backpack bulging with books
that he was unable to read,
despite being a fifth-grader.
| had a lump in my throat as
| called out hopefully, “Have
agood day!”

Bihen came the day he ex-
ploded. For weeks, kids at his
new school in Northeast Port-
land had shunned him in the
lunchroom and called him a
“dummy” because he had
never learned to decipher
written language. Finally, his
rage and shame spewed out
in a spasm of violence. He
punched another kid in the
hallway. When the principal
asked Mike to write down his
version of what happened,
his explanation looked some-
thing like this: “gdncldmedm-
ndihthm.”

Bat home that night, Mike sat
on his dad’s lap and cried bit-
terly, sobbing as though his
heart was broken. “I hate
my life, | hate my life,” he
moaned, tears streaking his
pale cheeks. “Dad, get a gun
and shoot me. Just shoot me.”

O's five years later now, but
this scene—a sturdy 10-year-
old boy folded limply in his
daddy’s arms, wailing in de-
spair—is clearer in my mind
than this morning's traffic jam.

Dh hindsight, it seems obvi-
ous that Mike was struggling
with a problem much deeper
than simply lagging behind.
But in the beginning, Mike’s

| felt guilty making Michael

dad (then a single parent try-
ing to hold things together
alone) accepted the first- and
second-grade teachers’ assur-
ances that Mike would “catch
up.” When Mike wasn’t read-
ing by third grade, the school
assigned him to the resource
teacher for a half-hour of
remediation each day. Pretty
soon, Dad was running Mike
to additional remedial classes
evenings and summers. When
| started dating Mike's dad,
I'd drive up to their house
on school nights and spot
the two of them through
the kitchen window, heads
together at the old Formica
table, Mike’s forehead
scrunched in concentration
over a schoolbook.
till, he couldn’t read.
ifter Mike’s blow-up at
school, we kept him home
and insisted that the district
find an appropriate placement
for him. Testing revealed a
huge discrepancy between
his 1Q level (normal) and his
achievement level (some-
where between first and
second grade). He showed
Classic signs of dyslexia,
such as failing to link letters
with sounds. Finally, we had a
diagnosis: Mike had a learning
disability. Serendipitously, the
school district had just that
year launched its Intensive
Learning Center program,
geared for kids like Mike—
bright children whose brain
wiring doesn’t respond well to
traditional teaching methods.
Ls | drove Mike across town
to his first day at his new
school, he looked out the
window while our minivan
cruised across the Marquam

Bridge, Portland glowing in

the morning sun. “I’m going

to go to Harvard,” he said
reat!” | said.

B. Stanford,” he added.

\ smiled. A few minutes later,
he said, “I’m going to be a
doctor. Anda lawyer.” This
was the kid who only a few
weeks before had complained,
scowling, about facing a
certain future as a garbage
collector.

Dilike stayed in the ILC through
seventh grade. In those three
years, he soared from zero
reading skills to advanced
reading skills. He’s a sopho-
more, now. School is still a
struggle. But just this week
he landed a job tutoring a
couple of neighbor kids
whose grades are suffering
after their parents’ divorce.

Bihen | dropped Mike off at
school this morning, it was
he who called out cheerfully,
“Have a good day!” His chin
was up, his shoulders were
straight. He can read the
books stuffed in his back-
pack. The appropriate place-
ment—one that employed
teaching methods proven to
work with LD kids—not only
made a difference for Mike.
We believe it saved his life.

—Lee Sherman
shermanl@nwrel.org

|

| 22)



NWREL BOARD OF DIRECTORS

John Pugh Sharon D. Parry
(Chairperson) (Vice Chairperson)
‘Chancellor School Board Member
University of Alaska Southeast Idaho Falls Schoo! District
NORTHWEST EDUCATION Henry Beauchamp Richard McCullough
Executive Director/CEO Superintendent
. Yakima Valley Opportunities Snoqualmie Schoo! District (WA)
Quarterly magazine of the Inndustralization Center (WA)
Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory Dr. Bill McDiarmid
Dr. Teresa Bergeson Boeing Professor of Teacher Education ~
Chief Executive Officer: ‘Washingion State Superintendent University of Washington
Dr. Carol E Thomas of Public Instruction
Dr. Elmer Myers
ioe ‘Susan Castillo Superintendent
Editor: Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction plo Elementary Schoo! District (MT)
Lee Sherman (Elect) y
David J. Parker
Associate Editor: Jerry Colonna Elementary Principal
Suzie Boss Superintendent Kalispell School District (MT)
Redmond School District (OR)
Issue Editor: Ted Popplewell
Lee Sherman Dr. John Davis Principal
Superintendent Oregon ‘Trail Elementary School
Contributing Writers: Bering Strait School District (AK) ‘Twin Falls (ID)
Judy Blankenship, Joyce Riha Linik, Maya Muir Rubén Degollado Kay Purcell
; . Teacher Principal
Graphic Production: Hillsboro School District (OR) ‘St. Rose Parish School
Denise Crabtree Longview (WA)
Dennis Haverlandt
Graphic Design: (Senretary Treasurer) Janice Rauth
Da her eacher ‘Teacher
an Stephens Great Falls Schoo! istrict (M7) Longview School District (WA)
Technical Editing: Dr. Shirley Holloway Lawrence Rigby
Eugenia Cooper Potter Alaska: Commisioner of Education Superintendent
and Early Development Soda Springs School District (ID)
Dr. Marilyn Howard Barbara J. Riley
Idaho State Superintendent of Public Projet Direcor
Instruction

‘Women's Opportunity and Resource
Development, Inc.

Steven Jacquier Missoula (WA)

Teacher

Southwest Region School District (Ak) Roger 6. Wheeler

Dr. Michael Jaeger Hear
(Immediate Past Chairperson) \

NORTHWEST EDUCATION Dean, Schoo of Eduction and Busnes tte tamara

can be accessed on NWREL's Web site: Eastem Oregon University District Court Intepreter/Coordinator

wre M ‘a

www.nwrel.org/nwedu/ Nancy Larsen Caldwell (1D)
Blementary Teacher

‘Ths publican sha on work sonore lly orn pan bythe WS. Depa Coeur D'Alene School Disirit (1D)

-fveaton unde conc number -1-C0-0018. The content this pubiion does

‘nessa reflec the vis of te dpartnent ory oe agency of eS. oxen i .

_ment. This publication was not prinied with government funds. Articles and information Richard Mauer

inthis pobiesion ain the pbiedrsin and maybe mpmdued nd dserinated Schoo! Board Member

itu! prison hese acrowllgeNRELas De sure Delta-Greely School District (AK)

Linda McCulloch

Brome ‘RECYCLED PAPER Montana State Superintendent
of Public Instruction

o7


22

Letting Kids’ Gifts Shine Through

Under Kay Kaplan's tutelage, dyslexic children can free their intellect and creativity
from the constraints of disability

MIR TING Vine ChlAULEItGle

On the ay a third-grader
named Matt sat down for his first
private lesson in sounds and letters,
Kay Kaplan’s career had, in a sense,
come full circle. This little boy—
who couldn’t read a single word de-
spite doing first grade twice—had,
quite unexpectedly, brought her back
to the professional goal she cher-
ished, but lost, some 20 years before:
to teach gifted children.

Matt had an 1Q that hovered in

NW EDUCATION / Spring 2003 A

the rarified realm of genius. But his
brilliant brain wasn’t wired for the
printed word. After two decades of
work with dyslexic children, Kaplan
knew just what to do to help this
child fulfill his huge potential

But there was a time when she
hadn't known what to do.

Her first assignment in a “really
bad district” in New York was to
teach language arts to the lowest-
performing eighth-graders—the

Ad2

“bottom of the barrel,” Kaplan
recalls. The staff called them the
“eight/nines,” a reference to their
abysmal reading levels on standard-
ized tests.

“Here | was, ready to teach plot,
and most of these kids were at the
first- and second-grade reading
level,” Kaplan says, sipping tea as
she reminisces in the English Tudor
home she shares with her biophysi-
cist husband in Old Portland. “I had


NW (to Kulak): Did you have
any tr
to a school with a student

pidation about coming
population that’s almost 85
percent minority?

KULAK: Not the slightest. This is
the one school I wanted to work at

in Portland, so I was very pleased.

vy father taught in
Chicago Public Schools, and he
would take me with him and | liked
the schools he worked in. The en-
ergy was very different from the (pri-
vate) schools I went to. To me, itwas
more of what high school energy
was supposed to be. T always knew I
wanted to work in a city school with
a diverse population, and not in a
suburban school or a private school
where it would seem a lot more

oppressive to me.
MW: pr sure you are all very

aware of some of the recent

protests to the school board

by the Education Gri ‘cam

—the community members.

who are concerned about low

performance ata number of

schools in low-income neigh-}

cHerson is one

borhoods.
of those schools. Do you feel

that the education you're get-
Fling here is of high quality?
SHAWNTENA: Actually, | do. |
think we have some really yood
teachers here. Students are trying to

NW: What about the kids

improve their test scores and prepare got to do, take care of that.

for higher education, BAYO: There's people that want to
LAMAR: Yeah, like this year I have
Mr. Johnson for English. He's real
tough. We're doing speeches, essays,
college stuff. First quarter I strug-
gled to get a B. Next quarter I got a
high B. And last quarter, I finally got
an Ain his class. He’s a really good
teacher. He challenges us a lot.
NW: Do some kids get
discouraged. by the level
of difficulty?
LAMAR: Yes, there are kids that
moved out after the first quarter, and be a positive role model.

They felt they couldn't do that class. FAW: Who's your role model? _|
Other students that started to make ~~ LAMAR: I don’t really have one.
good grades, like me, stayed in the But just look at everything that's
class and now everybody got used to
it. Everybody in the class right now

do good, they just need that person
to say, “Not this time, let’s go to
class.” They need that person to
force them to do their work if they're
at home.

NW: Do you have that person
athomer

BAYO: No. (7hey laugh.) But | still
do my work.

LAMAR: | would just say that some
people don’t have that person to
guide them and give them that push

going on around me, and I don’t
want to be a bum. I want to go to
is hard working.

college.

NW: Shawatena, do you have

who choose to drop out? someone at home encourag-
BAYO: You see them all the time.
‘They just be outside talking and stuff
like that. But you don’t see them in

school, so you just put two and two

ing you?
SHAWNTENA: Actually, no. But
I know what [ have to do.

NW: Research vest that

some minori worry

together—maybe he dropped out,
aan eee that if they try hard in school
and get good grades. their
fri

for “acting white.” Have you

senior? or something like that.
(Laughter.) | just continue to do my!
work so that won't happen to me,

ads will criticize them

LAMAR: There's 4 couple of people SIYatUC MUR Gu UDR KLE

PHA OO Ke Om Item hear that attitude—that suc-

feel like if you want to achieve, ceeding in school is a bad

graduate, go to college, it's not so hecaus rejection

hard to do your work, come to

of your own culture to try to

School. That's basically what you've [YGRTYCCe IU MUM ak DanC

CLOSING THE GAP 5 3

can do it, we can do it.
AW (to Ke
observed a change in student

| attitude

culture

LAMAR: What you're saying is,
“Have | ever heard other people say
that we're acting white ‘cause we're
trying to succeed in life?” I never
heard of that saying. And if I heard
it, it would probably never bother me.
I heard, like, if you're doing your
work and getting good grades, they
call you a “dork” or something.
SHAWNTENA: | think right now
that we, as African American stu-
dents or whatever, that is showing
some progress, it’s not like we are
trying to act white; it’s just that we
are starting to realize more, | guess,
to take it seriously. And T wouldn't
necessarily say “acting white” be-
cause there's a lot of African Ameri-
cans out there doing the same stuff
tight now that other cultures are
doing. We're starting to rise, if that's

what you want to call it. So that’s an

accomplishment. We see what other
people are doing—for example,
Halle Berry and Denzel Washington

winning the Oscars. So it's making

us want to do more in life—if they

Have you

toward achievement

| since you arrived?
KULAK: I've noticed a very signifi-
cant change in the school this year

over the last year. One of the things I
see is leadership. Last year we lost a
principal, and prior to that we had


enlightening for some of its virtual
visitors. They are sometimes sur-
prised to learn that Anchorage's citi-
zens are not living in igloos, Bain
says. When a flat visitor returns
home, Bain tucks in a postcard of
Anchorage's skyline, lined with tall
buildings like any other big city.

But she also tucks in postcards of re-
gional wildlife, including bears and
moose, as well as Alaska’s famous
Northern Lights.

“Kids see the differences,” Bain
notes, “but also a lot of similarities.
‘They're often surprised at how much
we have in common.” Bain calls this
the “hidden curriculum” of the Flat
Stanley Project. While learning aca-
demic goals, children from different
places are also learning to accept
and appreciate each other.

Sasha, now a fourth-grader, says
that she learned a lot about Japanese
culture when Flat Sasha came home
last spring. “I got an idea of what
Japan looked like,” she says, obsery-
ing that “it was different than here.”

Still, she notes, there were striking

similarities: Her host family in-
cluded a father, a mother, and kids,
much like any family here, and the
father worked in an office with com-
puters like many an American dad.
And she adds: “The house was dif-
ferent on the outside—the roof was
stone shingle and there were differ-
ent kinds of plants, but inside it
looked similar, like it could have
been here.”

Mendoza says her students have
gained a world view that extends far
beyond their Puget Sound island.
They have gained ‘a connection to
the world,” and have come to see
both the similarities and differences
between other world cultures and
their own. “In a pluralistic society,”
Mendoza says, “it is critically impor-
tant for children’s eyes to be operied
to the cultural realities beyond their
own.” Especially after 9/11, she says,
“the project has been a wonderful
way for kids to realize how much
we have in common versus what is
different.”

© NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002

LEARNING

BY THE BOOK
STUDENTS PUBLISH
A SERIES OF LOCAL
BESTSELLERS

By BRACKEN REED

ABERDEEN, Washington—In
the early moming hours of January
6, 2002, the oldest building on the
‘Aberdeen High School campus went
up in flames, Built in 1909, the
Weatherwax building was, for many,
the heart and soul of both the school
and the community. Within its clas-
sic red-brick walls was a storehouse
of communal memory—a copy of
every annual in the school’s history,
decades-old trophies displayed next
to the newly won, murals and pho-
tographs reflecting nearly a century
of school and town history. When

‘as finally extinguished, the
school’s library, textbook depository,

the fire

computer lab, Special Education de-
partment, English language learn-
ers department, counseling offices,
and 22 classrooms were lost. One of

82

shington

those classrooms was that of English
teacher, David McKay, the 2002
Washington State Teacher of the
Year.

In the aftermath, the school
scrambled to find classroom space.
McKay was given a seldom-used
basement room near the school’s
auditorium. “It smelled awful,” re-
calls Loyal, one of McKay’s students.
“] think he went through the rubble
and pulled out whatever he could
find. He had papers spread out all
over the room, trying to dry them
out. It smelled like smoke for
weeks,” McKay's senior teaching
assistant, Jason, nods his head in
agreement. “He's so dedicated,”

says with a smile, “he’s crazy.”
McKay's dedication, passion for
teaching, and ability to rise to the
challenge are the hallmarks of his
success. He's known throughout the
school for his intensity, good humor,
and ability to engage his students.
His style of reading out loud, for in-
stance, complete with facial expres-
sions, gestures, and voices for each


32

MOLLY GLOSS

MOLLY GLOSS, AWARD-WINNING
AUTHOR OF THE JUMP-OFF
CREEK, WILD LIFE, AND MANY
SHORT STORIES AND ESSAYS,
GREW UP IN WHAT WAS THEN

A RURAL NEIGHBORHOOD ON
THE OUTSKIRTS OF PORTLAND.
SHE PLANNED TO BECOME A
TEACHER BUT BAILED AFTER,

A MISERABLE THREE MONTHS
IN THE CLASSROOM. NOW, SHE
TEACHES ADULT WRITING
CLASSES AT PORTLAND STATE,
UNIVERSITY.

Growing up, did you dream
of becoming a writer?

I never met a living, breathing
writer when I was a kid. I thought
all writers were dead. So it wasn’t
something that occurred to me to do
for a living. When | was a gir—I’m
almost 58—the smart girls could
become either teachers or nurses.

| fainted at the sight of blood, so I
planned to become a teacher. I was
in my thirties before | met a living,
breathing, published writer, Nowa-
days, it's really common for writers
to be in the schools, teaching work-
shops, meeting with kids, But not
when I was growing up.

What do you remember about
being taught to write?

I know that I loved to write in ele-
mentary school. And I wrote a lot. I
wrote stories, poems. | volunteered
to share them with my class. I would

NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002

enter contests in the Weekly Reader
and Scholastic, | entered really bad
poems about horses that jumped.
over the moon and things like that,
I don’t remember being taught how
to write at all, not at all.

In high school, I had an English
teacher | liked a lot when I was a
junior. She was youngish and had
trouble controlling the class. There
was a lot of pandemonium, but I
think she was very motivated. She
had us writing a short story in col-
laboration, in groups of three or
four. I was frustrated by the process,
because | didn't have control of it. I
felt like the story could have been a
lot better if I could have written it
myself.

Somewhere in there between
sixth and eighth grade, I became
very shy about my writing. I was no
longer willing to share it or show it.
How about college?

I went to Portland State University
and was studying to become a
teacher. I took a beginning fiction
class when I was a freshman or
sophomore, The teacher tried to
shape all of us into his own pattern.
What I specifically remember, one
particular thing, was that I had
written a piece and, for the sake of
the rhythm in the sentence, I had
wanted to use a string of things and
not use the word “and” before the
last thing. For instance: red, white,
blue. He wrote in “and” before the

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

last word, with a note in the margin
about always needing to use “and”
before the last in a series. This was
for fiction, mind you. When I took
the paper up to him later and talked
to him about that—don’t | have
some freedom here to experiment?
—he said: “No. There are certain
tules of grammar. You have to fol-
low them. This is one of them.”
‘There were lots of incidents like that
during the term.

How did you react?

‘That one fiction class pretty much
stopped me from writing for several
years. | felt, must be wrong, then.
My ear which wanted to hear this
certain kind of rhythm must be
wrong, It took me a long time—
years—thinking back on that to
figure out that he wasn’t right. That
I wasn’t wrong, That I wrote well.
You really stopped writing?
Twent underground. When I got
married at 21, right out of college, 1
didn’t tell my husband that I wrote.
And I was still writing a little bit. 1
wasn’t finishing anything. I would
literally hide pieces in the under-
wear drawer, Eventually, | adnnitted
that I was writing these little things.
He wasn’t appalled. He didn’t say,
you think yove can be a writer? |
don’t even think I thought I could
bea writer at that point.

You've written about teaching
yourself to write by challeng-
ing yourself to finish a novel


Drummers and Dancers, a musical:
ensemble of third- through sixth-
graders who sing, dance, and the
play African drums. A longstanding
symbol of cultural pride for the
community, the group is frequently
invited to perform at local, state,
and even national events. Activities
like this give kids a powerful incen-
tive to stick to the straight and nar-
row where behavior is concemed.

The thrust of the behavior plan
is “more positive than negative,”
says Indgjerd. “That's especially im-
portant for these kids.” The idea is
to build a system in which students
are rewarded for learning new skills
and practicing good behavior.

For those students who need
extra help dealing with behavioral
issues such as anger management,
the Solutions Room offers them a
place to get advice and counseling,
as well as the opportunity to sit
down at a “peace table” and work

out conflicts with a mediator.

‘The fact.that “all teachers hae
bought into the consequence proce-
dure” is a good thing, says Stueckle.
“This gives children an added sense
of security in knowing that one
teacher doesn’t have a different
standard than another.”

Understanding and Support
To better understand their students’
needs, a contingent of Grant staff
members attended a seminar spon-
sored by the state education depart-
ment focused on the ideas presented
in the 1998 book, 4 Framework for
Understanding Poverty by the na-
tionally known educator and author
Ruby Payne. Back at Grant, the 11
teachers and administrators guided
the staff in a study of the book.
Payne's book points out the “hidden
tules” that gover how different
social classes think and interact in
society, as well as how this affects

CLOSING THE GAP

behavior in Schools$he goes on
_ to suggest strategies to bridge the
divides.

“Ttis helpful to understand their
frame of reference,” Stueckle says
of her students and their families.
“It makes us more cognizant and
more sympathetic.” For instance,
Stueckle observes that parents don’t
always show up for conferences.
Although the parents may want to
be there, they may not show up be-
cause of transportation or child-care
problems.

Indgjerd shares the anecdote of
a student who stopped him in the
hallway to tell him about something
that had happened at home. Indg-
jerd listened attentively, but couldn’t
make much sense of the boy’s tale.
“The story had no beginning, mid-
dle, or end,” the principal says.
“Instead, it went in circles.” Payne's
book caused Indgjerd to suspect
there was a cultural reason the boy

47

didn’t tell the story in sequence. In
many families of poverty, according
to Payne, several people typically
talk at one time, interrupting each

other and adding pieces to a story.
‘The result is a story that progresses
in acircular, rather than linear,
fashion.

“Anything we can do to under-
stand the families and their situation
is critical,” says fifth-grade teacher
Paul Eide. For example, he says,
“some students come in and are very
loud and seem to want negative at-
tention. That's characteristic of the
poverty class. They learn to be loud
because there is so much happening
at home that they need to be loud to
be heard. Or if a kid comes to school
without paper and pencil,” he adds,
“you don’t make a big deal out of
it. Some kids have a really rough
home life so they need support in
school. They need to feel like every-
thing is going to be OK and that


When Juanita Lewis found
out that her son Bryan's
struggles in school stemmed
from a learning disability. she
discovered a haven of hope in
the Reversals parent support
group, sponsored by the Ore-
gon branch of the International
Dyslexia Association. It was
there—through lectures. dis-
cussions. and video presenta-
tions-—that she came to better

understand the nature of

Bryan's special way of

processing information
“Reversals is very comfort-
ing.” Juanita Lewis says. “It's
wondertul to talk to other par:
ents and get their perspective.
Through the group, she also
got to know LD students who
have made it to the university
despite their learning prob-
lems. They gave her heart
She saw that all doors were
open for her child’s future

“TL knew that at some point
along his journey. someone
was going to tell him that he’s
not measuring up-—that he
can't go to college. that he
won't make if,” Juanita says.
“I've said to myself. Thank
God for Reversals,” because
maybe I'd have believed that
On Saturday afternoons once

“PVE SEEN IT WORK MAGIC”

a month, the “fearless leaders”
(teacher education students
from Lewis & Clark College.
many of them learning dis-
abled) meet with younger

LD kids for age-appropriate
activities. At the same time.
the group's coordinator Dale
Holloway meets with parents.
to share resources, strate-
gies. and support

Holloway. Coordinator of Stu-
dent Support Services at the
college, sets out the program's
quiding philosophy as follows:
People who learn differently
are not in any way “inferior

to others

They are at an advantage
when they learn about and ac-
cept their learning differences
They benefit when they
learn to take responsibility

for their own learning

They benefit when they use
their unique ways of looking
at the world in positive and
productive ways

Bryan. now a towering high
school junior who stands
6-feet. 5-inches tall, has been
involved in Reversals since he
was just a little guy. He knows.
its power firsthand

“Ye seen it work magic,”

he says.

For more information on the
Reversals groups, call (503)
228-4456 or 1-800-530-2234,
or visit the Welcome to
Reversals Web site at

www. \clark.edu/~reversal.

BEST COPY AVAILABLE



N

NWREL BOARD OF DIRECTORS

John Pugh Sharon D. Parry
(Chairperson) (Vice Chairperson)
SOUCATION Chancellor School Board Member
University of Alaska Southeast Idaho Falls School Distriet
NORTHWEST EDUCATION Henry Beauchamp Richard McCullough
Executive Director/CEO Superintendent
Yakima Valley Opportunities ‘Snoqualmie School District (WA)

Quarterly magazine of the
Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory

Chief Executive Officer:
Dr. Carol E Thomas

Issue Editor:

Suzie Boss

Associate Editors:

Lee Sherman, Denise Jarrett Weeks

Contributing Writers:
Joyce Riha Linik, Catherine Paglin, Bracken Reed

Graphic Production:
Denise Crabtree

Graphic Design:
Dan Stephens

‘Technical Editing:
Eugenia Cooper Potter

NORTHWEST EDUCATION
can be accessed on NWREL's Web site:
www.nwrel.org/nwedu/

‘Tis publication is basa on work sponsored wholly rin pat by the U.S. Department of
dation under contract mamber ED-C1-CO-0013 The eon ofthis publiation does
not neces let the views othe dnarunent or anyother agency ofthe US. onemn-
‘meat This publieton was not rind wih government funds, nics and infomation
in ais plication ace inthe public drain and may be mvodeed aed diseminatad
wilhou pennisson Please ckioedge NREL as dhe sou,

ES rcmoswocss ns

Industrialization Center (WA)

Dr. Teresa Bergeson
‘Washington State Superintendent
‘of Public Instruction,

Susan Castillo
Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction
(Blea)

Jerry Colonna
‘Superintendent
Redmond School District (OR)

Dr. John Davis
‘Superintendent
Bering Strait School istrict (AK)

Rubén Degollado
Teacher
Hillsboro Schoo! Distriat (OR)

Dennis Haverlandt
(Secretary-Treasurer)
‘Teacher

Great Falls School District (QT)

Dr. Shirley Holloway
Alaska Commissioner of Education
and Early Development

Dr. Marilyn Howard
Idaho State Superintendent of Public
Instruction

Steven Jacquier
Teacher
‘Southwest Region School Distriat (AK)

Dr. Michael Jaeger

(Immediate Past Chairperson)
Dean, Schoo! of Education and Business
Easter Oregon University

Nancy Larsen
Elementary Teacher
‘Coeur D'Alene School District (ID)

Richard Mauer
‘School Board Member
Delta-Greely School District (AK)

Linda McCulloch

Montana State Superintendent
‘of Public Instruction

1i?

Dr. Bill McDiarmid
Boeing Professor of Teacher Education
University of Washington

Dr. Elmer Myers
Superintendent
Lolo Elementary School Disirict (MT)

David J. Parker
Elementary Principal
Kalispell School District (M7)

Ted Popplewell

Principal

Oregon Trail Elementary School
‘Twin Falls (1D)

Kay Purcell
Principal

Si, Roxe Parish School
Longview (WA)

Janice Rauth
Teacher
Longview School District (WA)

Lawrence Rigby
Superintendent
Soxta Springs Sciool District (1D)

Barbara J. Riley

Project Director

Women’s Opportunity and Resource
Development, Inc

Missoula (WA)

Roger G. Wheeler
Businessman
Pocatello (ID)

Estella Zamora
District Court Interpreter/Coordinator
Caldwell (ID)


6

phonological information in an efficient manner.”

A study from Yale published in the July 15, 2002, issue
of the journal Biological Psychiatry found that dyslexia
is linked to a particular region of the brain, which shows
disruptions in affected children. The researchers found
that dyslexic children compensate by learning to read with
other parts of their brains. “Dyslexic children can’t use
the highly specialized area (of the brain) that is activated
in good readers and therefore don’t read automatically
or fluently,” lead author Bennett Shaywitz told Hannah
Gladfelter Rubin of Education Daily in July 2002.
“Because they develop compensatory systems on the
front and right side of the brain, they read more accurately
over time, but remain slow readers.”

Based on these and other findings—including the
report of the National Reading Panel—tyon and col-
leagues argue convincingly for early reading instruction that’s
rich in lessons about the sound-letter relationship.

“Disabled readers must be presented highly struc-
tured, explicit, and intensive instruction in phonics rules
and the application of the rules to print,” he says. “Lon-
gitudinal data indicate that systematic, structured phon-
ics instruction results in more favorable outcomes in
reading than does a context emphasis.”

Contrary to the old-style “drill-and-kill” approach to
phonics in which kids sat at their desks, dazed by mind-
numbing flash cards and other rote exercises, instruction
in the soundetter link can be developmentally appro-
priate—even fun. Researcher Virginia Berninger, who
directs the Multidisciplinary Learning Disabilities Center
at the University of Washington, has developed a package
of materials with The Psychological Corporation called PAL
(Process Assessment of the Learner). Published in 1998
by Harcourt Brace & Company, the PAL Guides for
Intervention: Reading and Writing offer a collection of
research-based “sound games” and “looking games”
for first- and second-graders that take only about 10
minutes and boost kids’ word skills significantly.

Researchers are in agreement, though, that a cur-

riculum thatis all phonics and no context (“real reading
in real books”) is a loser. Just as the National Research
Council stressed in its important 1998 report, Prevent-
ing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, “balance”
is the place to be. “A number of NICHD studies being con-
ducted at different research sites have all reported that a
balanced instructional program composed of direct
instruction in phonological awareness, phonics, and
contextual reading is necessary for gains in reading skills
to be achieved,” Lyon says. “Without a doubt, we have
found that teaching methods that are based upon only one
philosophy, such as ‘the whole-language approach’ or ‘the
phonics method,’ are counterproductive for children
with reading disabilities. No matter how bright the child
and how interesting the reading material, a child will not
learn to read unless he or she understands how print is
translated into sound. Likewise, no matter how much
phonological awareness and phonics knowledge a young-
ster has, the child will not want to engage in reading and
writing unless it is meaningful and interesting and taught
in an exciting and vibrant fashion.”

DYSLEXIA AND THE THREE TIERS

On the green-treed UW campus under the grey skies of
Seattle, Professor Berninger’s team has come up with a
promising plan to help schools teach all learners to read.
Along with her UW colleague Scott Stage, as well as
Donna Rury Smith and Denise Hildebrand of The Psy-
chological Corporation, Berninger recommends a three-
tier model designed to prevent, diagnose, and treat
reading problems. The model, which translates the lofty
findings of researchers into everyday classroom practice,
seeks to cut off most reading problems at the pass—that
is, stop them before they gather momentum. The idea is
to blend scrutiny of students and instruction in a contin-

uous tapestry—assess and intervene, assess and modify,
assess and treat. This tightly woven fabric of ass
and instruction aims to keep nonreaders from slipping
through school unnoticed, year after year. Under this

ssment

G 4 There

are chemical
differences in
brain function

of dyslexic and
nondyslexic
children during
sound-processing

tasks, ) 5)

—University of Washington
press release, May 24, 2000


night of the week, he wedges some
kind of civic meeting into his sched-
ule. He’s on the coordinating com-
mittee for the Multnomah County
Youth Commission and on the steer-
ing committee for the county's Take
the Time youth-enhancement project
funded by the Commission on Chil-
dren, Families, and Communities.
He volunteers for the Portland Art
Museum and writes for ‘he Orego-
nian newspaper through its Minority
High School Journalism Program.
In 2001, when the city named Bryan
“Youth Volunteer of the Year,” the
mayor herself was on hand to pre-
sent him with the prestigious Spirit
of Portland award. In response, 7be
Skanner, a respected newspaper
serving Portland's minority commu-
nity, ran a big, front-page photo of
Bryan posed in front of City Hall:
The headline read “Local Hero.”
Despite a struggle with language
skills that led to a second-grade
placement in special ed, Bryan
managed to escape the emotional
trauma and self-esteem pummeling
that so many LD kids experience.
The little boy was inoculated, it
seems, by a solid pyramid of support.
Atthe base of the pyramid were his
mom Juanita and his dad Mark—
Willamette University graduates who
fell in love in grammar school and
have been in love ever since. Mark
—a teacher at Portland’s Ockley
Green Middle School—and Juanita

—a tireless schoo! advocate and
volunteer who serves on the district's
Special Education Advisory Council
— insisted from Day One that being
LD was only a small bump in the
road, not a barrier. They made sure
Bryan got appropriate accommoda-
tions—more time for assignments,
quiet space apart for high-stakes
tests, small-group remediation once
a day. They joined the Reversals
support group at Lewis & Clark Col-
lege (for more on Reversals, see the
sidebar on Page 13). Perhaps most
significantly, they taught Bryan to
advocate for himself-—to speak up,
to make sure he was clear on assign-
ments, to seek out help when he
needed it, Says Juanita: “The dis-
ability has made him stronger, given
him the confidence to say, ‘This is
how I am.’ | have said to him many
times over the years, ‘Your brain
takes in information differently and
processes it differently: It has nothing
to do with your intelligence or your
abilities.”

The arts magnet schools he
attended —Buckman Elementary
School and DaVinci Middle Schoo!
—were ideal places for nurturing a
gangly, gentle, creative kid whose
inner drum beat out a unique ca-
dence. “Buckman promoted indi-
viduality,” says Juanita, who has
been clearing away the last of the
Christmas trim in the family's cozy
Portland home on a drizzly January

a
aa

aftemoon. “It was OK to be as you
are. Because of the nature of the
arts-infused curriculum—music,
dance, drama, and art—those stu-
dents felt very comfortable with each
other and they felt very comfortable
to take risks with each other. And they
had wonderful, loving teachers.”

‘The special ed teachers, in
particular, have been standouts in
Juanita’s estimation. “Bryan has
been very fortunate since second
grade to have outstanding special
ed teachers—teachers who are
wonderful human beings that bring
strong values and work ethic and
love for children to their jobs,”
Juanita says.

Whether from nature or nurture,
at Bryan's center rests a calm core
of unshakable confidence. Being
learning disabled causes him no
shame. His current special ed teacher,
whom he sees once a week for con-
sultation, recently told Juanita that
when her other students pass her in
the hall, they look uncomfortable
and avoid her gaze. “They don’t
want their friends to know they’re
receiving services,” Juanita relates.
Bryan, on the other hand, “never
flinches” when she approaches him,
always greeting her cordially. He
treats her as a partner, not a pariah.

Recently, Bryan shared his views
and experiences with Northwest Ed-
ucation. Below are some excerpts
from that discussion.

131

NORTHWEST EDUCATION:
Can you briefly describe your

11

home life?

BRYAN LEWIS: We live in the
Alameda district, near the ridge. It’s
a quiet community, pretty peaceful,
pretty nonviolent. My younger

sister is in the pre-law program at
Franklin High School. My dad is a
PE and health teacher who spends a
lot of time trying to build commu-
nity, talking about the necessity of
education, bringing parents into the
school, trying to be a role model and
a father figure to the students. My
mother focuses mainly on my sis-
ter’s and my existence. She regularly
attends the Reversals support group.
It’s been a driving force for her to
understand what's going on with
me and how to overcome stereotypes
about students with disabilities and
academics and going to college.

66Vou can do whatever
you want, be whatever
you want, even with this
learning disability. 99

NW: Do you remember what
your carliest years in school
were like?

LEWIS: Usually, | was goofing
around or spacing out. At the begin-
ning, | didn’tsee a reason for leam-
ing. | didn't really pay much
attention because | didn’t under-
stand that I needed to. When I was

‘THE HIDDEN DISABILITY


First-graders play a game that gives them practice with sight words.

dents hit first grade.

“Most of the kids come in, if
they've been here, knowing the
majority of their letter names and
sounds,” says first-grade teacher
Vivian Ewing. “They're really ready
to take off with the reading. It’s
amazing to see, because it used to be
that out of a class this size, a third of
them knew all the letter names and
sounds, a third of them knew about
10, and a third of them hadn't had
any experience or they'd had experi-
ence but it wasn’t consistent
enough.”

Wolter has seen the same effects.
“Even Title | classrooms don’t have
as many kids in them as they used
to,” she says. “And the kids are doing
higher skills’"—not the typical Title |
work. Another outcome, she says, is
that many Title | first-graders are
new kids moving in who haven't had
an academic kindergarten. “So,” she
says, “we need to start all over with
them.”

Amajor impact of the program
has been in special education class-
Tooms. “’hey used to get instruction-
ally disabled kids,” says Cole. “You'd
put good, sound, instructional pro-
grams in front of those kids and
they'd start moving along. Now they
have the really difficult kids.”

Because of the reading project,
most kids in special ed are truly
learning disabled, agrees Clear Lake's
special education teacher Linda

Duke. “They're really challenging.”
Still, Duke likes the new continuity
between special and regular educa-
tion. For instance, she uses the same
DIBELS system of progress monitor-
ing that the regular teachers use,
just more frequently. Sometimes
teachers are using the same direct
instruction programs with their low
readers as she does in the resource
room. And when she mainstreams.
achild, various interventions, such
as an oral reading fluency lab, are
available in the regular program,
allowing the child to keep working
on key reading skills.

“The teachers are working to-
gether and the whole system is so
fluid that we can move kids in and
out of programs,” she says.

Meanwhile, to determine how
best to help the kids who are not re-
sponding adequately to the reading
interventions, the district is involved
in federally funded research studies
with the University of Oregon.

“LCAN DOIT”

‘The most dramatic changes in Bethel
are in student performance. The
statistics tell part of the story. Com-
pare, for example, the first-grade
oral reading fluency scores of kids
who move to the district in the fall
of first grade with scores of kids who
enter in the fall of kindergarten.
(Oral reading fluency—the num-
ber of words a student can read cor-

2a
THE HIDDEN DISABILITY

rectly in one minute—is a reliable

predictor of how well a student will
do on comprehension tests, such as
the Oregon State Assessment.) At the
beginning of first grade, there's a
significant difference between the
groups, says Braun, By spring, the
new kids have not caught up. They
are still 10 words behind in oral
reading fluency. For kids who enter
the district in second grade, the end-
of-year difference is 22 words per
minute.

“Kids who have been here are
reading 25 percent faster than kids
who came in at the beginning of
second grade,” Braun reports. Late-
entering students, in fact, are Bethel’s
next challenge, particularly with its
high mobility rate. Between the be-
ginning of kindergarten and the be-
ginning of first grade, the district
loses about 22 percent of its original
kindergarten class and gains about
20 percent in new students in first
grade,

Scores and statistics, however,
don’t tell the whole story. Changes
have shown up, too, in student be-

155

havior. “Previously, kids were start-
ing to misbehave because they were
having difficulty with skills,” says
Wolter. “By putting them in a small
group, by getting them right where
their skill level is, we alleviate some
of those problems. They start feeling
good about themselves, and they
don’t have to act out.”

Clearly, Brandon is one child
who feels confident in his abilities.
He likes to tell about the letters he’s
learned and show off how fast he
can spell his name. “There's a lot of
stuff [ do in Reading Raccoons,” he
says. “We do Writer’s Warm-Up, and
that’s hard. But,” he reports with
pride, “I can still do it.”


S UM MER 200 3

a EDUCATION

DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING:

LESSONS FROM LEWIS & CLARK

NORTHWEST REGIONAL EDUCATIONAL LABORATORY



N-pyeoe
2

fi

JOW NORTHWEST SCHOOLS ARE RAISING MINORITY ACHIEVEMENT j BY EGIONAL EDUCATIONAL LABORATORY



twice a year using a variety of modes
of assessment—curriculum based,
criterion referenced, nomn refer-
enced, portfolios. A lot of teachers
just aren't comfortable with the as-
sessment role, and they don’t do it.
That's why they don’t know that
some kids aren't making it. If a kid
sits there smiling or is socially ap-
propriate or says cute things, the
teacher just doesn’t realize there’s

a problem.

NW: What strategies have you
developed that help ensure
that all kinds of learners
grasp reading in the early
years?

BERNINGER: We have found that
kids’ word recognition gets better
when they work on bo/h the alpha-
betic principle and comprehension
—that you really need to teach all
of it. So we've tried to integrate the
best of the skills approach with the
best of whole language. From the
research, we've leamed that you need
phonological, orthographic, and
morphological awareness to learn
to read and spell words. You need to
work on vocabulary, morphology,
and syntax to develop sentence-level
understanding. To develop text dis-
course, there’s text structure and text
processing. We know these general
principles. But is there more than
one way to teach orthographic, pho-
nological, morphological aware-
ness, and text structure? Of course

‘THE HIDDEN DISABILITY

there is. That’s where the profession
alism of teachers comes in. | don't
think each teacher should be a robot
following the leader's instructions.
But we need to makesure at each
grade level—where individual chil-
dren are developmentally—that

the critical component skills are in
place in the curriculum. And then
let the teacher use her own creativity.
I think teachers need a toolbox, a
collection of tricks of the trade in
their repertoire. If one thing doesn’t
work, you need to try something
else. Undemeath it all, you have to
understand conceptually why you're
doing it and what the goal is.

NW: Is it really possible to
blend whole language with
direct instruction in sound-
letter patterns?

BERNINGER: If I were helping
schools evolve, I would have tracks
where you cover the same kind of
material with all kids in an intellec-
tually engaging way, but some kids
get more explicit instruction. In the
old days, there were a lot of work-
sheets—skill-and-drill stuff—that
turned people off. But you can make
the alphabetic principle explicit
without doing drills. But I do think
we need to make alphabetic princi-
ples explicit to students, and it’s not
always been happening—not the
way that I think a lot of kids need it.
Some kids need that explicitness;
others can figure it out on their own.

1 don’t think we should be drilling
those kids who can figure it out on
their own or who got help from their
parents in figuring it out.

NW: Have schools in general
made progress in working
with LD kids?

BERNINGER: In the ‘70s most
teacher education programs had
very little formal instruction on how
to teach reading—what kinds of
things you should do in your class-
room. | think that’s changed in some
places, but it hasn’t changed every-
where. I don’t want to fault any one
group. | just think as a nation, we
still have not come to terms with the
fact that there are both biologically
based and culturally based learning
differences. It has nothing to do with
skin color; it has to do with what's
inside people's heads. We're not
adequately preparing teachers in a
practical sense for what they can do,
day to day, in their classroom to deal
with this diversity.

149


G1 TRAITS OF WRITING ASSESSMENT

SHINING BR

STORY AND PHOTO BY DENISE JARRETT WEEKS

Rutn Culham could use a poem
now, a few lines from her Uncle
Don—Don Emblen, poet laureate
for Sonoma County, California, and
a retired professor at Santa Rosa
Junior College. Now and again,
he sends poems to his niece and
other family members, always just
at the right time, with just the right
perception and encouragement.

“He writes these beautiful
poems and gives them to his fam-
ily, at different times in our lives,”
says Culham. This particular time
in Culham’s life is moving swiftly
between great satisfactions and
high anxieties. She's just moved
into a new home and is still un-
packing; she’s booked around the
country to train teachers in the 6+1
TraitTM Writing model; and her
book, 6+1 Traits of Writing: The
Complete Guide, has just been
released by Scholastic, Inc. It's
Culham’s first book, and she can’t
help but wonder what readers will
think of it. Will teachers find it
helpful? Will reviewers think it adds
something of value to the profes-
sional literature?

Last week, Scholastic flew her to
Las Vegas for the official release of
her book and to demonstrate for a

gathering of book buyers the six-
trait approach to teaching and as:
sessing writing. She and the book
were a hit, but the fan whose opin-
ion she most cared about was Sam,
her 26-year-old son who'd come
along for the big event.

“At first | thought, great! Sam
will come with me and we'll spend
some time together, but then when
it came time for my workshop, |
got stage fright having him there. It
was scary!” she says with a laugh.

But, he said the sweetest thing:
‘Mom, you were so good!”

Culham’s success in teaching
others how to use the trait-based
approach to helping students learn
to write well has not only made her
a trainer in demand, it’s helped
make the videos, books, rubrics,
posters, and other 6+1 TraitTM Writ:
ing paraphernalia developed by the
Northwest Regional Educational
Laboratory hot commodities. The
6+1 TraitTM products have long been
NWREL's number-one sellers
(available from the NWREL Prod-
ucts Catalog Online at www.
nwrei.org/catalog/). They've also
become some of the most popular
items sold by Carson-Dellosa Pub-
lishing Company, Inc. (www.
carsondellosa.com), an educational
publisher that contracts with
NWREL to produce 6+1 TraitTM
posters, organizers, sticky notes,
and other classroom materials and
sell them through local dealers all
over the country,

Culham’s book is the first time
the Laboratory's model has been
distilled into a guide to help teach-
ers implement the approach in
their own classrooms. The best

way to learn to use the model, says
Culham, is during workshops with
certified trainers. But Culham, her
colleague Janice Wright, and the
dozen or so trainers they have
working for them in various re-
gions can’t be everywhere at once.
So, the guide is meant to give
teachers a good start in learning
how to use the traits to teach and
assess writing.
LOVE OF LANGUAGE
More than anything else. the book
project has made Culham feel an
even stronger tie with her poet
uncle. “| see what an influence his
love of language has had on me,”
she says. While her mom always
was an avid reader and modeled
the joys that could be had from lit-
erature, “the real love of language
came from him.” Not unlike the
graduate who returns to visit his
professor in Emblen’s poem, “A
Philosophy Major Comes Back To
Wish Me a Happy New Year"—
“Yet, returneth he / to find out
whence he comes”—Culham re-
turns to his chapbooks now and
again with renewed appreciation.
During childhood, Culham’s
family moved a lot, from one town
to another in California and Arizona.
By the time she was to start high
school, her mom put her foot down
They were staying put in Pasadena.
Her dad, a watchmaker, could not
still his “wanderlust” and so kept
moving. With hindsight, Culham
credits her mom for getting her
into the best high schoo! she could,
by renting a house in affluent South
Pasadena where she believes she
received a “world class education.”
See BRIGHT. Page 14



10

|] Fereerd yates Fiipone |
\) THe |
FREEDOM WRITERS
|| Diary |
“> .

How a Teacher and 150 T
Used Writing to
and the World A

iG i
THE FREEOOM WRITERS
with ERIN Gauri |

E., Gruwell insists “there was
no master plan” behind her deci-
sion to assign journal entries as a
freshman English class exercise, But
what she heard in students’ writing
echoed the themes of literature: Loss
and longing. Hope in the face of
fear. A need to be heard. Courage
to dream of a better future despite
growing up in a setting that one
boy compared to a war zone.
Gruwell overcame steep odds
herself in order to help these kids
share their stories with an intema-
tional audience. In the process, stu-
dents stopped seeing themselves as
“rejects” and “unteachables,” and
took on a new identity: Freedom
Writers. Their remarkable saga is
chronicled in the students’ own
words in The Freedom Writers
Diary: How a Teacher and 150
Teens Used Writing lo Change
‘Themselves and the World Around
Them. The class writing project may
have started small, Gruwell admits,
“Dut it took on a life of its own.”
Gruvwell will be sharing high-
lights of this story when she delivers

KEEPIN REAL

| RIGHT OUT OF A FAIRY TALE, A ROOKIE TEACHER FROM AN URBAN HIGH

SCHOOL PLAYS FAIRY GODMOTHER TO HER KIDS’ CINDERELLA STORY.
HER MAGIC WAND? THE POWER OF WRITING.

hosted by the Northwest Regional
Educational Laboratory in February.
(See end of this story for details.) As
a preview, she agreed to share with

the readers of Northwest Education
some thoughts on her approach to
writing as a force for change.

Diary 68:

Today Ms.Gruwell assigned a new
writing project. We each are going
to choose one of our favorite jour-
nal entries and combine them
into a classroom book. ... Ms.
Gruwell wants us lo pick an entry
about an event thal changed our
lives. In my case, there is only one
that really sticks oul, but L want lo

the keynote address at the Education forget il. Nol because it is embar-

Now and in the Future Conference,

rassing, but because it is the most

NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002

painful one.

While she was still a preppy-
looking student teacher at Wilson
High in racially diverse Long Beach,
California, Gruwell experienced one
of those classroom moments that
changes everything. She happened
to intercept a piece of paper that was
making the rounds, leaving a ripple
of laughter in its wake. The paper
held a crude caricature of a certain
black student with a bad attitude
and worse disciplinary record. When
Gruwell got hold of the paper, she
went ballistic, telling her students
the thick-lipped cartoon was like the
propaganda the Nazis used during
the Holocaust. Then a student asked
her, “What's the Holocaust?” In that
instant, a new curriculum was bom.
Gruwell recalls, “I immediately de-
cided to throw out my meticulously
planned lessons and make tolerance
the core of my curriculum.”

‘Tolerance can be a tough sell to
students who have to dodge bullets
on their way home. The challenge to
Gruwell seemed urgent: “How could
I motivate them to pick up a pen
instead of a gun?” She introduced
them to books written by young

~
df

people who had come of age during
wartime: 7he Diary of Anne Frank,
for instance, and Zlala’s Diary, de-
scribing a childhood in Bosnia. “My
students saw that these other kids,
living in real wars, had picked up
pens, chronicled their pain, and
made their story immortal.”

If the stories from Room 203
were going to matter to anyone,
Gruvwell told students, they had to
be honest. She assured students of
anonymity, assigning each one a
number. Using donated computers,
all used the same 12-point, Times,
New Roman typeface. They all
signed on to an honor code, worked
out with the approval of the superin-
tendent and lawyer for the district.
Among themselves, they called their
truth-telling “keepin’ it real.”

Previously, students had been
inhibited in their writing. Now,
cloaked in anonymity, “they were
liberated. It was cathartic. They got
into controversial topics,” Gruwell
says, including drugs, guns, sexual
abuse, harassment, abortion. “It
was a wellspring.”

Although the writers remained
anonymous, students took tums


52

LETTERS

COMPASSION, NOT PRISON
| would like to thank you for your
issue on causes and prevention
of youth-perpetrated violence
(“Learning in Peace: Schools Look
Toward a Safer Future,” Spring
1999"). | think many people have
been aware of the emotional prob-
lems caused by bullying and poor
family situations in adolescents,
bul it seems that only recently, in
the wake of the school shooting
tragedies, has anyone decided to
take responsibility for these chil-
dren instead of condemning them
as monsters.

| wholeheartedly believe that the
Children who commit these acts are
the victims of situations that are out
of their control. Children are not
able to defend themselves from
physical, sexual, and emotional
abuse and neglect. Perhaps most
important, they are not able to
feplicate within themselves the
values and love that come from
having family, friends, or other
supportive persons who care for
them and teach them that they are
valuable and lovable themselves.
If a person, based on abuse and
Neglect in his formative years, per-
ceives the world as dangerous and
filled with enemies, and if he has
no basis of love for himself and
others, how can he be expected
to react ina “normal” way to other
members of society—especially
those who confirm that individual's
pessimistic worldview? It is easy
to see how, ina dark. void of pain,
merciless teasing, isolation, and
fear, an individual with no hope of
a better existence and no relative
concept of love and support to
buoy him through hardship could
make the decision to terminate the
life of himself and others.

NW Education / Pall 2002

These youth do not need to be
incarcerated, where they will blend
with hardened and callused adult
murderers; they need to be ina
therapeutic setting where they can
learn to love and trust. The adoles-
cents who survive their burst of vi-
olence, their cry for help, are more
often than not extremely remorseful
for the lives they have taken. They
are shortly thereafter able to recog-
nize the depressive state that led to
their explosion, and want to rem-
edy their situation. These are not
the kinds of individuals who repeat
their crimes. | strongly believe that
with help and love, these young
people can overcome their tragic
past and begin to heal their lives
and hearts.

Thank you for your efforts to help
these youths and to prevent these
tragedies from occurring again.

Jennifer Holcom
Teacher and homeschool mom
Warsaw, Indiana

LIGHTING THE WAY
The Alisha Moreland article
(“Shined by the City,” Winter 1999)
really touched me in a special way,
since | was one of her many class-
Mates at Jefferson High School.
Alisha is so bright and outstanding
and [am truly honored to say that
| walked across the same stage at
the same ceremony as her. | am
glad that this article is available for
everyone to see how special she is.
Excellent article!

Tanesha Chiles-McCray
Oental assistant and

dental hygiene student
Highline Community College
Des Moines, Washington

NOT JUST “EXTRAS”

Even though | am responding to

an old issue (“Opening Doors to
Latchkey Kids,” Spring 1999), the
concern is still the same in the year
2002. There is the continued em-
phasis upon only those areas con-
sidered to be academic, with a
devaluation of areas such as physi-
cal education, music, art, and the
humanities. | am pleased to see
that your organization has spent
time in researching and providing
information to the fact that all of
these areas contribute greatly to
academic success.

Itis my hope that your organiza-
tion might provide this information
to superintendents and administra-
tors around the country. The amaz-
ing fact is that we struggle to raise
test scores, we continue to add
More and more academics, and yet
valuable help lies right within our
midst. What always gets cut are the
areas that could help to reverse the
trend.

Again, thank you for being a
source of encouragement for what |
do. There's nol much going around
in the school systems.

Jane Collins

Physical Education Teacher
Longfellow Elementary School
Columbia, Maryland

56

VOICE-ACTIVATED EQUITY
My son Adam just completed his
senior project today, a requirement
for graduation. His topic, which
he spent the entire senior year re-
searching and preparing for, was
computer assisted literacy ("Forget
{solation, We're Online Now,” Win-
ter 2000). He showed how voice
activated software can assist stu-
dents with learning disabilities—
how vital a role it can play toward
giving all kids a level playing field
and opportunity to be able to
express themselves.

As his mother, | can only say
that this was a very appropriate
topic to send him off into adult-
hood. My son has dyslexia, and
| have been his scribe and his
teader since second grade.

Ithas been a very long and
lonely path for my son but none-
the-less very challenging for us
both. In the end, my son learned
that he is an expert ina field that
most know little about. He has
laken it upon himself to educate
teachers so that they may be able
to reach out to other learning dis-
abled kids and offer solutions.

Thanks for this beautiful article.

Kim Disbury
Grant Writer/Researcher
Gig Harbor, Washington



Plan B. For example, if their model
boat had failed its test-launch, “team
members had a plan for how to
make their presentations even if
their boat sunk,” says Mapston, “and
that was to say how they solved it.”

If delving into the lives, hard-
ships, and triumphs of the Corps of
Discovery has taught them nothing
else, they've learned this: “They
know there are a lot of ups and
downs in life,” Mapston says.

FEARED

On their eastward journey
home, Lewis and a scouting
party passed near today’s
community of Fairfield.
They hoped to follow the
Marias River to the 50th
parallel, effectively extend-
ing U.S. territory. Along the
way, they came upon astun-
ning sight: an immense
number of buffalo blanket-
ing the plains.

“T sincerely belief that
there were not less than 10
thousand buffaloe within
a circle of 2 miles,” wrote
Lewis. They immediately
killed one particularly fat
bovine and made a dinner
of it beside Medicine River.

BEST COPY AV

Today, the Medicine is known as
the Sun River. Girdled by dams, it’s
the primary font for waters that flow
through some 60,000 miles of irri-
gation ditches. The waters feed
91,000 acres of wheat, oat, barley,
alfalfa, silage, and pasture along
the river and its tributaries.

In the farming town of Fairfield,
Charlie Brown teaches history at the
high school and is a member of the
Lewis and Clark Honor Guard, a
group of men who do historical
research and reenactments of the
Corps of Discovery. Brown's chosen
Corps member is Joseph Fields, an
expert hunter who accompanied
Lewis up the Marias. Today, dressed
in full Honor Guard regalia, he is
showing visitors some of the high
technology the Corps members used
in their expedition: chronometer,
sextant, rifle, and gunpowder horn
and tamp. Looking on are two of his
students, Chase and Brian, seniors
who fully expect to be using 21st
century technology in their chosen
careers. Chase is going into farm-
ing; Brian into the military.
COMMUNICATING
‘The students have gotten a solid in-
troduction to computer technology
in Brown's history class. Like some
other students in the Rediscovery
Project, Chase and Brian created
a WebQuest for their classmates
to embark on, but they diverged
sharply from the Lewis and Clark
trail. Instead, they explored a very
different U.S. military undertaking
—in Vietnam.

IAILABLE «|

17

‘They created a virtual tour
through modem Vietnam, from the
war to today. In the WebQuest, stu-
dents explore nine cities—from the
port city of Ben Tre, through Ho Chi
Minh, to Halong Bay—gathering
photos and data depicting the effect
of the war on the communities and
what those cities are like today
(http://gtecmt.org/webquests/
chuck-students/Brian-Chase_files/
frame.htm). .

As they talk about their project, it
so happens that today, March 19, is
the first day of the war in Iraq. The
students pause for a moment, con-
sidering these disparate U.S. military
expeditions into “Indian Country,”
Vietnam, and Iraq.

“It does have a parallel, not per-
fectly parallel, but there is one,” says
Brian, who is already a reservist in
a military press camp. On weekend
duty, he’s leaming broadcast jour-
nalism, using state-of-the-art digital
technology.

‘Though spread over 200 years,
each of these three missions had to
contend with the reality of geogra-
phy and physics. “Just the technol-
ogy’s changed is about what it comes
down to,” says Brian. “Nowadays,
we aren’t going in so blindsided,
because we have satellites and every-
thing; we know what's out there. It's
not like Lewis and Clark, they had
no idea what to expect.”

Except, says Jeredene Mayfield,
coordinator for the Golden Trian-
gle’s Rediscovery Project who's visit-
ing today, “if Lewis and Clark had

7

listened to the Indians they'd have
known exactly what to expect. The
Indians tried to tell them everything.
Ultimately, everything that the Indi-
ans did tell them turned out to be

true.

‘This raises the question: What's
the role of technology in human
relations?

“Face-to-face contact is really
good, because you can correspond
your ideas and talk things out,” says
Brian. “But with technology, being
able to communicate over the Inter-
net, with video equipment, whatnot,
it makes it nice because there's some
things that you can show easier on a
video.”

Charlie Brown says the Internet
has been indispensable to teachers
involved in the project. “That's how
we were able to communicate, the
six members of our Rediscovery
Project. We used the Internet, we
used ICQ.com, we used Yahoo
Groups, Yahoo Chat, listservs. We're
hundreds of miles apart and we’ re
in better communication than some
people in the same building. We
were on the Intemet every Wednes-
day night,” says Brown.

“We just set aside that time in
our lives,” says Mayfield, “to ask

DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING



videos, and Wright's presentations.
Many have already started using the
traits in their classrooms.

Carol Keller, a middle school lan-
guage arts teacher, said after the ses-
sion: “The ideas in the notebook were
wonderful and very helpful. It will be
beneficial for both the teachers and stu-
dents to learn and work on these traits
cone by one. Our students have always
been weak on peer tutoring, and this
will give them a good base for assess-
ing themselves and others.” In the past,
she says, she has had to skip over peer
review during the writing process. "Now,
I'm hoping to incorporate this skill in
my lessons.”

Sharon Baker, a high schoo! lan-
guage arts teacher, began introducing
the traits to her students right afler the
training session. She says: “Using the
traits in class has shown to be quite
useful and beneficial for me, as well as
my students. It lessens the burden of
checking for every single problem within
their writing. Now we can focus on one
or two areas at a time, and it is a little
less overwhelming. Students are not
getling a paper that is full of red circles
because they know we are working on
‘one specific area at a time.”

As part of her visit to indiana, Wright
also conducted an evening workshop to
explain the 6+1 TraitTM mode! to parents.
Mary Dall is a mother of three children,
two hearing and one deaf. She explains
why she found the session so useful:
“My older hearing children always had
some kind of rubric tool to measure
their writings. They always seemed to
do just fine. It was not until | attended

the workshop on the 6+1 TraitsTM that |
had a better understanding of what rubric
systems are all about! This workshop
has actually opened my eyes in terms of
how to review my son's writings. For my
son and me, English is our second lan-
guage. Ah, | am much, much older than
he is and have had plenty of practice.

| was never too sure how to go about
tooking at my son's writing and how to
go about ‘correcting’ his grammar. This
tool has given me a very, very nice way
to approach him in our discussion. No
longer do | really have to focus on his.
grammar, which | know will develop over
time. This workshop has taught me other
areas of more importance to discuss."
LESSONS THAT LAST

Such positive responses resonate with
Wright, who remembers her own intro-
duction to the traits a decade ago. She
was teaching in a small schoo! district
when Oregon adopted the model for
‘statewide writing assessment. Wright
was Called on to revise the language
arts curriculum and thought to herself,
“Here we go again ....”

But far from being a passing fad, the
6+1 TraitTM model offered her lasting in-
sights into how children learn to write.
“| taught myself to use the traits, and
they changed the way | started teaching.
1 saw wonder‘ul results for my kids,”
she recalls. “The key was respecting kids
as writers, giving responsibility back to
them. If the teacher stops being the kids’
editor, they will take on that responsi-
bility for themselves. t also began to see
the value of encouraging them to write
for an audience, for a purpose, for their
‘own reasons,”

ye
GeITRATS ~

Before long, Wright had transformed
her teaching style. “We turned my class
into a writing community, We were all
doing publishing—students and teacher
alike. And we were all respecting each
other as writers.” The 6+1 TraitTM model
offered students a common vocabulary
for giving one another helpful feedback,
she says, “so we could build on our
strengths.”

Wright's early experience in Deaf
Education also shaped her classroom
Style. “You have to break it down into
steps, chunk it out. You can't assume
deat students know what you mean,”
she says, “when you talk about conven-
tions or word choice or conclusion. You
have to explain the concept, give a mini-
lesson so you're sure they understand.”
Looking back, Wright can see how
“being a teacher of deaf kids made me
a better teacher of hearing kids, too.”

Now, when she's training other
teachers to use the 6+1 TraitTM model,
Wright often draws on her own class~
room experiences. “You don’t hand a
paper back to a student and say: ‘Revise
this.’ You might say: ‘Let's look at how
often you used this word. Is there an-
other word you could substitute?’ Or:
‘Let's took a look at the lead paragraph.
How could you bring the reader in bet-
ter?’ Once you finish, it's going to be so
much stronger.”

When she sees teachers getting ex-
cited about using the model to inform
their instruction, Wright also knows that
big changes may be in store for them.
“It.causes you to examine how you
teach. You may wind up asking your-
self, ‘Do | teach this way because it's

105

how I've always taught writing, or is this
really the best way for kids?”

MORE QUESTIONS AHEAD

The successful introduction of the 6+1
TraitTM model at Indiana School for the
Deaf has opened the door to new ques-
tions and new research. Wright, Mowl,
and ISD Principal Robert Kovatch are
now working together to gather exam-
ples of “authentic student writing by
deaf and hard of hearing students for
further analysis,” Mowl explains.

The examples of student writing typi-
cally used in 6+1 TraitTM training “look
nothing like what deaf students are pro-
ducing,” Wright notes. “I's not like what
teachers see in class,” at schools work-
ing with deaf students. Developing a
larger sample of work by deaf students
should help these pioneering teachers
develop effective classroom strategies,
and turn their school into a community
of capable writers.


IN HER OWN
WORDS:
Julie Cajune

4 )

MOVING FROM
TOLERANCE TO

CELEBRATION
un

nas the distinction of
he only full-time indian

servation in the
where she grew up. F
th deep ct
about what's needed to address
the achi ap in the
Pablo and Ronan.

was just talking with peo-
ple yesterday about how we would
describe a culturally responsive
school environment. If you {ook at
Indian education historically, it
hasn't been a very bright picture for
Indian people. There is still a very
vivid memory of the boarding school
era. So we are stitl dealing with a
Great percentage of the Indian com-
munity that has a certain level of dis-
trust for the school institution, and
for whether the school has the
child's best welfare at heart.

Bart of what we're doing is trying to

change that perspective by offering
things that include the community,
but actively soliciting this involve-
ment in something more meaningful
than a bake sale or a chocolate sale
—something that will actually im-
pact how their son or daughter feels
at school

Bite other thing is that | feel all
children have a right to see them-
selves reflected in the school. Kids
should come to school and feel like
it's their school. Indian students
have not felt that public schools are
their schools—rather, it’s a place
they go that's very different from
their home and community, a place
that sometimes tells them things that
are in direct conflict with what they're
being taught within their community
or family context. So there's a disso-
nance that they experience as a
young child, a disequilibrium that
May grow into conflict at the adoles-
cent stage. We're looking at trying to
provide a supportive environment for
students who feel disenfranchised
and for families that fee! discon-
nected and devalued.

Bends of knowledge that Indian
people have are just beginning to
be valued. They weren't valued in the
past, and people were told, Those
arent worth anything, you need to let
them go.’ It was the assimilationist
idea that was common educational
practice for generations. We're trying
to reverse that. We're saying, ‘These
funds of knowledge are important.
They're part of the literacy of an
American citizen.’ That literacy level
is really low. Indian people are stil!
probably the least understood mi-
Nority group in America. There are
still huge misunderstandings

ome of a culturally congruent ed-
ucation is representing kids so they
feel like, ‘This is my school. This
school values and respects who |
am, my family, my history, and
some of my perspectives, and is
willing to share some of my stories.’
It's presenting a balanced perspec-
tive so that children are offered a
broader picture of the world and a
more inclusive curriculum. That’s an
obligation that the school has. Edu-
cators have an ethical obligation to
offer their students the broadest per-
spective that they can, because chil-
dren are going to create their own
learning. We shouldn't be pouring
itout—giving them a dish of it. We
should be facilitating. We're mediat-
ing between the child and the learn-
ing opportunity, hopefully in the best
way possible with that child’s inter-
est at heart,

falThen we're doing life science and
talking about trees, we talk about
tribal forestry and local tree species.
| think it's great to learn about the
Amazon rain forest, but wouldn't it
be nice if kids could go outside and
show you a lodgepole pine, a Pon-
derosa pine, a Douglas fir, and ex-
plain the intergenerationa! impact
of local land-use practices?

36

Wb its an interdisciplinary curricu-
lum that provides an historic context
for understanding Indian people
today, that we're still here, we have
a (tribal) government, we're involved
in managing natural resources. One
of the things that draws people here,
the pristine environment, is the re-
sult of tribal management, of stew-
ardship of the environment. The tribe
has taken a leadership role in envi-
ronmental law. The Salish and
Kootenai tribes were the first to es-
tablish a wilderness area. The reser-
vation has a cleaner water standard
than the state—that's an advantage
that people here share whether
they're Indian or non-Indian. The
school district participates in the
annual “River Honoring,” where the
tribes host 1,000 kids for two loops
along the Flathead River, with eight
stations on each loop. The kids do
everything from writing to art to hard
sciences—measuring and testing
water, looking at land management
and riparian zones, identifying native
and exotic fish species. The elders
go down and talk about the historical
and cultural significance of the river

ihe tribe has incredibly rich re-
sources to offer schools ‘or learning.
Schools are just beginning to see in
the Indian community an asset rather
than a deficit. That's what we had
hoped—that rather than tolerance,
we would look at celebration.”


22

FROM
DIVISION
VISION

Achievement climbs at a
reservation school high in
the Rocky Mountains

Story by Lee Sherman
Photos by David Spear

PABLO, Momtama—
The Flathead Indian
Reservation rests in the
embrace of the moun-
tains collectively known
as the Rockies. To the
passerby, the endless
towers of basalt seem

to merge together, mile °

after mile. People who
live here, however, dis-
tinguish individual
ranges with names
known mostly to the lo-
cals. The Mission, Flat-
head, and Swan ranges

recede into a deepening
violet haze to the east.
The Bitterroot, Salish,
Cabinet, Coeur D’Alene,
and Purcell mountains
blend and overlap, one
into another, in a nearly
impervious divide to the
west. To the reservation’s
north, icy Glacier Na-
tional Park feeds the
river that rushes into the
jewel of the valley, Flat-
head Lake, whose sur-
face changes from jade
green to deep amethyst
as a storm gathers high
in the surrounding
peaks.

In this protected valley, among
the sage and the scrub, a little
ciderblock school is moving moun-
tains of another sort. Decades of
sub-par achievement among the
Native children of the reservation
are, at last, on the upswing at Pablo
Elementary School. Credit belongs
to a wide-reaching mix of people
and factors. They include a re-
search-based school reform model
that matches local needs, a local
community dissatisfied with the sta-.,
tus quo, a district insistent on rais-
ing standards forall kids, arid, most .
critically, a tireless staff that tore
headlong into an improvement
plan with dogged determination.



Teachers al Noth Star Elementary gaher onan catly all morning to hone their skills in using the NWREL 641 TraltTM Writing instruction and assessment model in heir classrooms.

tests show that students who stay al the
school for a full year before a test are
scoring increasingly higher in reading,
language arts, and mathematics.
RECOGNIZING GOOD WRITING

It's August, just days before school
Starls, and Quintero and a group of fel-
low North Star teachers are galhered
this morning in the language center for
a day of staff training, It's a bit too warm
in the room, and everyone would rather,
truthfully, be back in his classroom ar-
ranging learning centers and going over
lesson plans.

But Ruth Culham, one of the devel-
pers of the 6+1 TraitTM Writing instruc-
tion and assessment model and a
NWREL trainer, is a rousing speaker.

In short order, all eyes are trained on
her and the colorful picture books she
holds up, examples of good storytelling
that are bound to inspire young writers.
Soon, she has them up on their feet
performing characters from Margie

6+1 TRAITS

Palatini and Richard Egielski's picture
book, The Web Files, and, later, furi-

ously penning poems adout the traits
of good writing.

The traits, Culham says in the intro-
duction to her book 6+1 Traits of Writ-
ing, recently released by Scholastic,
are characteristics that make a piece
of writing work. The traits and scoring
rubrics in the 6+1 TraitTM Writing model
provide “a vocabulary teachers use to
describe their vision of what good writ-
ing looks like—any kind of writing,”
whether it’s a story, essay, or persua-
sive article, she says.

Just now, a group has come out of a
huddle to read from 2 poem the teach-
ers have written describing the impor-
tance of “voice"—the hardest trait to
teach, some say:

The important thing about voice

Is that it is YOU, your sparkle,

Your personal passions and emotions.
It's tantatizing and unique; YOUR

!

Heart and soul revealed to the world.
Voice is when the writer seems to
speak directly to the reader in a way that

is individual and compelling. But, ike
unheard cries from a deep well, the
“voices” of children who aren't native
English speakers are oflen trapped in-
side themselves. So, how do you help
these students to use their emerging
English skills to express their own ideas
and experiences—in ways that reveal
their “hearts and souls"?

“Many of these kids don't live in a
print-rich world, but they haven't been
living in a vacuum,” says Culham.
“They have observations of life. They
have their life stories. What is it they al-
ready know? They may not have English
language, but they know a fot of stuff.”
You can help children’s language de-
velopment by talking with them, reading
with them, and asking them tots of
questions about their lives, she says.

Culham irequently looks to the writ-

109

ings of Donald Graves, author of Writing:
Teachers and Children at Work (Heine-
mann, 1982), for ways to help children
come up with ideas to write about. She
likes to share this quote from Graves's
book with the teachers in her workshops:

Children who are led topics, story

Slarters, lead sentences, even

opening paragraphs asa steady

diet for three or four years, right-

fully panic when topics have to

come from them. The anxiety is

not unlike that of the child whose

mother has just turned off the

television set. ‘Now what do

1.do?" bellows the child.

To prompt students to draw on their
own experiences, Culham cites Graves's
suggestion to observe a child during
his or her day and ask her questions:
“Why did you ...?” “How did you ...?”

“I notice that you ...," and “What will
you do when ....?”

Such questions not only call on a


THE MANY STORIES OF HISTORY

“Ata certain level writing is an act of rescue,” says Ronda.
“Historians rescue and restore lost voices. The Lewis
and Clark journals make that kind of rescue and restora-
tion possible.” But he cautions: “What has so often been
recounted in terms of high adventure, national triumph,
and male courage needs to be told again as a complex
human story.”

While the story of Sacagawea has been romanticized to
mythic proportions, much else about Native people's
contributions to the Lewis and Clark expedition as well
as their history, culture, and influence in human devel-
opment on this continent has been obscured.

It is here that primary historical sources can open
more accurate portals to the past.

“Again and again Corps of Discovery journal keepers
recorded what Native people told them about everything
from plants and animals to geography and relations with
tribal neighbors. .... Itis those voices that give depth and
richness to the Lewis and Clark story,” says Ronda. “Most
who write about the expedition now acknowledge that Na-
tive people were at the heart of the enterprise. Without
those Indian voices and views the story is at best only half
told.”

Historian Stephen Dow Beckham wrote the essays for
and edited The Literature of the Lewis & Clark Expe-
dition: A Bibliography and Essays, a beautifully bound
book about the library's special collection at Lewis & Clark
College. He believes that students need to learn about all
the important stories of history, not just the glorified ver-
sion of the making of the nation.

“Euro-American settlement of the American West is usu-
ally presented as a great success story” of transforming
the “wilderness,” he says. “While it is true that these ac-
tivities contributed to the building ofa national economy
and have afforded prosperity, they were achieved with
costs. Students need to weigh the costs with the benefits.
The responsibilities of teachers today are to try to have
students see the larger context and the consequences of

NW Education / Summer 2003

what has happened, not just the successful outcomes.
Knowing the ‘underside’ of history may help the suc-
ceeding generation to cope better with the challenges and
problems that confront society.”

Indeed, Bobbie Connor, co-chair of the Circle of Tribal
Advisors for the National Council for the Lewis & Clark Bi-
centennial and director of the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute
in Pendleton, Oregon, says flatly, “There is little that is cel-
ebratory about the expedition from Native perspectives.”

Speaking to a group of teachers assembled by video-
conference for the first Lewis & Clark Weekly Showcase
for Teachers presented by the Oregon Public Education
Network and partners, including the Northwest Regional
Educational Laboratory (wwwopen.k12.or.us/oregon/Icb/
Icb03d.html), Connor continues: “It is in fact the case that
the Lewis and Clark expedition is the harbinger of all ad-
verse change that will come subsequent to the mapping
and charting of our homelands.”

She urges teachers to find alternative sources of in-
formation, apart from textbooks and popular narratives,
to learn more about “the indigenous people who inhab-
ited these homelands as homes rather than as the un-
charted wilderness of Thomas Jefferson’s imagination.”

A good place to start, she says, is by exploring Native
peoples’ “first-contact stories.” Native oral histories in-
clude stories of ancestors’ first encounters with white peo-
ple in general, not just Lewis and Clark. “It’s important
to start there,” says Connor, “because we didn't all meet
our first white person at the same time. We weren't stand-_
ing on the banks of the river waiting for the explorers to
arrive so that we could be ‘discovered.””

In fact, Ronda says, “Just as Lewis and Clark explored
the lives and cultures of Native people, so too did Indi-
ans explore Jefferson’s travelers and the things they car-
ried with them. ... What happened from the Missouri to
the Columbia was mutual discovery, shared moments of
exploration encounter.”

186


Idaho, was toying with the idea of
retirement when the chance to lead
the Rediscovery Project came along.

“My wife tells me I've failed at
retirement,” he says, sitting in an
office piled high with computers,
digital cameras, and other gear that
will wind up in classrooms across
the country.

After a lifetime spent in Idaho,
Keamey was familiar with the broad
strokes of the Lewis and Clark story.
You can’t help but bump into re-
minders of their trek in this state,
which has embraced Lewis and
Clark history as a way to promote
modem-day tourism. Highways are
dotted with roadside markers show-

BEST COPY AVAILABLE’

ing the two explorers in silhouette.
Mountain trails follow the footsteps
they took over ancient Indian paths.
And riverfront parks commemorate
sites where the explorers switched
from traveling on horseback to jour-
neying by canoe to reach the Pacific
Coast.

“Twas never a Lewis and Clark
freak,” Kearney says, “although I
know some who are. I'm more in-
terested in seeing teachers use tech-
nology for teaching and leaming.
That's the thrust of this project. It’s
hooked onto Lewis and Clark be-
cause that gives us a focus.”

In a nifty metaphor, the original
Corps of Discovery employed many

of the best practices used in educa-
tion today. The explorers pursued a
powerful version of project-based
learning. Real-world challenges
motivated them to master new
skills, from making canoes out of
logs to making meals out of foods
they had never tasted before. Their
field studies cut across disciplines,
including biology, cartography,
mathematics, sociology, languages,
and medicine. They kept detailed
journals, reminding future genera-
tions of the power of well-chosen
words. They learned to work as a
team and to share leadership roles.
And they were driven by a spirit of
inquiry, a quest to describe and map

1  ‘Ghiscoveries in LEARNING

all they saw,

Asascientist and an educator,
Kearney appreciates the value of in-
quiry. The same process that has ex-
panded the boundaries of scientific
knowledge also helps students ad-
vance their understanding of new
concepts. Through the Rediscovery
Project, he says, “We have history
teachers, art teachers, and English
teachers using inquiry methods to
explore what has changed in their
communities over the past 200
years. What are the changes? How
do you go about finding out? That's
inquiry.”

Before Lewis and Clark began
their legendary road trip, they


zens. Armed with GPS units and dig-
ital cameras, they walked the rows of
headstones. They entered the coordi-
nates of every grave dated earlier
than 1888, when the old cemetery
was relocated. Back at the school li-
brary, they used computers to gener-
ate a database of information about
the 120 deceased. They used map-
ping software and satellite photos to
create a visual representation of the
cemetery. More research sent them
looking through old newspapers for
obituaries. They found more than

* 50 names of those who had died
before 1888, but whose graves could
not be found in the newer cemetery.

‘The mystery of the unmarked
graves all but solved, students are
now preparing to take a subterranean
look by using ground-penetrating,
radar and magnetic induction to
“read” the unknown grave sites.
Says Branting: “My students have
leamed they can solve mysteries
through technology.”

Branting continues to pose ques-
tions that get students—and teach-
ers—excited about learning. For
the Lewis and Clark Rediscovery
Project, he has created a series of
‘WebQuests that challenge students
to use online sources to solve mys-
teries. He also conducts professional
development workshops for his col-
leagues about iow to design a good
WebQuest so that students will use
inquiry methods to reach their own
conclusions,

“As a teacher, you don’t want to
give the students too many answers,”

he says. “Your role is to help students
organize their thinking. Give them
a structure, and make technology
available to help them come up with
their own solutions.” (Descriptions
of his WebQuests—ranging from
how a sextant works to investigating
Meriwether Lewis's death—are on-
line at wwwlewiston.k12.id.us/
sbranting/newport/home.htm.)

In his own career in the class-
room, Branting has honed his skills
at differentiating instruction. His
role as a consultant in the Lewiston
schools “is not just to help teach
gifted students,” he explains. “I’m
trying to enrich the program to
challenge all kids.” ‘foo many learn-
ing activities have a built-in ceiling,
he says. “They aren’t open-ended
enough.” His strategy is to set the
sky as the limit, so that students
ready to take off can do so. At the
same time, he makes minimum
expectations clear and also “high
enough” so that all students will
have to stretch to reach their goals.

‘TWo centuries ago, President
Jefferson sent the Corps of Discovery
west in pursuit of interesting ques-
tions: What's out there? What can
you learn about plants, animals,

_ people, rivers, resources? Today, says

Branting, every community can still
find good questions to investigate.
And in the pursuit of answers, stu-
dents will experience the thrill of
“learning all you can.”

THE ROAD AHEAD
As the Lewis and Clark Rediscovery

an

DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING

Project approaches its last year of
grant funding, participants are fo-
cusing on disseminating the lessons
they have learned. The lead teachers
are conducting inservice training
sessions for their local colleagues
and planning intensive summer
workshops. “The object is for teach-
ers to come in the door with a lesson
in mind and leave at the end of the
week with technology integrated
into that lesson to make it better,”
explains Keamey.

In addition, the Rediscovery Web
site (http://rediscoveryed.uidaho.
edu/) continues to expand with
classroom resources developed by
this 21st century corps of educators.
‘The site has become the gateway to
everything from photo libraries of
sites along the trail to community
stories documenting evidence of
change. Graduate-level courses are
available through a distance-leam-
ing arrangement with the University
of Idaho.

‘The big lessons leamed through
the Rediscovery Project will live on,
Keamey predicts. Every community
in the country has seen “an enor-
mous amount of local changes”
since the day when Lewis and Clark
first set their sights on the West.
“and looking at change offers an
interesting way to get kids focused
on using technology to help them
learn,” Keamey says. When you tum
kids loose with a good question and
the right tools, he adds, “they just
mow you out of the way.” 1]

173


Aerts ence (pots ra es apes ean @ Sram cease Nassar at Cererararat OND tarneteryy Set,

NW EDECATION / Fall 2002 38


and
in scien
d atmosphere

1,2) Teachers Tammerah Rob
Mark Ayers engage their stud
tific readings of the
‘of their neighboring

3) Students ¢ \d count macroinver-

es to gauge the health of Cut Bank

Creek.
4) “Learn to is the

Jennifer

counting macroinvertebrates. And
they go even farther, moving on to
identify the bigger critters: fish. They
leam to identify fish and their varied
adaptations and habitat. Each year,
the high point of the unit is tying
flies and goin’ fishin’.

“It's a great way to teach how
animals have adapted to the envi-
ronment,” says Ayers.
MEASURING
‘The technology training he's gotten
as part of the Rediscovery Project fits
neatly into the GLOBE work, says
Ayers. “It’s kept me fired up and
going with GLOBE. Basically it’s
given me resources, connections,
and knowledge to be a better science
and computer teacher. It's been awe-
some. The only reason I teach com-
puters is because of the information
that I've learned in the Rediscovery
Project,” he says.

Cut Bank and Shelby students
now hang some pretty impressive
techie skills from their technological
“tool belts,” They're mastering
Inspiration, Picture It, VR Works,
Internet, CD-ROMs, digital cameras,
clinometers, even global positioning
system (GPS) instruments.

BEST COPY AVAILABLE!

- | public TV and radio series on educa-

And they're famous, sort of. A

tional technology, called PT3 Now
(wwwpBnoworg/), taped Ayers’s
and Robertson's students one cold,
bright day as they fanned out across
the creek collecting data for GLOBE.
‘The video shows students as they
hold their scientific instruments
under the water and up into the
atmosphere—measuring, count-
ing, analyzing. Their faces are rosy,
yet furrowed with the concentration
of scientists.

Back in Shelby, Robertson’s stu-
dents also keep close tabs on the
atmosphere. They've set up their
weather station in the front yard
of the local judge’s house—pretty
much dissuading any ne’er-do-wells
from messing with it. Every day, they
troop across the street to read their
instruments and record air tempera-
ture, humidity, barometric pressure,
cloud cover, and precipitation, and
to chart daylight and darkness.

All this measuring and recording
is fun, says Justin, a student at
Shelby, but looking closely at how
the world works—uncovering its
secrets—can also be a little unnerv-
ing. “I've always wondered if the
earth hadn’t been invented,” he
muses, “what would be here? It just
feels weird. It kind of scares me.”

It was probably a bit scary, too,
for some young man in the Corps of
Discovery who, leaving familiarity
far behind, faced what was un-
known to him with only his courage,
skill, and technology of the day.

A day’s horse ride from
Camp Disappointment,
Lewis and his men had their
only fatal clash with Indians.
In a dawn skirmish over
horses and guns, Corps
members killed two Black-
feet men. Lewis's party
quickly struck camp and set
out by horseback across the
prairie, making a beeline for
their rendezvous with Clark
and the others at the conflu-
ence of the Missouri and
Yellowstone rivers.

In their hasty retreat, Lewis's
scouting party rode past what is
today the town of Conrad. At Utter-
back Middle School in Conrad, Jen-
nifer Schlepp is preparing for her
class of eighth-graders to arrive for
the aftemoon’s integrated technology
class. A math and science teacher,
Schlepp, like some of her partners in
the Rediscovery Project, has grown
into the role of technology teacher
as her own skills developed through
her work in the project.

Today, she’s honed a principle
that guides her teaching of technol-
ogy through project-based learning:
“leam to use, then use to learn.” At
each grade level, students extend

1

r9

their burgeoning technology skills

by working on projects that culmi-

nate with public presentations.
“Everything we do in technology

, | class is presentation based,” says

Schlep.

‘The progression goes something
like this: In sixth grade, students
learn the basics of Word and Inspi-
ration, a concept mapping program
(wwwinspiration.con/). Then, in
seventh grade, they expand their
proficiency in Word and Inspiration
and add to their repertoire ArcView,
an interactive mapping software
program (wwwesri.com/software/
arcview/). In eighth grade, they
expand their proficiency further in
Word, Inspiration, and ArcView, and
add the presentation software pro-
gram PowerPoint.

With each step in the progres-
sion, they're sharing their work with
other classmates by using the class-
room’s SmartBoard, an interactive
whiteboard that can be linked to a
computer, The screen of the Smart-
Board is sensitive to touch, so kids
can “click” on Web links as they
present their material at the front
of the room, or even write on the
screen with special styluses.

This year's eighth-graders
have undertaken a WebQuest that
Schlep has created for them called
“MemberQuest” (www.gtccmt.org/
webquests/jervtop.htm). The activity
is aligned with the learning objec-
tives of the Golden Triangle Cooper-
ative and Montana's state standards.

“You are the captains of the

DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING



8 DUC ATION

en 6 2 0 6 8

q
iT HIDDENDISNGIDMIN
zh Bright Ch é Stemuale Te Learn

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20

achieve their mainstream goals. But
when you have a kid who’s several
years behind, they can’t keep up, no
matter what, in that regular class-
room. I know from personal experi-
ence; I know because | hung out
with those kids growing up; | know
because I’ve been a professional in
the field for 15 years and I’ve read
tons about it. Full inclusion is inef-
fective for remediating basic skill
deficits. I can tell you that when a
kid is way behind in their skills in
reading and writing and general
knowledge, they're not going to be
able to keep up with their average
peers. It's embarrassing and frus-
trating for everyone—the student,
the teacher, the parents. Students
with severe learning disabilities
nearly always require intensive indi-
vidual or small-group instruction
for at least a portion of the day.
NW: Were there bright spots
in your school experience?
‘TIBBETTS: When I was in middle
school we moved from Beaverton to
Hillsboro (Oregon). It was a smaller
school, 400 kids, with a lot of really
great teachers. Although I wasn't
learning a lot of skills in reading
and math, I was gaining a lot of
knowledge. In high school, I got into
avocational program where I got
credit for work experience in a music
store selling band instruments. I
learned to play the guitar and got
into rock and roll; that gave me a

NW EDUCATION / Spring 2003

ton of confidence. | said to myself,
“If | can do ébis, | know I can do
other things.”
NW: You didn’t receive a high
school diploma, yet you went
to college. How did that come
about?
TIBBETTS: When high school was
over, I had this sense that, “Man, [
don’t want to be a loser.” I thought
about it for a year, and I knew I had
to do something. | knew the first
thing I had to do was Ieam to read.
So one day when I was 19, | got to-
gether with my aunt, who's « teacher,
and my dad, and I said, “I can't
read.” My aunt had a friend at Lewis
& Clark College, an instructor in the
school psychology program, who
evaluated me and diagnosed my
learning disability. She steered me to
Portland Community College, where
they had a specialist who was teach-
ing LD students to read, write, and
spell. I releamed all of the phonemes
from scratch. I worked hard at it—
man, I worked really hard. They met
with you every week, they phoned
you, they helped you get the credits
you needed. And wow, things just re-
ally started turning and really cruised
for me. | became independent very
quickly, within a year. I always made
sure I got an A or a B. I got enough
credits to go to a four-year university.
NW: Where did you go to
college?
TIBBETTS: | went to Southem

Oregon College (now Southem Ore-
gon State University). It was in the
early, early ’80s. I was, believe it or
not, one of the very first LD adults to
get to college and have advocacy
behind me. With my documented
leaming disability, | got accommo-
dations under the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act—extra
time for tests and assignments, more
attention from instructors. Mean-
while, the university started up a.
student disability union—back then,
they called it Handicapped Student
Services. | was hired to assist the di-
rector. | didn’t know anything about
computers when I started, but I
helped put together a computer lab
with Commodore 64s and in the
process learned to use the computer.
That's what really helped me get
through college.

NW: What are the most im-
portant skills that you strive
to impart to your LD students
at Beaumont?

TIBBETTS: The National Institutes
of Health research (see “Letting Kids’
Gifts Shine Through,” Page 22)
found that kids who have reading
difficulties don’t decode well. It's
hard for them to break words down
and link them up, chain them to-
gether. And you also need the ability
to think, not just call back facts from
the texts you've read. You have to

be able to use basic logic, induction,
deduction, inference. You have to be

149

able to categorize, draw analogies,
compare and contrast. You have to
apply temporal concepts, measure-
ment, math, and social skills, By far
the most phenomenal task the brain
does is to comprehend what you
read. You have all these different
brain centers going on simultane-
ously. But LD kids most likely don’t
have all those little filing cabinets in
their brain with labels like “tempo-
ral concepts—before, now, after” —
all the things that have to touch each
other. I have to teach the kids all that
stuff. I use the comprehension strand
of the Corrective Reading curriculum
called “Basic Thinking.”

NW: What do you like best
about working with LD kids?
TIBBETTS: | get my rewards by
seeing the little, teeny bits of progress
the kids make each day turn into big,
progress over time. Using this ap-
proach, and using it right, I've al-
most never had a kid who hasn’t
made good progress. (See the side-
bar on Page 21 for comments from
parents of Tibbetts’s students.) 0


Ri

NAT

t Under Their Noses

VE PLANTS IN THE SCHOOLYARD

From the humble blackberry to the lovely dogwood, plants prized by Native people and made famous
by Lewis and Clark draw these amateur ethnobotanists from their inner-city middle school.
STORY AND PHOTOS BY BRACKEN REED

PORTLAND, Oregon—Just out-
side the main entrance of Harriet
Tubman Middle School, students are
surveying the small garden of native
plants they helped bring to life. Judi
Lampi, the instructor of this after-
school ethnobotany class, gives her
students a lighthearted pop quiz as
they wander among the plants.
“What's this?” she challenges, bend-
ing down and running her hand
over a low-lying ground cover with
thick, dark-green leaves. “Kinnikin-
nick!” the students call out in
ragged unison, making this wonder-
ful word sound like a full marching
band of clashing consonants. Simi-
lar responses come with each new
challenge, the names of the plants
rolling off the students’ tongues, as
familiar now as the names of their
friends or the streets on which they
live: “Salal! Red cedar! Oregon
grape!”

From behind the building comes
the roiling hum of rush-hour traffic,
commuters heading home on Inter-
state 5, car tires making a steady,
tidal splash on the rain-slicked
highway. But here in front of the
school students are nose-to-needle,
finger-to-leaf with plants that Meri-
wether Lewis documented in his
journals nearly 200 years before;

plants that Native people named
and knew and relied on for ages be-
fore Lewis and Clark arrived. For an
hour a week, over the course of
many months, these students will
piece together a deeper understand-
ing of their region by looking at the
interrelationship of plant life and
human cultures, the intermingling.
of the ancient past and the dizzying
present.

TEACHING YOUR PASSION

For teacher Judi Lampi, helping stu-
dents discover the beauty and com-
plexity of their home place is a
natural extension of her own child-
hood. “My great-grandparents
homesteaded near Astoria,” she
says, “not that far from Fort Clat-
sop,” where Lewis and William
Clark’s Corps of Discovery wintered
near the coast. “I grew up in Port-
land, but my extended family was
still there, so I spent a lot of time
there as a kid. I've heard about the
Lewis and Clark story all my life.”
Her interest in the native flora of the
region has similar roots in child-
hood, she says. “My grandfather was
a logger and also a great lover of
nature—he knew all the trees and
plants. He used to take me on walks
in the woods and point out every-

DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING

thing to me, tell me the names. He
taught me a love of the outdoors
and a respect for the plants.”

For more than a decade, Lampi
has combined these lifelong inter-
ests in her ethnobotany class at Tub-
man. A mixed-age, mixed-ability
class, it has been offered as a regular
school day elective or as an after-
school program, depending on the
funding available. The class is a
perfect fit at Tubman, an ethnically
diverse, 6-8, Title I school that is
one of three health sciences/biotech-
nology magnet schools in the dis-
trict. “IL fits well with the overall
focus of the school,” says Lampi.
“There's a strong technology com-
ponent and we study the medicinal
uses of the plants, which link di-
rectly to subjects like pharmacology,
biology, health, and environmental
studies. And it also appeals to a lot of
different leaming styles and back-
grounds. Going outside and leam-
ing about plants is fun. I haven't
met a kid yet who doesn’t love it.”

Now being offered as an after-
school program, the class is not
graded, but students are held to
high standards. Lampi brings pas-
sion and dedication to the subject
and she expects the same from her
students. Each prospective class

413i

member must write an essay ex-
plaining why he or she wants to
leam about this subject. Enrollment
is kept to a maximum of 20, ensur-
ing a lot of one-to-one attention,
and students are expected to com-
plete all assignments and keep regu-
lar attendance or they are not
allowed to go on field trips.

The combination of a com-
pelling subject with local relevance
and a committed, enthusiastic
teacher has attracted a lot of outside
interest and support over the years.
‘The class has benefited from several
grants and community partner-
ships, including Options in Science
grants, the present Lewis and Clark
Rediscovery Project grant, and col-
laborations with Portland State Uni-
versity, Oregon Health & Science
University, and the Waters Founda-
tion. In addition, many volunteers,
both individuals and organiza-
tions—some who are fascinated
with the Lewis and Clark story, oth-
ers who are dedicated to native
plants and the environment—have
rallied around the class.

Friends of Trees, a Portland non-
profit organization, was a major
help in creating the urban'green
space of native plants that provides
such an inviting presence at the


Learning to write
is a lesson that
lasts a lifetime.
But what brings
out the best in

young wri

IZIE BOSS
Photo by
DENISE JARRETT WEEKS



Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory

101 SW MAIN ST., STE. 500
PORTLAND, OR 97204
503-275-9500

WWW.NWREL.ORG.

EDUCATION



inspired to record Flat Kirsten’s ad-
ventures not only in writing, but
with a camera as well; they sent this
documentation with their flat friend
when it was time for her to be mailed
back home. The experience was such
fun for the students that Mendoza
decided to integrate the project into
an interdisciplinary study of Pacific
Rim cultures, incorporating learn-
ing goals in both language arts and
social studies.

After creating paper representa-
tions of themselves, Mendoza’s
students set about writing the all-
important letters that would accom-
pany their flat alter-identities on
their journeys, introducing them to
their hosts and asking for the kind
of information that would make
their study of Pacific Rim cultures
come alive. For third-graders, this
involved such basics as leaming how
to write in correct letter format and
how to address an envelope. It also
included learning the nuances of ef-
fective communication, including,

such things as how to target writing

NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002

to a particular audience and how to
include details to make writing more
engaging, The writing process in-
cluded creating multiple drafts, un-
dergoing peer and teacher reviews,
and revising and editing work until
a final, polished letter was ready to
be mailed.

“We discussed what constitutes a
quality letter,” says Mendoza, “and
put the standard on a chart” for
easy reference, The list included re-
minders to make good use of para-
graphs, pay attention to spelling and
punctuation, and employ descriptive
language. Mendoza also provided
examples and modeled writing a let-
ter to guide her students through the
process. “Make your writing matter,”
Mendoza told her students. “Make
it something someone will want to
read.”

Because students could see the
real-world value of the assignment
(after all, a good letter would be
more likely to elicit the kind of re-
sponse they desired), they took the
assignment seriously.

“We started with our ‘sloppy

Copy,
Chelsea, “and then looked at punc-

explains nine-year-old

tuation and spelling and if we
needed to add anything to make it
make sense. | tried to make mine as
good as possible—I did, like, four
drafts to get it perfect.”

“Tn my first draft,” says class-
mate Sasha, “I wrote too much stuff
and misspelled things and was miss-
ing punctuation, but now I write
much better letters.” For example,
Sasha notes, “Instead of just saying,
‘She likes something,’ Mrs. Men-
doza helped me put better words,
like ‘She loves doing this and does
it all the time.’ It makes the person
who's reading it really understand
I think | put more details into my
work now.”

In addition to sharing some-
thing about themselves and where
they were from, students wanted to
be sure that their hosts would send
back information about their own
life experiences and culture. To help
her students learn to ask effective

80

questions, Mendoza showed her stu-
dents a video on cultures around the
world and engaged them in a dis-
cussion of what cultural elements
they might be interested in learning
more about—for instance, infor-
mation on the food and clothing of
acountry or how the arts might be
celebrated. Mendoza says, ‘‘I seed
the conversation by asking the kinds
of questions that help students learn
about another culture.”

Once their letters were finished
and their flat people tucked safely
inside, students walked their en-
velopes to the school office to mail
them to distant lands. Flat Sasha set
off for Japan. Flat Nicholas flew to
the Philippines. Flat Chelsea was on
her way to Alaska.

And then the students waited.

While not everyone got a re-
sponse in the ensuing weeks, Men-
doza reports, the majority did. And
of those returning envelopes, Men-
doza says, “Wow! Kids got back
photos and memorabilia with won-
derful letters and stories” of each


Or. Brian McNeill
Chair, Diversity and Faculty of Color
Committees
College of Education
ashingion State University

TEACHING TO THE RAINBOW

Washington State
University plays a
leading role in grooming
new teachers to work
with kids of color

We at the College of Education at
Washington State University are
firmly committed to issues of
cultural and individual diversity.
This commitment is reflected in
the activities and policies of our
Diversity and Faculty of Color
Committees, dedicated to provid-
ing leadership in improving the
educational experiences and
outcomes of traditionally under-
served populations both in the
state of Washington and
nationwide.

‘Within a College of Education,
work related to diversity is such
an important part of what we
do—perhaps the very most im-

oe portant part,” says College of

NW EDUCATION / Fall 2002


‘ASPECIAL SECTION FROM:

Section Ecitor:
Suzie Boss

Contributing Writers:
Denise Jarrett Weeks, Catherine Paglin

Graphic Production:
Denise Crabtree

Graphic Design:
Dan Stephens

Techical Editing
Eugenie Cooper Poter

15

SPECIAL SECTION:
6+1 Traits of Writing Assessment

ARTICLES

On the Same Page

The Vanguards work to maintain consistency of the model
and share ideas about what works

Serving Diverse Audiences

The Indiana School for the Deaf adapts the model for the needs
of its students.

Wishing on a Star
In Anchorage, Alaska, a school facing a host of challenges works
to build writing skills, and so much more.

Products To Guide
the Writing Process

The family of resources continues to grow. What's new? And what's
withstood the test of time?

98


t he research
is clear: Rigorous
standards, associ-
ated with frequent
assessment and
other effective
techniques, allow
students from
every economic
and ethnic back-
ground to suc-
ceed. These
techniques, along
with effective
teachers, moti-
vated students,
and comprehen
sive accountabil-
ity, provide the
intersection be-
tween equity and
excellence.
—Douglas
Reeves, Center
for Performance
Assessment,
2000 (} {|

Urban Education: A Study of Nine High-Performing,
High-Poverty, Urban Elementary Schools. All nine used
federal Title | dollars to create Title I schoolwide programs.
All the programs differed. But what stuck out was their
uniform passion for the work at hand.

In their report, the researchers laud the tenacity of these
dedicated professionals:

“None of the principals and none of the teachers in-
terviewed reported that the transformation of their school
was easy. In fact, there were many reports of difficulties,
challenges, and frustrations. Perhaps, a key difference he-
tween these schools and other less successful schools is
that educators in these schools persisted. They refused to
give up the dream of academic success .... Perhaps, the
persistence of school leaders was influenced primarily by
their deep commitment to the students and families they
served, They perceived their work, less as a job, more as
a mission. They persisted because they believed in them-
selves, they believed in their school staffs, and they believed
in the ability of the children to succeed.” Il

CLOSING THE GAP”


hhas spawned

his trio of globe
Flat People” from Captain
Charles Wilkes Elementary
Schoo! on Bainbridge Islnd

flat person’s adventures. The stu-
dents mounted this material on dis-
play boards and made presentations
to their classmates

Ayear later, students are still
talking about each other's presenta-
tions. Jaimie remembers Michael's
presentation on Thailand, complete
with photos of colorful papier-maché
dragons in red and green and gold
parading down the streets. Sasha
was astounded by Nicholas’s Philip-
pine Island photographs of an ex-
otic market where vegetables were
stacked beneath strings of “fish and
dead pigs hanging and all sorts of
strange meats.”

“Twas really overwhelmed,” says
Mendoza, regarding the quality of
the work throughout the project.
“High motivation equals quality
products,” she explains. Students
were so excited about the project that
they were willing to do the work,

“We learned so much from this
project,” Mendoza says. For starters,
“the kids’ writing improved because
they were held to high expectations.”

“If you take the time to look at a
project like Flat Stanley, “ Mendoza
says, “you can make the project
work for you and see how it can be
tailored to meet EALRs {Essential
Academic Learning Requirements
the Washington state standards).”
In this case, she says, “there were
EALRs met up and down the ladder.”
Mischelle Bain, a third-grade
teacher at Kasuun Elementary in
Anchorage, Alaska, agrees that the
Flat Stanley Project is “a great way
to meet curriculum requirements.”
She has found ways to address
Jearning goals in language arts and
social studies, and even in math and
geography. For example, in math,
students calculate the distance that
their flat people have traveled to.
reach other destinations and the
distance that other children’s flat
people have traveled to reach their
classroom in Alaska. To reinforce
geography lessons, students mark
these journeys on a large bulletin
board map with pins and color-

coded string so that they can keep
track of their own traveling flat peo-
ple as well as those visiting from afar.
‘To address language arts and
social studies learning goals, Bain
follows an approach similar to Men-
doza’s. Her students take part in a
writing process, preparing multiple
drafts with both peer and teacher re-
views, and asking probing questions
to leam about how people in differ-
ent places live. Since Bain’s project
is not tied to a specific geographic
region, her students are free to send
their flat people wherever they'd like
—to friends or relatives, for exam-
ple, or to another classroom in the
United States or another country.
Writing for an audience has
given purpose to the process of
learning to write, Bain says. “Stu-
dents are interacting with people in-
stead of with an English book,” she
explains. “They're not just formu-
lating a sentence to write a better
sentence; it's for a purpose. This re-
ally makes connections for students.”
Additionally, the practice of

81

writing for different audiences elicits
a different response from students.
Bain says this provides good practice
in the difference between public and
private writing. “If students are writ-
ing to another classroom,” she says,
“the letter is more formal. If they're
writing to Grandma, it’s more per-
sonal. Kids are more serious about
itwhen it’s going to another class-
room,” she says, whereas “Grandma
probably wouldn't critique it.”

From a social studies standpoint,
Bain says the project has been en-
lightening for her students. Because
many of these pupils come from
poor economic backgrounds, they
have few opportunities for travel.
This project allows them to learn
about places far from home, includ-
ing the lower 48. Bain smiles when
she shares the story of one student
who wanted to send his flat person
way down south to Texas, but wanted
to know if they spoke English there.
“The project broadens their hori-
zons,” she says.

‘The trip to Anchorage is also

FOCUS ON WRITING


f Each of us is like a tree,
and what we encounter
in life—our experiences
and so forth—yields

fruit.J J

Summarizing statistical data for the
math portion of the project was sim-
ilarly vexing. But students rose to the
challenge and created a body of work
in which both teachers and students
could take pride.

Clearly, the Nikiski project rein-
forces the value of authentic work
for engaging students, “I don’t think
kids are used to doing sophisticated,

complex, professional work in

school,” says Christian. Through
projects like this, students are moti-
vated to learn because they have a
real purpose. He adds: “Middle
school students can smell B.S. a
mile away. Their mantra at this age
is, ‘Why are we doing this?” They
want to know what value an assign-
ment has in the real world. The
Nikiski project, which provided the
community with the first written
history of the area, gave them a job
with real-world value. The book was
not only distributed among the stu-
dents and their families, but was
also made available for sale to the
public via the local post office and

bookstore. No doubt, it will serve as
avaluable resource for generations
to come.

Christian reports that the publi-
cation of Away From Almost
Everything Else was ‘‘a great way
to celebrate student work,” as well
as an effective motivator that
“helped them take their work to
another level.”

As important, the project helped
these teens gain a sense of pride in
their community. The process helped
them to see that “there was real his-
tory right here,” Christian says, “and
that where they lived was pretty cool
after all.”

RIDING

“LA ALFOMBRA
MAGICA”

ESL STUDENTS
EXPLORE THEIR
ROOTS THROUGH
WRITING

By JOYCE RIHA LINIK

MEDFORD, Oregon—With legs
crossed and arms loosely folded, 23
seven- to nine-year-olds settle on “la
alfombra magica,” ready to travel
wherever teacher JoAnna Lovato
might be steering them today, Their
“magic carpet,” bright with primary
colors, is always fueled up and ready
to go. From the front of their class-
room, these students journey
through stories to places where their
family roots run deep—countries
like Mexico, the Dominican Repub-
lic, Guatemala, and Colombia—
and then back to this country where
their lives now branch out.

The magic carpet seems the per-
fect imaginary transport for these
children, all native Spanish speakers,

87

FOCUS ON WRITING

who are part of Lovato's bilingual
class at Wilson Elementary. One of *
her objectives is to teach these sec-
ond- and third-graders to read and
write in their native language first,
and then help them transfer these
skills to English. This approach bet-
ter enables them to one day become
bilingual adults who have retained
ties to their cultural heritage, at-
tained fluency in two languages,
and leamed to navigate successfully
in American culture.

Instead of seeing her students’
sociolinguistic background as a bar-
rier to instruction, Lovato celebrates
itand uses it to forward her students’
education in not just one, but two
languages. “The stronger the liter-
acy foundation they have in their
first language,” says Lovato, “the
more they will have to transfer over
to English, as supported by re-
search.” She adds: “Building a
strong literacy foundation in my
students’ first language helps ensure
academic success and heightened
self-esteem.” In short, she argues, it


Ob Until many
more students
from these under-
represented
groups become
high achievers,

it will be virtually
impossible to in-
tegrate completely
the professional
and leadership
ranks of our
society.
—National Task
Force on Minority

High Achieve-
ment, 1999 0) C)

Assessment in the 2000 publication, Accountability in
Action: A Blueprint for Learning Organizations.

But research is beginning to cut holes in long-held no-
tions that schools have no power to overcome the dis-
advantages of home and neighborhood. The new thinking
holds that students should be viewed not as burdened by
deficiencies but as blessed by possibilities —that all chil-
dren possess cultural, familial, and personal strengths
upon which schools can build.

“A decade ago,” says Haycock, “we believed that what
students learned was largely a factor of their family income
or parental education, not of what schools did. But recent
research has turned these assumptions upside down.
What schools do matters enormously.”

As executive director of the Education Trust, a non-
partisan organization advocating for poor and minority
kids, Haycock oversaw a 2001 study to find high-per-
forming schools in traditionally low-performing neigh-
borhoods. The nationwide analysis, Dispelling the Myth
Revisited, turned up 2,305 schools with at least 50 per-
cent black or Hispanic students that scored among the top
one-third of schools on statewide math and reading tests.

Other research endeavors reinforce the finding that mi-
nority students, and the schools they attend, can and do
excel. A U.S. Department of Education study in 1999, for
example, closely examined nine urban elementary schools
serving kids of color in poor neighborhoods that are
achieving impressive results—schools that are, in fact,
reaching higher levels of achievement than most schools
in their states or in the nation, Another study, this one con-
ducted by the Center for Performance Assessment, looked
at 135 “90/90/90 schools’—those with the following
characteristics: More than 90 percent of the students re-
ceive free or reduced-price lunch, are etlnic minorities,
and achieve high academic standards.

These studies, Haycock says, shatter the “creeping
malaise” that has infected the educational system.

“Somewhere along the line somebody decided that
poor kids couldn't learn, or, at least, not at a very high

9

level—and everybody fell in line,” she says. “But the
truth is actually quite different. Some poor children have
always learned to high levels, and some whole schools get
all of their children to levels reached by only a few stu-
dents in other schools.”

BUCKING CONVENTIONAL
WISDOM

The evidence is in—it can be done. The question is,
How? There is no easy answer to this most critical of ques-
tions—no silver bullet, no one-shot training, no canned
curriculum, no proven formula. But in a survey explor-
ing the strategies of 366 top-notch schools from 21 states
that had bucked conventional wisdom, Haycock’s think
tank found one dominant theme: an intense focus on “high
academic expectations” for their students. In Dispelling
the Myth: High Poverty Schools Exceeding Expecta-
tions, the Education Trust and the Council of Chief State
School Officers report that these exemplary schools suc-
ceeded, despite poverty, by:

Using state standards extensively to design cur-
riculum and instruction, assess student work, and.
evaluate teachers. Fully 80 percent of the schools re-
ported using standards to design instruction. Similarly, the
successful schools in this study were using standards to
assess student work and evaluate teachers.

* Increasing instructional time in reading and
math in order to help students meet standards. A
78 percent majority of the schools reported providing ex-
tended learning time for their students. This time was pri-
marily focused on reading and math.

 Devoting a larger proportion of funds to support
professional development focused on changing
instructional practice. Changes in the 1994 law require
schools to provide for thorough professional development
for teachers in high-poverty schools. The schools in this
study seem to be moving faster than their less successful
counterparts to comply with this provision. As important

CLOSING THE GAP


a light bulb labeled “Bright Ideas!”, an
eraser labeled “Correct Conventions,”
and a dictionary labeled “Wonderful
Word Choice” call out the trait in which
a particular student work excels.

Teachers can keep the model upper-
most in their students’ minds with the
“Traits of Good Writing” bulletin board
set. The set includes a checklist for each
trait, blank charts for brainstorming, a
6+1 Trait poster, a large pencil charac-
ter for drawing attention to student work,
and a bulletin board header.

Sticky notes are a fixture on desktops
everywhere. Now, they are even more
indispensable to teachers with the avail-
ability of 6+1 Trait sticky notes in sev-
eral handy forms: a revision checklist,
an editing checklist, a scoring guide
with room for comments, and a “Think
About Your Writing” notepad with room
for teacher comments or student self-
evaluation.

NWREL produces several writing as-
sessment posters for different audiences:
one for the primary classroom, one for
the upper elementary grades, one with
the Spanish 641 Trails, and a seven-
poster set for middle and high school
classrooms.

The seven posters in the middle and
high school set form the exclamation
“Writel” when hung in sequence. In
these posters, each trait—sound ideas,
good organization, individual voice,
powerlul words, smooth fluency, and
correct conventions—expresses its
characteristics through both words and
graphic design. The words in the poster
for “smooth fluency,” for example, form
a graceful spiral: “My sentences begin

6+1 TRAITS,

in different ways. Some sentences are
short and some are long. It just sounds
good as | read it aloud—it flows. My
sentences have power and punch. | have
“sentence sense.”

‘What new classroom aids, instruc-
tional materials, books, videotapes, and
publishing partnerships lie in the future?
One thing is certain. Whatever they are
and however popular they prove to be,
their raison détre is not someone's
desire to sell a million widgets, but the
needs and requests of teachers and stu-
dents. “Teachers and kids first—prod-
ucts second,” says Culham.

For ordering information, see the
NWREL Products Catalog Online,
www.nwrel.org/comm/catalog/, or
call 1-800-547-6339, ext. 519.0

fee

A Handbook fo Patent of

17


Young and old were
working together,
creating something
real and important. 9 9

foods—were trucked in along the
beach. The same truck would then
be filled with fish to head back to
the canneries.

‘These stories would likely be lost
if not for a recent eighth-grade proj-
ect at Nikiski Middle School. The
interdisciplinary project—bridging

social studies, language arts, science,

and math—focused on the local
community as a subject of inquiry.
The effort, aligned with state and
district learning goals, involved
weaving writing throughout the
curriculum and including action
research as part of the writing pro-
cess. Students assumed roles of his-
torians, writers, scientists, and
Statisticians, working on projects
ranging from recording oral histo-
ries and composing poetry to prepar-
ing scientific field reports and
summarizing mathematical studies.
The culmination of the project was
a 70-page book written by the stu-
dents for and about the community:
Away From Almost Anything Else:
An Interdisciplinary Study of

Nikiski.

‘The community seemed like the
ideal subject for the interdisciplinary
study, says Scott Christian, the En-
glish teacher who oversaw the proj-
ect, For starters, students didn’t know
much about the history of their
community. And while all took part
in outdoor activities, most had never
stopped to ponder the natural trea-
sures that surrounded them. What
they saw as teens, many of whom
had lived in Alaska all of their life,
was a small, rural town in the mid-
dle of nowhere where nothing much
was happening. “The students had
areal chip on their shoulders,” says
Christian, now the director of the
Professional Development Center at
the University of Alaska Southeast
in Juneau. “Students thought that
places like California and New York
were cool, but where they lived was
boring.”

‘Teachers saw the community
study as an opportunity for students
to learn about the heritage of their

unique town and gain some appre-

ciation for the environment in
which they lived. Because teachers
had already been engaged in an ef-
fort to create a community of learn-
ers, they saw a prime opportunity

in a project that would involve com-
munity members, young and old,
in a joint effort to preserve a bit of
Nikiski’s heritage.

‘The first part of the project in-
volved preserving the oral histories
of notable residents. Many students
sought out original homesteaders,
often a grandparent or neighbor. In-
terview topics included such subjects
as reasons for moving to Alaska, in-
cluding jobs, love, and adventure;
the challenges of early homestead-
ing; natural events affecting the area,
such as the devastating earthquake
of 1964, blizzards, and drought; and
shifting employment opportunities,
including the shift from commer-
cial fishing in the early days to oil
drilling and production in more re-
cent times, Additionally, as eighth-
grader Mario noted while recording
the oral history of an early home-

85

steader, “Almost any sourdough in
Alaska has one or two bear stories to
tell ....” This claim is bome out in
numerous accounts of interactions
with “brownies,”as well as confronta-
tions with others of the four-footed
variety, including porcupines hiding
in outhouses, squirrels invading
cabins, and stubborn moose block-
ing trails. Students were as happy
to hear and record these stories as
their elders were to share them.

‘An important byproduct of
these interviews was the genera-
tional interaction that cannot be
achieved by field trips to the senior
citizens’ center for Christmas carols.
Here, the young and old were work-
ing together, creating something real
and important,” Christian writes
in Writing To Make a Difference:
Classroom Projects for Community
Change, a book he co-edited with
Chris Benson. “Time after time,”
he adds, “the interviewees expressed
how delightful it was to sit down and
have a meaningful conversation
with a teenager.” Christian asserts

FOCUS ON WRITING


io
Stevenson and Woodburn high
schools are examples of two settings
where teachers are breaking away
from traditional instruction about
Lewis and Clark. For decades, the
history of Lewis and Clark has been
the domain of fourth-grade or mid-
dle school teachers. But high schoo!
teachers are aiso engaging their
older students in the rich learning
Opportunities that are present in the
Lewis and Clark stories.
Indeed, the fact that there are mullti-
ple stories surrounding the historical
event of the Corps of Discovery is a
theme of study at Stevenson High
School in Washington (see story
on Page 26) and Woodburn High
School in Oregon. Teachers at these
schools point out that the 50 or more
Native tribes that encountered Lewis
and Clark and the other Corps mem-
bers weren't waiting around for
someone to “discover” them. They
had been living successfully in com-
plex, self-sustaining societies for
millennia before the introduction of
white settlers and their diseases. In
fact, the Columbia and Willamette
rivers were heavily-traveled water-
ways for Native people. Today's State
Highway 14 that leads to Stevenson
and Interstate 5 to Woodburn trace
overland trails used by Chinook and
Kalapooya Indians.
Both high schools are also demon-
strating the power of studying Amer-
ican history through experiential
learning. They've created entire
courses based on the study of the

EIatIENUAUC
Lewis and Clark expedition, and
many features of these courses align
with those recommended by national
planners for the Lewis & Clark Bi-
centennial. The planners suggest
that schools help students see the
multiple stories of this historic event
in four dimensions:
1. What the world was like
in pre-recorded history
2. What happened during Lewis
and Clark's journey
3.What has happened in the
200 years since
4, That students today are the nation’s
future explorers who will help
achieve breakthroughs in human
relations, science, music, art,
communication, and technology
Ask any student in a Lewis and
Clark course at Stevenson or Wood-
burn what he or she likes most, and
it’s likely to be the hands-on activi-
ties, teamwork, accountability for
results, and indepth exposure to
Meaningful knowledge. Students in
both schools say they appreciate not
being in “just another class with lec-
tures and videos,” though they also
see how such basic skills as read-
ing, writing, and computation were
essential to expedition members’
daily survival. Being able to “live”
history by seeing the actual places
where events occurred—thus, get-
ting a personel taste of what it might
have been like—is a powerful way
to learn about their nation’s history,
they say.
—tarry McClure

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

off most teachers and administra-
tors. With the full support of Princi-
pal Laura Lanka, however, Ellingson
launched the new class in January
2002, barely keeping ahead of the
students with his own independent
reading and research. Calling on
help from Oregon members of the
Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foun-
dation, Ellingson found people
willing to suggest ideas, share
materials, and open doors.

“Before this class | knew who
Lewis and Clark were, but I didn’t
really know what significance they
had to this country and to history,”
said Puente, a senior. “Reading their
journals was a big part in this class,
and I leamed many things that way.”

As at Stevenson High School (see
story on Page 26), Ellingson asked
his students this year to prove what
they'd learned by preparing chil-
dren’s books on the Corps of Discov-
ery and then reading their stories to
elementary school students. Michael
Hemshorn, who graduates this
spring, says the best part of this re-
search and writing project was being
viewed as an expert on Lewis and
Clark in the eyes of the younger kids.
“It was fun being able to answer
their questions,” says Hemshom. He
says he would like to study biology
and history in college.

192

Right from the beginning, stu-
dents go on field trips and camping
expeditions, important supplements
to classroom and laboratory work.
Students conduct studies along the
Columbia River Gorge, at Fort Clat-
sop, and nearby historic sites at St.
Paul (a little-known grave site of a
French-Canadian boatman hired to
bring the Corps of Discovery's keel-
boat and first scientific collections
back to Jefferson from present-day
North Dakota), a natural history
museum at Mt. Angel Seminary, as
well as local seed processing plants
and the city’s waste recovery center.

GETTING THEIR HANDS
“DIRTY”

Ellingson believes both science and
history instruction can be enhanced
with hands-on leaming experiences.
Despite the fact that most of the
young women and men in that first
class had never camped out in their
lives, on a spring day in 2002, they
loaded into a school bus with teach-
ers and parent volunteers, bound to
learn how to cook over open fires
and spend a cold, windy night in
the Columbia River Gorge. The next
morning, before returning to town,
they traveled to the Columbia Gorge
Discovery Center in The Dalles to
hear famed Lewis and Clark archae-
ologist Ken Karsmizki describe his
quests.

NW EDUCATION / Summer 2003


child's language skills, but they let the
child know that it matters what she
thinks. Thal validation can be power-
fully motivating to a student who's,
grappling to master a new language and
fil into a new culture. Teachers can also
help her bridge her home life with
school, says Culham, by asking such
things as: “What are your jobs at home?”
and “What's the first thing you do when
you get home?”

“These are all very tangible ideas
about their lives” that they can draw on
as they develop English language skills.
As teachers, says Culham, “we've got to
get inside these kids’ experiences.”
OUT OF THIS WORLD
What did you do on your summer vaca-
tion? I's a timeless back-to-schoot
writing prompt that brings forth pencil-
smudged papers on visits to Disney-
land and camping trips. But what do
you write about if you've never been on
a family vacation? Or if you've barely
been to school? How do you write about
your life when it seems to differ in every
way from the stories your classmates
are telling?

Teacher Peggy Brannon had to ask
herself these questions the first fall she
taught at North Star Elementary. The
writing exercise was a perennial hit at
her previous school in relatively affluent
South Anchorage, but her fourth-graders
at North Star looked at her as if she had
two heads,

“Itwent over like a lead balloon,”
Brannon recalls. “Most of the kids had
never been out of Anchorage,” much
less on a grand vacation. The majority
of her students were learning English

641 TRAITS

for the first time, 13 had learning dis-
abilities, and some were living in
homeless shelters.

Sometimes, simply creating an expe-
rience in the classroom becomes grist
for storytelling. Last year, Brannon
piqued her students’ storytelling in-
stincts by delighting them with theatrics.
She came to class one morning as “Lucy
Mae,” costumed as a Southern belie
with a hal, smile, and drawl wide enough
for the Kentucky Derby.

“One of the writing lessons is on
providing details, so | asked them to
describe Lucy Mae. | told them, don't
just say she wore a hat. Describe what
kind of hat, with what kind of flower and
feathers. Some created a whole world
for her. Their writing became very de-
scriptive, even if they only wrote a few
lines.”

Lucy Mae's slow stroll into the class~
room “was a very big deal to them,”
Brannon says with a laugh, and it in-
spired them to make some “spectacular”
word choices. “One student wrote that
Lucy Mae ‘sauntered’ into the room, so,
sooner or later, everyone's characters
were sauntering and sashaying into the
foom.”

Reading and writing “takes them
‘out of their world,” she says, even when
they're writing about that world. From
an outside-looking-in vantage point,
they can see the possibility of escape
toa brighter future. Well, to a teacher,
nothing tops that. It's what keeps Bran-
‘non coming back to these students, to
throw them a lifeline out of the deep
well of isolation.

“The six-traits writing just did it for

me. It makes it so easy to explain to
students what good writing looks like,”
says Brannon. Having yet to teach the
same grade level twice, Brannon has
found it invaluable that, at every grade
level, North Star students learn about
the six traits of writing. Students be-
‘come savvy users of the traits, she says,
able to tell anyone, for example, that
sentence fluency is when “words flow
‘on the page” or that focused ideas will
grip the reader's attention

Sometimes, she writes along with
her students to a writing prompt, inten-
tionally crafting a boring opening or
making a couple of common writing
errors. “That helps more than anything
to say, ‘Here's my story. What do you
think?” she says.

Last year, Brannon co-taught a
blended fourth- and fifth-grade class.
with another teacher, They each would
write along to prompts, beautifully il-
lustrating how two very different pieces
of writing can both be successful. “Our
writing was completely different, and
the kids could see our different styles
and see, ‘Oh, | don't have to write like
everyone else.”

Using money from a grant, North Star
has ought scores of children’s books.
that exemplify the traits of good writing.
Brannon and several other teachers kept
track of the books they selected for each
lesson in a particular trait, and placed
their lesson plans and matching book
titles together in folders in one of the li-
brary's filing cabinets for others to use.
‘She dipped liberally into that treasure
trove herself.

“Every single one of those lessons

M14

has worked like a charm,” she says.

The school also bought a number of
books from a series that connects math
and {iterature. The series groups litera
ture books by math concept and grade
level and, as teachers use the books in
their classrooms, they file their lesson
plans in the library for others to use, too.

In fact, Moulton and her staff feel the
time is right to shift their schoolwide
focus to math, particularly teaching kids
how to bring their writing skills to math
problem solving.

“It's crucial to make connections be-
tween math and writing” in the class-
room, says Amy Lyman, because in
problem solving, “you don't just write
down the answer as ‘11,’ you explain
why your answer is ‘11.”"

THE GREATEST GIFT

For children whose lives have been dis-
connected in one way or another, writ-
ing can be a through-line that connects.
their inner and public lives, their under-
standing of the world with new knowl-
edge, their individualism with identity.
So when Ruth Culham asks the teach-
ers in her workshop on that fall day in
Anchorage, “Literacy, is there a greater
gift you can give someone?”, the ques-
tion rings true.

Enrique Quintero hadn't planned to
be a teacher. Rather, he'd prepared to
be a sociologist with hopes of changing
the world. But here, giving the gift of
literacy, he may be making the biggest
difference of all. “It is an honorable pro-
fession. \t is a profession that denies
you certain kinds of satisfactions, but
gives you other ones,” he says. “I feel
good about what | do.” 0

13


36

THE TESTING TRAP: How State
Writing Assessments Control
Learning by George Hillacks Jr.
(2002, Teachers College Press):
This provocative new book froma
longtime researcher on writing in-
struction takes an indepth look at
writing assessments in five states:
Illinois, Kentucky, New York, Ore-
gon, and Texas. Hillocks starts from
the premise that writing is not a lin-
ear proposition but rather a recur-
sive process of refining ideas. In
his view, the writer moves not ina
Straight line from start to finish but
rather cycles back to make revi-
sions and improvements that in-
corporate additional ideas, data,
or analysis discovered through the
writing process. The strategies of
inquiry, he suggests, “are the same
strategies that writers need in pro-
ducing the content of writing.”
Hillocks suggests that effective
writing assessments encourage
students’ development as writers
rather than restricting their work to
formulaic, five-paragraph essays
that must be produced without ade-
quate time for revision. Kentucky's
use of a writing portfolio for as-
sessment provides “a model for
imitation. It avoids the formulaic.
treats writing as a meaningful and
serious pursuit for students, en-
genders a rich writing program,
and provides for the professional
development of teachers who must
do far more than teach students to
fill out schematic diagrams.”
Oregon's writing assessment also
Teceives praise for including a vari-
ety of writing styles, including nar-
fative, imaginative, expository, and
persuasive. Such variety “signals
aricher, more diverse writing pro-
gram,” Hillocks concludes. Oregon
also includes voice as an element
worth scoring, another factor that
guards against formulaic writing.

IN THE LIBRARY

Essential

Ingredients ©

Hillocks concludes with sugges-
tions for improving writing instruc-
tion by providing adequate time and
resources for teachers to teach
writing well.

WRITING TO MAKE A DIFFER-
ENCE: Classroom Projects for
Community Change, edited by
Chris Benson, Scott Christian,
Dixie Goswami, and Walter Gooch
(Teachers College Press, 2002):
Many teachers have noticed that
students are motivated to write well
when they know their words will
reach an audience beyond the
classroom. This new book goes
deeper with the idea of writing for
the community. Chapters describe
projects—including some from the
Northwest region—that engage
students in community research as
the starting point for writing. The
writing process expands in such

NW Education / Winter 2002

:)
D

for

id
Teaching
JS

Writing

projects to include the step of field-
testing. Field-tests show students
how readers actually use their doc-
ument. This feedback guides revi-
sion to create a more effective piece
of writing,

Editor Chris Benson suggests
that writing for the community has
an additional benefit beyond encour-
aging good writing: ‘This method
gives students a voice in their com-
munity. ... Writing is the motor that
pushes activism and advocacy.
Without articulate writing or speak-
ing, activism and advocacy amount
to no more than wish-making.”

96

ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS:
Recipes for Teaching Writing by
Sandra Worsham (Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Devel-
opment, 2001): Award-winning
teacher Sandra Worsham makes a
powerful case for teaching young
writers to appeal to the senses,
make use of their sense of place,
draw on their memories and per-
sonal stories, and be willing to ex-
periment with new approaches to
make writing better. She follows
her own advice in Essential Ingre-
dients, which weaves together
classroom-tested advice about
writing instruction with stories (and
recipes) Worsham remembers from
her mother’s kitchen. Along with
ideas for writing assignments and
many examples of student writing,
she includes a chapter on creating
a Classroom atmosphere that's
“right for writing.”

CRAFT LESSONS: Teaching
Writing K-8 by Ralph Fletcher and
Joann Portalupi (Stenhouse, 1998).
A perennial favorite among lan-
guage arts teachers, Craft Lessons
outlines 78 mini-lessons to guide
student writers through the writing
process, from brainstorming
through revision and on to editing
a final drafl. Lessons are arranged
developmentally (K-2, 3-4, and
5-8). Each lesson includes guide-
ines for teachers to consider,
including a brief discussion of
reasons for teaching a particular
element, a “how to teach it” sug-
gestion, and a listing of resources
to support the concept. An appendix
includes examples of student
writing,

- —Suzie Boss

BEST COPY AVAILABLE



PORTLAND, Oregon—Includ-
ing a Native American perspective
on both the Lewis and Clark expedi-
tion and the use of native plants is
an integral part of Judy Lampi’s eth-
nobotany class at Harriet Tubman
Middle School.

“T think students should know
the first nations’ stories,” Lampi says.
“And I think it’s important that each
group of people tell their own story.”

Whenever possible, Lampi turns
to Judy Bluehorse Skelton. A trained
herbalist with a broad knowledge of
native plants, Skelton leads students
on field trips to identify native
plants, conducts hands-on class-
room activities demonstrating their
medicinal and dietary uses, and
helps teachers develop culturally
appropriate curriculum.

Skelton’s expertise is in great de-
mand, She's an Indian education
specialist for the Portland Public
School system, a member and men-
tor of the American Indian Science
and Engineering Society, and an
assistant in the Clinic Medicinary
at the National College of Naturo-
pathic Medicine in Portland. But her
most important work, she says, is
in creating a deeper context and
understanding of Native cultures.

“Things that can appear solely
utilitarian to an outsider are actu-
ally embedded with a great deal'of
meaning for Native people,” she
says. “The gathering of plants, for

example, is a spiritually significant
and ceremonial act. That is the
very heart of the culture, and it gets
skipped over, I think, because teach-
ers often find it too daunting.

“Too often, non-Indians view
certain objects or activities as mere
accessories,” says Skelton. ‘“Bead-
work, headdresses, face paint, Native
baskets—these can be very enchant-
ing, just on a surface level. But they
are very powerful, and they all have
a deep ceremonial meaning for
Native people. It's so important that
teachers resist the temptation to triv-
ialize Indian culture, which is what
happens when you present these
things without acknowledging their
full meaning and importance.

“T get invited all the time to give
presentations about the Native uses
for specific plants,” says Skelton,
“but for me it’s much more impor-
tant to talk about relationships—
that plants are part of who we are. I
try to highlight those relationships
of interdependence that we have with
plant and animal life, rather than
giving them a kind of recipe or list
of plants and uses that has no con-
text. For Indian people, the physical,
spiritual, and ceremonial uses of
plants are indistinguishable.”

This is a message, Skelton says,
that kids are ready to hear. “My
observation in working with young
people, both in the Indian commu-
nity and non-Indian community, is

that our children are hungry for cer-
emony. When we're out hiking or if
we're in the classroom doing an
activity on native plants, they love to
hear the stories. Children will leap
Tight to those opportunities to create
relationships, and that's as impor-
tant in education as learning to
read, or write, or do math. How to
form healthy relationships, how to
create a good community, how to
create a good life for yourself: That's
probably more important, in a tra-
ditional Native view of education,
than anything else.”

This kind of learning often re-
quires stepping outside the class-
room and into the larger world, says
Skelton. “Many students learn better
by doing and by using all of their
senses. We need to recognize that
there are many kinds of knowledge
and many ways to contribute to a
community. There are hands-on,
project-based activities of all kinds
that teachers can do throughout the
grade levels that can be very trans-
forming, The study of native plants,
out in the field, is a good example.
When you extend students’ learning
beyond the classroom in this way, it
gives a broader opportunity for all
kids to shine.”

‘This is a lesson, Skelton says,
that is clearly visible in the Lewis
and Clark story. “Many people bring
up the story of the vote that the
Corps took to decide on a winter

INSIGHTS FROM JUDY BLUEHORSE SKELTON

By Bracken Reed

camp, Which resulted in the build-
ing of Fort Clatsop.” It is significant
that Sacagawea and York were given
equal representation, Skelton says,
but teachers and historfans often
miss the real signific

vote. “There 2
that took placejin Lewis
from the hegifining of the obey
to that mor
values an
had} faltered by their cl : r
vd i

thatthey were living in a very| cise, )

with natu
a

ing.thiswWay-What that vote shows
hin ome
for the m

“oh, i

spect ot

tobe respect f the Zonnections yy,
between plant d life,” VB

tures, and I want ther

we had been studying, and she of-
fered a prayer. It really brought

home the spiritual relationship we
have, or should have, with plants.

It was a very positive experience.”

NW EDUCATION / Summer 2003

Te 184


the scholarships improve their col-
lege prospects considerably. As have
their successes in the project-based
Expedition course.

While Lewis and Clark hand-
picked their Corps members and
ordered lashings for rule-breakers,
Expedition teachers Bill Lacombe,
Craig McKee, and Jill Neyenhouse
accepted all 70 students who “en-
listed” in the course and expected
each to give his or her best effort.
‘Though course requirements are
both academically and physically
challenging, most students—even
those who usually struggle—are
discovering that they can do serious
academic work and meet the exact-
ing standards of the “real world”
beyond the school wails.

Looking back, the three teachers
admit they did not anticipate the
wide range of issues they'd face—
from securing Native American
blessings for canoe building to find-
ing camping sites for the “final
exam”: a river trip down the
Columbia in June. Students have
been involved in every phase of the
course, in the detailed planning and
communication—even making
presentations to the school board.
For Mckee, this required a transfor-
mation in his teaching style. Accus-
tomed to having his physical
education students follow set rou-
tines and procedures as a group, he
now had to coach kids on a variety

DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING

BRST COPY AVAILABLE

of projects.

“The Lewis and Clark Expedition
class definitely pushed teachers and
everyone out of our comfort zone,”
says Sergio Fossa, principal at
Stevenson High School for 10 years.
He believes the Gates school re-
design project will prompt more
project-oriented leaming at the
school.

‘The Stevenson-Carson School
District framed its school redesign
efforts around the work of Theodore
Sizer and the Coalition of Essential
Schools. Staff members received
training in seven key elements of
school restructuring: personalized
learning, technology as a tool, com-
mon focus, time to collaborate,
respect and responsibility, high ex-
pectations, and performance-based
instruction and assessment.

“We want to create an environ-
ment where we are meeting more
students’ needs and are sending a
greater number of kids on to col-
lege,” says English teacher Neyen-
house. And Fossa says that students
who've received Achiever scholar-
ships are staying in college at
greater rates than in the past.

WRITING TO LEARN

Writing is a big component of the
Expedition course. Students receive
an English elective credit, as well as
acredit for PE or Occupational Edu-
cation. Teachers use the journals of

Ag

__The Journals

Of Jefferson had not required
the officers to document each
day of their journey, the Corps
of Discovery would have been
just another campfire yarn
passed down by trappers and
traders. Thanks to their mil-
lion-plus words, students now
have access to the same raw
material that scholars use. In
time for the bicentennial, the
most comprehensive collection
of the writings of five Corps of
Discovery journal keepers is
available both in paperbound
book, The Definitive Journals
of Lewis & Clark, Gary E.
Moulton, editor (University

of Nebraska Press, 2003), and
online at http:/Aewisandclark
jourals.unl.edu/.

These are not just primary
sources for studying history.
Teachers and students are
already dreaming up dozens
of ways to use them in the
K-12 classroom for reading
and writing—particularly for
lessons around grammar,
spelling, and punctuation.

| They also are seeing how the

| journals can serve as models
for poetry, drama, personal
reflection, and scientific nota-
tion. For a reality-based lesson
on the importance of careful
spelling, punctuation, complete
sentences, and capitalization,
some teachers ask students to
edit a daily journal entry into
today's proper English.

7

=o

The Corps of Discovery jour-
nalists had no spell checker.
Webster's dictionary came 25
years later. The captains them-
selves had received limited
formal education, though
Meriwether Lewis had access
to Jefferson's legendary library
at Monticello and rubbed
shoulders with visiting schol-
ars and artists at the White
House. The men were, shall
we say, phonetic spellers.
As they study the journals,
students often discover that
their own excuses for sloppy
writing or late assignments
don’t compare to the hard-
ships faced by the Corps of
Discovery. These officers
kept writing night after night
despite lurking grizzlies, rain,
sleet, subzero temperatures
that froze the ink for their quill
pens, and other better reasons
for skipping a day of journaling.
—Larry McClure


When he was a sickly first-grader, Stephen
King stayed home for most of a school year to
recuperate. He read a lot of comic books and
iried his hand at writing. His mother inspired
him to quit copying “funnybooks” and write
some stories of his own. When he did, she re-
warded him with praise he still remembers. As
he relates in On Writing: A Memoir of the
“She said it was good enough to be in a book.
Nothing anyone has said to me since has made
me feel any happier.”
Not every kid will grow up to write block-
busters, of course, but parents can piay an im-
portant role in inspiring and encouraging their
children to become writers. The National Coun-
of English encourages parents
to “build a climate of words at home. The basis

of good writing is good talk,” NCTE points out
Nan online guide for parents (www.ncte.org/

positions/how-to-help.shtml).

Similarly, the U.S. Department of Education’s

Office of Educational Research and Improve-
ment offers pointers for parent

Provide a place to write and plenty of writing
materials.

© Help your child spend time thinking about a
writing project or exercise.

Respond to your young writer's work. Focus
More attention on what the child has written
and less on the mechanics or fine points

of grammar. And say something positive.

© Don't write for your child. Don't rewrite his
or her work. Instead, help by brainstorming.
Encourage your child to keep a journal

© Write together. Let your child see that writing
is important to adults, too.

routinely open their doors to professional writers, cre-
ating opportunities for them to “unpack” the tricks of their
trade for the benefit of students and teachers alike.

PIECES OF THE PUZZLE

Writers know more fully what they mean only after
having written tt.

—Sondra Perl
Although good writing instruction cannot be reduced to
a formula, certain practices are apt to be found in a
classroom where students are honing their craft and be-
coming confident writers. In particular, research shows
that young writers improve their skills when they learn that
writing is a process involving review and revision. Many
students also work harder at writing when they see that
their work reaches an audience and serves a real pur-
pose—something more authentic than meeting a due date.

According to NEAP, students achieve higher writing
scores when their teachers:
© Ask them to plan their writing in class
© Save their work in folder or portfolio
© Require them to write more than one draft
* Talk to them about what they were writing
© Use computers for writing and revision

NAEP also has found that parents can help to boost stu-
dents’ writing skills by discussing classroom studies with
their children and making reading materials available at
home. (See sidebar at left.)

What's the sum of these parts? Longtime researcher
George Hillocks Jr. asserts that effective writing instruc-
tion encourages students to think. “In the past 30 years,”
in his 2002 book, The Testing Trap: How State
Writing Assessments Control Learning, “researchers and
theorists have come to know that teaching writing entails

he writ

teaching thinking.” Being able to write well is a lifelong
skill, but it’s essential to the work of learning. As Hillocks
points out, “people learn through writing. Putting the ideas
on the word processor or on paper clarifies them and
enables us to think through what we really mean.”

G4

NW fiducation / Winter 2002


‘VOLUME 8 NUMBER 2
WINTER 2002

FOCUS.ON WRITING

ON THE COVER:
Inthe Flathead Valley of Montana,
students have combined writing with
visual images to create a series of community murals
thal celebrate local history. “Life Studies,”
a story about the Mural Poetry Project,
begins on Page 12.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY SUZIE BOSS

34

36

Focus on Writing
ARTICLES

Permanent Ink

Learning to write is a lesson that lasts a lifetime. What have
educators learned about the best way to create writers?

Keepin’ It Real

Tapping the power of words, a gifted teacher and her students
set out to change the world

Ideas Worth Borrowing

Life Studies: Flathead Valley, Montana

Tales of Triumph: Portland, Oregon

© Everybody Writes: Royal City, Washington

Traveling by Post: Alaska, Washington, and sites worldwide
© Learning by the Book: Aberdeen, Washington

‘© The Roots of Nikiski: Nikiski, Alaska

© Riding “La Alfombra Magica”: Medford, Oregon

What They Remember

Professional writers reflect on the writing lessons that have stuck
with them.

COLUMN
What Do We Do When They Speak a Language No One Understands?

DEPARTMENT
In the Library

SPECIAL SECTION on 6+1 TraitTM Model of writing assessment begins
after Page 36.





Shawntena Norman: A lifelong
Portland resident, Shawntena has
followed her three older sisters
through some of the city's most
troubled schools. As a child, she
experienced a lot of upheaval—
“moving back and forth, here and
there,” often staying with her grand-
mother who, she says, “would al-
ways make a little spot” for her. “It's
been tough, but it’s cool,” says the
African American sophomore, who
spends a lot more time focused on
the future than the past. With one
sister attending Alabama State Uni-
versity, Shawntena has set her
sights on being the next collegian
in the family. She's pulling up her
grades and participating in the
school performing arts program,
where she recently brought her act-
ing and singing talents to the stage
ina production of Hair.

CLOSING THE GAP

Lamar Franklin: Raised mainly
in Anchorage, Lamar fooled around
alot in middle school, pulling D's
and F's, not really caring. But when
the family moved to Portland last
year, the young man with Samoan
ancestry decided it was time to hit
the books. In spite of shifting family
ties (his mom moved on to Califor-
nia for a job, leaving Lamar and his
older brother in Portland with their
stepfather), he achieved a 4.0 in his
freshman year at Jefferson. He says:
“[miss my mom, but, you know, |
still got to take care of business.”
He likes math and is considering

a career in engineering

Bayo Arigbon: As the youngest of
five siblings, Bayo grew up mostly
in Portland (with a short stint in
Stockton, California) with his mom
and dad. This African-American
student is proud of the top grades
he's been pulling in high school,
plus he sees the practical slant to
doing well—scoring a scholarship
to college. With an interest in com-
puters, math, and business, Bayo
aspires to become an entrepreneur,
so that he can work for himself,
make his own hours, basically “be
the boss." Ina tightly contested
race, Bayo was elected president

of the student council for the
2002-2003 school year.

Andrew Kulak: The son of educa-
tors, Andy Kulak knew early on that
he would teach in the city. But this
young teacher of European Ameri-
can lineage (Irish and Polish)
wanted to pursue his calling in the
multiethnic classrooms of a public
school rather than in the cloistered
environment of a private school like
Jesuit-run St. Ignatius, the high
school he attended in downtown
Chicago. He taught in a suburban
area of Michigan before following
his heart to the city of Portland two
years ago


girls do make it. Some of them
have this child and are still going to
school and maybe have a good job.
And then there’s some that just
don’t, they're struggling. But that's
what they chose, so you can’t really
say too much about it. It's really sad
to me. Then | know a lot of people
that go to alternative schools, and it
will be, like, you're going the easy
route. I mean, it’s cool you are still
going to school, but you're not chal-
lenging yourself enough to really
make it in life.

NW: Is there anything you'd

change about school to help

kids be more successful?

BAYO: I think they should, like,
make it more convenient, start a lit-

tle bit later. That would take care of
tardies. Then you could have SSR
Gilent sustained reading) for every-
body. That gives them a chance to
read and catch up in the book. Like
now, only certain teachers do it in
English. And it seems like when stu-
dents don’t want to learn, the teach-
ers are taking a lot of time to try to
get them to learn. And while this is
happening, other people need help.
So the teachers just need to, like, “If
you don't want to leam today, there's
awhole bunch of other people who
do want to learn.” If they don’t want
to lear, just let ‘em be.

KULAK: | would like to add to the
previous statement about attributing
increasing success to the SSR

CLOSING THE GAP

program that the English teachers
started two years ago here. | think
this is making a tremendous differ-
ence—I think it is paramount for
increasing literacy skills so that stu-
dents can read many different things
and gain information on their own,
detect biases, and all of that. | think
that is a large part of what more
successful teachers here are doing
Asfar as changing things, what I see
as the most important thing is to
cultivate that spark of ability. What

I would like to see is a way for stu-
dents to develop that inner voice,
that intemal motivation that tells
them, “I want to be here, | need to
be here.”

BAYO: You talk to people from
different schools and they put Jeff
down. They say, “Well, Jeff is easy,
you should be getting those grades if
you go to Jeff.” And they say, “Well,
it’s real easy, and you guys sfil! get
low ratings in the state.” I think
schools need to reflect more of ev-
erything, not just testing. I think
that’s wrong to stereotype the school
because all schools are the same—
school is school. Schoo! is what

you make it. If people want to go to
school, they are going to get it right,
but if people dort want to go to
school and they don’t want to pay
attention, then it’s gonna show up.
It can happen at any school. It’s just
the work ethic that people have. }

55

51
A number of promising notions for strength-
ening schools are embedded in the conversa-
tion with Jefferson High School sophomores
Shawntena Norman, Lamar Franklin, and Bayo
Arigbon, and their English teacher Andrew
Kulak. Here's a distillation of key ideas:

+ The “best” teachers blend “strictness” (high
expectations) with “understanding” (the ability
to relate to kids with empathy and humor)

« Learning is more lasting when teachers
provide multiple avenues for absorbing the
material (verbal, written, visual)

* High expectations and challenging curricu-
lum inspire students to push themselves
toward excellence

Strong building leadership is critical to
creating a cohesive school community that
supports top-notch teaching and learning

* Block scheduling helps students to gain
greater understanding of material and form
caring relationships with teachers

* Daily silent sustained reading in high school
boosts literacy skills (such as reading for
information and detecting biases) and helps
kids keep up in class

* Opportunities to demonstrate achievement
should go well beyond taking standardized
tests

* Students’ work ethic must be cultivated as
the driving force that will ultimately keep them
moving forward


Phoenix Edition
Personal Essays Written
by Students of
‘Aberdeen High School

wt Autefisk

.. for the

yyoocat
Soul

ea. “Vichvun yew moots
> vants da lutefisk?”
hoe uns wars eh)

Zi

Dys fh y

secured $10,000 toward the publish-
ing costs, but the book immediately
paid for itself. Another 500 copies
were ordered, and they, too, sold out.
Itwas an enormous success with the
community.

It was also a hit with students
“Ttwas fun, and it was really chal-
lenging,” says Leslie, now one of
McKay’s senior students. “You wanted
it perfect because you knew people
were going to be reading it. It defi-
nitely wasn’t something you were
just going to do in one night to get a
grade.” For Jason, the subject matter
made it interesting. “Pretty much
anything went,” he say
pretty colorful stuff has happened

“Some

over the years, because of how strong
the rivalry is, but he [McKay] let us
keep it in. As long as we had a source
for it, it went in.” Loyal agrees, “It
was interesting stuff you actually
wanted to hear about. Everyone
could relate to it.”

For McKay, success has led to
success. Sales of the book added up

to twice the investment for printing.

Profits were put into a general fund
that has supported further projects,
including 7he Grays Harbor
County Book of Wisdom (2001)
and Lutefisk for the Bobcat Soul:
Personal Essays Written by Stu-
dents of Aberdeen High School
(done annually for the past three
years). Each project has been self-
sustaining and met McKay's goal of
increasing student motivation and
raising the level of their writing.
“It’s clearly more difficult and
challenging for the students than
just writing a paper,” he says. “They
understand that the stakes are high.
Because publishing is permanent,
accuracy and correctniess are ex-
tremely important. Almost all of
them rise to the challenge, and some
go farther—they discover that they
are writers and have something to
offer other people. They are extremely
proud to be published authors, and
they learn a great deal about how
writing can affect people's lives.”
‘This attention to both the big
picture and the small details fits

BEST COPY AVAILABLE _

Two volumes
(at right) rom
Aberdeen High
Schoo!
student wri

seamlessly into McKay's overall

teaching strategy. “The projects are
one part of a broad process,” he says.
“We use the six traits (of writing
assessment), study grammar, build
vocabulary, have writing workshops,
and do a lot of other things, but I
like using project-based learning. If
you look at the state standards, this
addresses many of the bullets, but it
also mirrors how we all have to op-
erate outside of school. It helps stu-
dents understand that the beginning
of a process is as important as the
end. When you add the element of
working with others, it really be-
comes applicable and beneficial

in terms of lifelong learning.”

Still working out of his tempo-
rary classroom, McKay continues to
teach his students not only writing
skills, but also the discipline needed
to weather adversity and complete
demanding projects. Their most re-
cent, the Phoenix Edition of Levtefisk
Jor the Bobcat Soul, shows students
again rising to the challenge.

THE ROOTS

OF NINISHI
ALASKAN STUDENTS
DISCOVER THEIR
HERITAGE AND
LEAVE A LEGACY

OF THEIR OWN

By JOYCE RIHA LINIK

NIKISKI, Alaska—Here on
the northeastern edge of the Kenai
Peninsula, blankets of evergreen
drape the hillsides, frothy waves slap
against the rocky shore, gulls and
raptors dance overhead. Across the
Cook Inlet, the mountains of the
Alaska Range can be seen raising
their snowcapped heads to the sun.
It’s easy to see the allure, to under-
stand why early homesteaders were
willing to face wild animals, arctic
winters, and the absence of any
creature comforts to settle here.
When Nikiski’s first homestead-
ers came to this area in the 1950s,
there was little more than a tire-
track road winding through the

B giilderes. Early residents had to

NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002


26

Revealing the Secrets of the Brain

Neuropsychologist Virginia Beringer studies brain images before and after instruction
for clues to the mystery of learning disabilities

MEETING Vite CHALLENGE

Grim as they were,

the ghettos and barrios of America

looked better than the jungles of
wartime Vietnam to a lot of univer-
sity students in the early 1970s.
Under a federal program aimed at
filling a desperate shortage of inner-
city teachers, young men and women
could opt to serve their country in
the “hood.

One who answered the call was
Virginia Berninger. Just out of col-

NW EDUCATION / Spring 2003

lege and ready for a stint in the real
world before heading back to aca-
demia as a graduate student,
Berninger spent a year teaching
50 African American and Puerto
Rican third-graders in the heart
of Philadelphia—no bombs, no
napalm, but a jungle just the same.
“We had police escorts because
of the gangs in the streets,” she says,
recalling the rawness of the chil-
dren’s lives with fresh force some

146

three decades later. “I had kids who
didn’t return from vacation because
they were killed or they died of en-
cephalitis, things like that. It was a
real eye-opener.”

Evenings, she took classes at
‘Temple University, where she delved
into the psychology of reading—

a natural for a psychology major
who'd had a lifelong fascination
with how the brain processes the
written word and why some children


classroom. This time, though, he
stands at the front of a class full of
kids he understands as well as he
understands himself. That's because,
like him, his students in the Intensive
Leaming Center at Portland's Beau-
mont Middle School are all learning
disabled.

“These kids often come in at the
first-grade level, across the board, in
their language arts skills,” says Dan
Tibbetts, catching a brief respite at
his desk while his 12 students, mostly
boys, labor over sentence construc-
tion. “They can’t read a lick, they
can’t write a lick. Somehow, they
got to sixth grade. They should have
been in a program like this a long
time ago.”

The “program like this” blends
direct instruction in the skills of
reading and writing—beginning
with the fundamental building
blocks of letter recognition and
phonemic awareness—with lots
of behavior management and one-
to-one attention. The curriculum
draws on the very strategies that
turned things around for Tibbetts
when, at age 19, he enrolled in a
program at Portland Community
College for nonreading adults. “The
curriculum was based on Corrective
Reading from Science Research As-
sociates,” he says. “Boy, that’s when
things really kicked up for me.”

Once the trick to reading clicked
in, Tibbetts became a committed

bibliophile. Now 40, he pores vora-
ciously over print materials of all
kinds, particularly biography, philos-
ophy, and current events—with a
special love for the history of rock ‘n’
roll. In another wry twist of destiny,
Tibbetts this year wears the coordi-
nator’s hat for the school’s talented
and gifted program. At Beaumont
Middle School, where he passes on
his hard-won wisdom to his emo-
tionally bruised LD students, his wife
Rebekali also teaches kids with spe-
cial needs. Here, Dan Tibbetts tells
the story of his personal and profes-
sional struggles and successes.

NORTHWEST EDUCATION:

Do you remember how you
felt as a young child who
couldn't master reading
skills?

DANIEL TIBBETTS: Oh, man,

it was so tough on me, and pretty
rough on my parents. I was hurt by
the whole thing. Kids teased me, so
Tacted out.

NW: How did you to act out?
TIBBETTS: | was very goofy. I liked
getting attention for being funny. I
got in trouble for everything—it
didn’t matter what class I was in. I
couldn’t memorize; I couldn’t recite
the flag salute. I got in trouble for
not paying attention. I got spankings
from the principal. Psychologists call
these negative behaviors that LD kids
get caught up in “schemas.” They're

ach

scrips—built-in programs that
come back and play out under stress.
NW: What kinds of strategies
did the school try out in an
effort to get you on track?
TIBBETTS: In second grade, a spe-
cialist from the University of Oregon
came in to teach a phonics-based
program using flip charts for teach-
ing phonemes, sounds, blending,
mastery words. They would pull out
a couple of kids and take us over to
the corner of the classroom. It was
embarrassing, because everyone
could hear us. They probably would
have gotten 80 percent more out of
me and the other kids if we'd been
off in a place where other students
weren't watching us or listening to
us. No one wants to flaunt their
wounds in front of their peers.
That's one of the problems with the
inclusion model, where LD kids are
served in the regular classroom.
NW: So you don’t think it’s
possible effectively to serve
LD kids in the regular
classroom?

TIBBETTS: | believe that there are
methods of instruction that can be
used that will catch all of the kids
pretty well in the regular setting, but
they're not used. They are methods
such as direct instruction that are not
popular. But if you use them, and use
them right, a couple of hours a day
for the elementary years of a kid's
schooling, they have been proven

£39

effective with validated data. 19
NW: Why is direct instruction
so unpopular among many
educators?

TIBBETTS: It's dry. But it works.
It's a method of disciplined instruc-
tion based on mastery leaning. You
don’t go on to Step 2 till you've
mastered Step 1. You start at the stu-
dent's skill level, correct errors right
away, review as you go along, and
fill in any gaps. It builds a real
strong foundation.

66Bsychologists call
these negative behav-
iors that LD kids get
caught up in ‘schemas.’
They’re scripts—built-in
programs that come
back and play out under
stress.99

NW: Were other strategies
tried?

TIBBETTS: | had all the bells and
whistles growing up as an LD kid.
By my third-grade year, my parents
got me a tutor. In fourth grade, I got
into the Chapter 1 reading program.
NW: Why didn’t the resource
room approach work for you?
TIBBETTS: Kids who have dam-
near grade-level skills and just need
someone to help them close that lit-
tle gap in their regular schoolwork
need a resource teacher to help them

‘THE HIDDEN DISABILITY


Tensions.” Suspensions and expul-
sions were handed out regularly—
especially to students of color.

‘The school staged a three-hour
summit. “We brought in facilitators
and focused on relationship issues,”
Benson recalls. By the day’s end,
students agreed to participate in a
campaign focusing on two themes:
decency and trust. Today, school
hallways and classrooms are adorned
with signs bearing the slogan that
students coined and agreed to live
“Respect: Give it and get it.”
‘Teachers aren't the only ones

io appreciate the resulting change

in school climate. Current students

are quick to praise the atmosphere

“at. Nathan Hale. “You won't find an-

“at 1érsclidol like this one,” attests

u’African American 1 1th-

gradér who has rebounded from a

rocky miiddle school experience.

‘ "In middle school, my grades were

lowdown around 1.9 (grade-

; point average). I hung out with the

>: thugs, the smokers. Now I'm carry-
ing a 2.4,” he says. “I still have my
homeboys, my friends, but we

branch out. We don’t just stay in a
clique. We all know everybody in
this school. People will help you
here. There’s a lot of love.”

A 10th-grader named Chanel,
also African American, appreciates
the mentoring program that
matches each student with an adult
staff member for all four years of
high school. “You can talk to teach-
ers here,” she adds, “and they'll
give you extra help. They're flexible.
‘They want to help you succeed, even
if you didn’t have the best grades
before you got here.”

In arecent special report explor-
ing the relationship between school
discipline and race, the Seaitle Post-
Intelligencer singled out Nathan
Hale for its positive and equitable
school climate. Between 1996 and
2002, the number of African Ameri-
can students at Hale receiving a sus-
pension or expulsion dropped from
150 to 20. In a 2001 survey, 84 per-
cent of Hale students said they felt
safe at school, up from 55 percent in
1994. “When it comes to erasing the
discipline gap,” wrote Post-/ntelli-
gencer reporter Rebekah Denn,
“Hale's approach may be as promis-
ing as it gets.”

‘THE JOY OF BEING SMALL
‘Through ongoing staff conversa-
tions about successful schools,
Benson and his colleagues have
concluded that effective high schools

share two qualities: They're small,
and they started out small. For Hale,
built 40 years ago in the boxy design
of a typical American high school,
becoming new again wasn’t an op-
tion. In 1997, when the school be-
came a full member of the Coalition
of Essential Schools and was mov-
ing forward to implement its reform
agenda, Benson even tried to con-
vince the district to close the build-
ing and reopen it after a yearlong
hiatus. Then-Superintendent John
Stanford refused the request, but
agreed to a compromise on enroll-
ment. “I asked if he could limit the
number of ninth-graders coming in,
Benson recalls. “He told me, essen-
tially, that nobody wanted to go to
Hale anyway, so limiting enrollment
was not going to be a problem.”

Becoming smaller has turned
out to be a wise move, Benson cred-
its the more intimate scale as being
an effective strategy for boosting stu-
dent achievement, particularly for
students of color. (See sidebar.)

With only 1,032 students, Hale is
considerably smaller than Seattle's
Garfield or Roosevelt high schools,
each with about 1,700 students.
And these days, Hale has one of the
longest waiting lists among high
schools in the district. The irony
isn’t lost on Benson. He now has to
be vigilant to prevent enrollment
from creeping up. Another irony

17

provokes strong opinions on cam-
pus: While the school has made a
deliberate effort to recruit students
of color and help them achieve suc-
cess, white families are increasingly
selecting Hale as their school of
choice. Benson appreciates the
school’s jump in popularity, but
says, “We don’t want to become
awhite, North End school.”

‘The freshmen academies, estab-
lished in 1998, were one of the
school’s first steps toward making
the school “feel” smaller. The three
ninth-grade academies, each lim-
ited to 90 students, are carefully bal-
anced to include students of mixed
abilities. There is no tracking.
Instead, the inclusion philosophy
means that each academy—Red,
Blue, and Green—includes students
who are gifted, behind grade level,
in special education, and learning
English. “It’s the whole gamut,”
says Benson. Student assignments
receive the level of attention more
typically found in a good elemen-
tary school.

“We look for a balance of gender,
ethnicity, skill levels, everything,”
says Tina Tudor, coordinator for the
ninth-grade program who is respon-
sible for making academy assign-
ments. The underlying goal, she
says, is to give all students equal
opportunities to experience success.
“If students have only been in low-

CLOSING THE GAP

13


Here are a few of the com-

ments from parents of stu-
dents who have been placed
in Dan Tibbetts’s Intensive
Learning Center at Portland's
Beaumont Middle Schoo!:
The difference this program
has made in my son's life is
beyond measure. In one year.
he has gone from terrified to
triumphant.”

Prior to the ILC, our son
was beginning to lose his
self-confidence. feeling over-
whelmed by school demands
and beginning to believe that

he was stupid. To see him be-

ginning to fall apart was very
difficult for us. Having the
opportunity to work with Dan
Tibbetts has completely re-
stored our faith in the educa-
tional system. Excellent
teachers who know how to
work successfully with learn-
ing disabilities really do exist!
Perhaps even more impor-
tantly, Dan Tibbetts has
helped our son reestablish
the confidence he once had

y providing an appropriate
curriculum that really works.

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

implementing it in a way that
enabled him to succeed in
areas he found impossible,
and providing the care and
support of a safe and enrich-
ing learning environment.”

ur son has made excellent
headway this year in Dan Tib-
betts's clas
+“! will walk, send letters and
e-mails, give speeches, carry
banners, contact anybody and
everybody to assure a future
for and expansion of these

classes.”

2


WwitintTeEe 2.0 0 2

NW

EDUCATION

N writic EDUCATIONAL LABORATQR

PLUS: SPECIAL SECTION ON 6+1 TRAITS



oO Realize
e Dream

RESEARCH SHEDS NEW LIGHT
ON HOW EDUCATORS CAN FULFILL THE BOUNDLESS PROMISE
THAT MINORITY CHILDREN BRING TO SCHOOL WITH THEM

By LEE SHERMAN

Tt research literature is awash in alarming statistics about the current
achievement levels of America’s minority children. In this ocean of bad
news, a couple of findings bob to the surface as extra disturbing—

the kind of information that makes you catch your breath for a second
and then reread the words just to be sure you didn’t get it wrong. One of
these items is from the front end of the system, when children first take
their seats in the classroom for their educational voyage: Disadvantaged
kids, especially boys, who enter school as high achievers start to disen-
gage from school in the first grade. The other piece of startling news
comes from the back end of the system, when youths leave the school-
house behind: More black men today are in prison than in college.
hese two facts—one reported in August by the Justice Policy Institute
and the other in 2000 by the National Task Force on Minority High
Achievement—form the sad bookends on the school careers of

too many minority children.

| Bi the research is clear: It doesn’t have to be this way. In spite of tough
odds at home—rough neighborhood, empty bookshelves, sparsely
stocked fridge—children can learn. And despite the uphill climb

facing struggling schools—embattled budget, distracted parents,

ethnic and linguistic diversity—teachers can teach. A number of

recent studies from prestigious research groups have uncovered
abundant evidence that all sorts of schools in all sorts of neighborhoods
can, in fact, educate all sorts of kids at high levels. And do. In releasing
the results of a 2001 study showing that several thousand mostly minority
schools are meeting and exceeding standards in their states, Kati Haycock
of the Education Trust is unflinching in her remarks. “Those who didn’t
believe in the educability of all children could dismiss [high-performing,
high-minority] s haghits exceptions, as freaks, as outliers,” she'told
Education Daily, mber of last year. “Well, that is about to change.”



questions and sometimes we just
needed to tell a joke.”

“Or vent,” Brown adds

“Yeah, or vent,” says Mayfield
with a laugh.

Chase observes, “It makes the
world a smaller place,” but he’s not
convinced that’s always a good
thing. Closing the distance among
people around the globe through
technology can also close the differ-
ences that make aculture distinct,
he says.

Yet, as a future farmer, Chase
is eager to use technology to help
make his farm efficient and envi-
ronmentally sound. These days, he
says, farmers can use satellite imag-
ing to locate and identify species of
weeds, for example, enabling them
to treat precise areas with limited
amounts of herbicide.

Becoming aware of the potential
uses and misuses of technology may
be one of the most valuable aspects
of bringing technology into the class-
room. Brown has seen the benefits to
his students every year of the Redis-
covery Project, but, as an historical
reenactor, he also knows the power
of real-time, hands-on learning.

“As a reenactor, I’m able to
bring firsthand research to the stu-
dents as far as what Lewis and Clark
were all about,” he says. “I can
actually show them the dress, the
guns, the other accoutrements that
they had with them. It brings the
history to life for the kids.”

naa

SIIELIBY

‘Two weeks after their feast
of buffalo on the Medicine
River, Lewis and his party
forayed to the end of the
Marias and up its tributary,
Cut Bank Creek. By now
convinced that neither river
reached the 50th parallel,
he, nonetheless, tried for two
days to make celestial obser-
vations using a chronometer
and sextant to fix his loca-
tion, but clouds foiled his
efforts. He named the spot
Camp Disappointment.
Today, middle school students
from the towns of Cut Bank and
Shelby have had better luck taking
scientific readings along Cut Bank
Creek. They wade into the cold wa-
ters to measure temperature, turbid-

NW EDUCATION / Summer 2003,

ity, and levels of oxygen, nitrogen,
alkalinity, and pH. Pulling nets

| through the currents, they scoop out

macroinvertebrates—the midge
larva, mayfly and damsel nymphs,
and myriad others—and place
them in plastic tubs where they
are classified and counted.

It’s a global effort, all this data
gathering, And the sixth-grade stu-
dents of Mark Ayers at Cut Bank
Middle School and Tammerah
Robertson at Meadowlark School
in Shelby are rightly proud of their

; | contributions to science.

‘They’ re following protocols set
out by Global Learning and Obser-
vations to Benefit the Environment
(GLOBE). GLOBE is a worldwide
program in which students from 95
countries collect data on the atmo-
sphere, lakes and streams, soil,
plants, and animals and submit
them to a database where the find-
ings are analyzed by scientists
around the world (www.globe.gov/).

But here, along the eastern edge
of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation,
what students really want to know
is: Is the creek healthy? Has it been
degraded since Lewis and Clark
passed through here 200 years ago?
They know that the macroinverte-
brates are the “canaries” of the
stream, that their numbers and vari-
ety are a good indication of whether
the waters are healthy or polluted.

“We report data to GLOBE, but
we also want to know, what does
that mean to us, in Cut Bank, Mon-
tana?” says Ayers, who teaches sci-

178

ence and technology. “They need to
know what the results mean. How
does that fit into our ecosystem?”

Even before signing on with the
GLOBE project, students had grown
to know their creek and its critters
pretty well through Team Trout, a
unit Ayers has taught for several
years. They start the unit by taking
a look at the tiny, wriggly creatures
that inhabit the currents and pro-
vide nourishment to the trout in
the creek.

“Most kids have never looked at
macroinvertebrates, so it just grabs
their interest,” says Ayers. “Now that
we have them hooked, so to speak,
we teach them how to identify them.
‘Then we count them. Once you
count them and figure out how
many species, what does that mean
to this stream?”

His students have learned to
classify the creatures into three types
according to their sensitivity to pol-
lution: Red Bug (sensitive), Blue
Bug (somewhat tolerant), Brown
Bug (highly tolerant).

“That seems to help them to
understand what it means to find
that macroinvertebrate. GLOBE just
teaches you: This is a mayfly. This is
astonefly. Names are one thing, but
our kids can go out and say, hey,
that’s a Red Bug. They know it’s sen-
sitive to pollution, so that’s a good
one to find. If you find lots of Reds,
it means the stream is fairly healthy.”

So, when the class first started
collecting data for GLOBE, they were
already expert in identifying and



“EXCITING, INTERESTING, AND ENGAGING”

Ira Berlin and other historians and history educators see
cause for optimism in a major initiative ushered into the
national spotlight by senior Senator Robert Byrd of West
Virginia: the Teaching American History Grants Program.

The “Byrd grants,” writes Berlin are “the single largest
public invéstment in history education,” which may very
well help to revolutionize the way history is taught in the
schools. In just two years, the program has infused $250
million into projects aimed at building teachers’ histor-
ical knowledge and teaching skill.

In 2001, Byrd’s Teaching American History Grants
Program was launched as part of President George W.
Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education agenda.
The NCLB law requires states to establish history standards
and tests for all three levels of schooling—elementary,
middle, and high school—and ensure that teachers who
teach history be credentialed in the subject by the end of
the 2005-2006 school year. It also places great empha-
sis on evidence-based practices and accountability.

These principles are also pillars of Byrd's new program,
but at its core is Byrd’s abiding belief that history should
be taught as its own subject, apart from social studies.

“By helping teachers to develop a deeper under-
standing and appreciation of American history as a sep-
arate subject matter within the core curriculum, these
programs will improve instruction and raise student
achievement,” a request for proposals states.

With some eloquence, it goes on: “Students who know
and appreciate the great ideas of American history are
more likely to understand and exercise their civic rights
and responsibilities. Their understanding of traditional
American history will be enhanced if teachers make the
study of history more exciting, interesting, and engag-
ing” (emphasis added).

The clear message is that history teaching should not
only challenge students to learn traditional content about
their country's great events and people, but make the
learning of it untraditionally engaging, alive, and mean-

eed e)
DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING

ingful—in a word: fun.

In this issue of Northwest Education, you'll read
about teachers and students who are engaged in just
such history learning. Whether designing model keelboats
like those used by the Corps of Discovery on the
Missouri River or using ground-penetrating radar to
find unmarked graves in an old pioneer cemetery, students
and their teachers are rediscovering their communities’
and nation’s history by thinking and pursuing the
adventure of learning like historians. 0



of our imagination, the depths of
our unconscious. To travel the wood,
to face its dangers, is to emerge
transformed by the experience.”

Exploring the origins of fairy
tales, Doni’s students study legendary
storytellers and folklorists, such as
the Brothers Grimm of Germany
and Charles Perrault of France.
‘They learn the elements of the fan-
tasy genre—a long-ago setting, a
heroine or hero, a villain (“bad
guy,” beast, criminal), a problem
and solution, and a “motif” or
theme. They look at five such motifs
that appear in fairy tales: magical
objects, wishes, trickery, separations,
and transformations. Then they
compare two stories.

Certain fairy tales cross cultures,
popping up in all kinds of countries.
‘The students explore one of the best-
known of these intemational tales,
about a wolf who tricks a family of
baby goats into opening the door
while their mother is out, where-
upon he gobbles them up. In the
Grimm Brothers’ version of 7he

NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002

Seven Little Goats, the mother goat
slices open the wolf’s belly while he's
sleeping, frees the (still living!) kids,
and replaces them with big stones;
when the wolf tries to drink, the
stones drag him into the well where
he drowns. In the Chinese version,
the kids and their mother toss the
wolf down the well. The Romanian
version features just three goat kids,
and the mother goat gets revenge by
inviting the wolf to dinner and set-
ting a booby trap that causes him to
bum at the bottom of a pit.

Some key features of fairy tales
—repetition and rhythm—are evi-
dent in the various versions of this
tale. For example, the wolf’s plea,
“Open the door, my children, your
mother is home,” is repeated several
times throughout the Chinese ver-
sion. The Grimm version contains
this verse: “What rumbles and tum-
bles / Inside of me. / I thought it
was kids, / But it’s stones that they
be.” These techniques are powerful
vocabulary builders, Doni notes.

“Fairy tales are classic literature

that have stood the test of time for
centuries,” says Doni, a native of
Moldova who is conversant in Span-
ish and fluent in Romanian, Rus-
sian, French, and English. “It is
appealing to both adults and chil-
dren because it deals with love, life
and death, loss, fairness. Everybody's
thinking about these big values.”

In overcoming extreme circum-
stances, the fairy tale protagonist
grows and matures, Doni explains
“This ‘test’ makes the character
triumph or rejuvenate,” she says.
“They change from poor to rich or
from weak to strong. They change
emotionally and psychologically.”

Child psychologist Bruno Bettle-
heim, argues in 7he Uses of En-
chantment: The Meaning and
Importance of Fairy Tales not only
that fairy tales are expressions of our
cultural heritage, but that they “rep-
resent in imaginative form what the
process of healthy human develop-
ment consists of ... (and) make
great positive psychological contri-
butions to the child’s inner growth.”

76

Parent participation in Whit-
man’s fairy tale project reached a
phenomenal 100 percent last year,
thanks, Doni says, to the phone calls
she and the school’s pool of transla-
tors made to each family. “Provid-
ing translation is one part of
working with families,” she says.
“But making personal contact—
that’s the most important part.
Having parents on our side as our
support and as their children’s
support helps us a lot.””

Little Amy Le’s pride in her mom
is evident in her face as she listens
to Lam Le read the story from her
homeland. Says Doni: “The chil-
dren felt so proud of their parents,
because they were the heroes.”

‘The Web features many sites on
folk and fairy tales, including the
T*EARN Folk Tale Project at www.nsc.
nwfolk/, Scholastic’s Myths, Folk-
tales, and Fairy Tales Internet proj-
ect at http://teacherscholastic.con/
writewit/mfl/, and Folktale, Myth,
Legend, and Fable at http://falcon.
jmu.edu/~ ramseyil/tradmays.


Seattle,” Pardini says, looking at the
young faces, rapt before her. “We
aren’t going to have wolves running
through Pablo, but we could cer-
tainly have them using the Mission
Mountains to travel.” She gestures
toward the east where the range lies
obscured by the mid-May storm.
“The wolves,” she says, “are coming
back. Do we have them in our
hearts and our minds?”

“JUST LISTEN”

Reading is more than just critical at
Pablo—it's sacrosanct. Nothing in-
terrupts the daily 90-minute reading
block that immerses first-graders

in Success for All's research-based
“Roots” of reading skills develop-
ment and launches them in second
grade on the “Wings” of reading
proficiency. (Roots and Wings is the
companion reading curriculum for
Success for All.)

“The 90 minutes of reading is
sacred time—that's what we call
it,” says Johnson. “We don’t have
assemblies during that time, we
don’t have field trips during that
time. We want to have at least 170
days out of the 180-day school year
when we have reading instruction.”

Kids are grouped by ability for
reading instruction across grades,
But they don't get stuck or labeled.
Rather, every eight weeks their read-
ing skills are assessed and the
groups are reformed to reflect either

CLOSING THE GAP

success or struggle. If a child is ex-
celling, she moves up to a more ad-
vanced group. If she’s lagging, she
gets a tutor until she catches up. No
student is left floundering or failing
in the back row. Teachers meet reg-
ularly with each student, and prob-
lems are nipped in the bud. Fully 30
percent of first-graders, 20 percent
of second-graders, and 10 percent of
third-graders at Pablo receive one-
to-one tutoring in reading.

At first, some of the teachers were
a little bit squeamish about Success
for Ail’s emphasis on systematic
phonics, used especially in the first
two grade levels when kids need to
grasp the raw mechanics of sound-
symbol relationships. Johnson, like
many other teachers, was trained
in whole language at universities
where “phonics was the ‘f’ word,”
she jokes. But she stresses that pho-
netics is just a means to understand-
ing, and that comprehension
remains the primary focus and ulti-
mate goal of the reading program.

“Kids need ail the tools in the
toolkits,” Johnson asserts. “They
need to be able to decode. They need
phonological awareness, vocabulary,
and fluency in order to be able to
comprehend. But as soon as they
get the basic sounds, they're on to
literature.”

Just two years into the new ap-
proach, Pablo was already seeing a
big payoff. Between 1999 and 2001,

for example, the percentage of
fourth-yraders meeting state stan-
dards shot up from 50 percent to
80 percent.

“We have seen a jump in every
subject area,” says Johnson. “The
data show that it’s working, and
especially for the bottom half. Not
only that, we have a lot of kids who
are now reading above their grade
levels, and that is exciting! We've got
kids reading at the sixth- , seventh- ,
and eighth-grade levels.”

“Discrepancies still exist,” she
admits, “between white and Native
American kids, but not in growth.
We continue to make more growth
as a school than is typical.”

‘The school is on track for meet-
ing its other goals, too. Attendance is
up by 15 percent. Referrals are down
by 40 percent. And while significant
gains in parent involvement remain
elusive, the staff is hoping to over-
come Indian parents’ wariness over
time. Terrie Alger advises new teach-
ers who are dealing with Native par-
ents for the first time to “just listen.”

In a heartfelt way, the longtime
reservation educator says: “I hon-
estly think the key to establishing
trust is to listen carefully and to ask
a lot of questions—basically, good
communication. Often we have par-
ents who come in to speak to us who
appear to be very, very angry. Your
natural response may be to become
defensive, But I think we have to

31

understand that when we're dealing
with our Native parents, what looks
like anger toward us may really be
grief for all that they have lost as a
culture.” 0

27


Detail (ai ltt) of a
mural in Whitefish,

the place the cowboys go after the
last roundup.”

After writing their poems—
compressing life stories into a few
spare lines—students expand from.
words into visual art.

‘Typically, class members read
their poems aloud and listen for
common themes and concrete im-
ages. Keller asks them to consider,
“What do you see when you hear
these words?” Students begin by
sketching, Individual sketches are
shared with the group, and students
decide collectively how the parts
should make up the whole.

‘The actual painting of the mural
often occurs outside the school
grounds, in a place chosen so that
the public can observe the process
and interact with the young artists.
Students have painted their murals
in the basement of the Hockaday
Museum, in shopping malls, in hos-
pitals. The finished product is then
installed on the side of a building
chosen so that pedestrians can walk
Tight up, close enough to read the

words and see the brush strokes.

At Laser School, an alternative
high school in Kalispell, art teacher
Linda Tutvedt has enjoyed watching,
her students “step up to be leaders”
of the art-making part of the proj-
ect. One mural involved interviews
with many of the artists, musicians,
and writers who thrive in Flathead
Valley, a place were the scenery
seemis to nourish creativity. Laser
students—many of them nontradi-
tional leamers—miade a strong
connection with these kindred cre-
ative spirits. “They came in and
shared their work, told us about
their lives,” the teacher says. The
words and images students gener-
ated in response created “a lot of
pride,” Tutvedt says, and reminded
others in the community of the gifts
these young people have to offer.

A Laser student named Tyler
Stephens wrote a poem to capture
the life story of a local painter
named Karen Leigh. “What Is
Happiness?” begins:

You can’t buy it

You can’t steal it

You can’t swallow or smoke it
It springs from a life of passion
Happiness is doing

what you love

Passion is loving what you do

‘These words now hang from
the side of an old movie theater in
Kalispell, drawing the eye of curious
newcomers and those who have
spent their whole lives in this valley.
When Keller sees people lingering to
read the lines, she hopes they man-
age “‘to see both generations repre-
sented here. In these words, you can
hear those at the beginning stages
of communication connecting with
the wisdom of their elders. You see
both innocence and experience.”
When that happens, she knows that
students have succeeded in their
goal as writers, “‘to use the power
of words to connect with their
community.”

For more information about the
Mural-Poetry Project, e-mail Laura
Keller at Ikeller@digisys.net.

74

—
TALES OF TRIUMPH
FAIRY TALES WEAVE
CONNECTIONS
BETWEEN
GENERATIONS

Story by LEE SHERMAN

Photos by JUDY BLANKENSHIP

“The realm of fairy-story is wide
and deep and high and filled

with many things: all manner

of beasts and birds are found
there; shoreless seas and stars
uncounted; beauty that is an
enchantment, and an ever-present
peril; both joy and sorrow sharp
as swords.”

—J.RR. Tolkien

PORTLAND, Oregon—With
asleepy toddler tucked under her
arm, a mother murmurs the nurs-
ery rhymes she learned from her
own mother so many bedtimes ago.
A grandfather delights in embellish-
ing a ghost story for his pajama-
clad grandson huddled, wide-eyed,
under the covers. Beside a glowing,
woodstove, an ancient auntie gath-

NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002


DOUBLE DosE

Bethel School District’s intensive reading program
adds beefed-up instruction for at-risk readers

from Day One
By CATHERINE PAGLIN

EUGENE, Oregon—Brandon
isa busy and capable kinder
ner. One morning before Chri
| mas, he kept right up with his
jassmates at Clear Lake Elemen-
tary as he counted the 67 days
of school he’s attended so far, re-
cited & poem about the five little
Santas, and made a construction-
paper wreath. When his work
was done, he settled on the floor

to play with trucks and blocks.
Brandon also knows quite a
' few letter sounds. “That one says
/b/ and that one says /a/,” he tells
‘a visitor, pointing at the large let-
ter cards hanging over the black-
board. As he speaks, he gets up
from the rug, “I have to stand up
to do it,” he explains. Demon-
strating his expertise in the alpha-
betic principle, it seems, takes
| Brandon's full concentration,
hat one’s /77 and that one says
: /ff,” he continues. “And that one
is /p/. And /s/,” he announces

itke-

proudly with a prolonged, s

| like hiss.

Brandon is on target to be-
come a reader. But if he'd been
in school five years ago, he might
well have been on track for spe-
cial education instead. That's
because he started kindergarten
showing clear signs of reading
difficulties. An assessment found
that he was having trouble with
such tasks as identifying letters
and recognizing or reproducing
the initial sounds in spoken
words. Most telling, he was mak-
ing little or no progress after a
few weeks in school. The school’s
old approach wasn't geared to
dealing with reading problems
quickly and systematically. A learn-
ing disability label and a referral
to special ed might have been the
outcome for this bright boy.

But luckily for Brandon, an
innovative approach adopted by
Bethel School District several
years ago rapidly intervened with
strategies tailored to his needs.
The results have been stunning.

Today, only 2 percent of kids

BEST COPY AVAILABLE



FOCUS ON WRITING

“What is the single most important thing that
we as a profession know now that we didn’t know
30 years ago about the teaching and learning of
writing in elementary school?

Researcher J.M. Jensen posed that question

to education experts in 1993, 30 years after the
critical Braddock Report. Their responses are
captured in these key points:

Writing in the early years is a natural gateway
to literacy

* All children can be writers

© Understanding writing means understanding
complex and interrelated influences—cognitive,
social, cultural, psychological, linguistic, and
technological

We write so that both we and others know
what we think

Two new books fram NWREL illustrate that—
especially during the early elementary years—
reading and writing are as inseparable as two
sides of the same coin.

Rebecca Novick, in Many Paths to Literacy:
Language, Literature, and Learning in the Pri-
marty Classroom, draws on research and evi-
dence coming from diverse classrooms to
show, “when reading and writing are taught to-
gether, the benefits are greater than when they
are aught separately.” Like talking and listen-
ing, she asserts, “reading and writing are insep-
arable proces:

Many Paths to Literacy outlines a comprehen-
sive program to help children build bridges
from home to school, from oral language to
written language, from letter decoding to read-
ing comprehension. Novick, who has written
widely on early literacy, integrates research find-
ings with the insights, strategies, and classroom
examples of effective teachers.

SD

aq

Sharing the Wisdom of Practice: Schools That
Optimize Literacy Learning for All Students adds
another layer of understanding to the concepts
presented in Many Paths to Literacy. Written by
Novick and Amy Fisher, Sharing the Wisdom of
Practice takes an indepth look at the beliefs and
practices of four diverse schools in the North-
west. The authors use examples from the region
lo present classroom strategies for promoting
literacy among culturally diverse learners.
Another recent NWREL public

Language, and Technoloc g

tions That Support Literacy, helps teachers un-
derstand the role technology can play in early
literacy. Authors Judy Van Scoter and Suzie
Boss outline classroom strategies to incorporate
a wide range of tools to enhance learning. Stu-
dent publishing receives special attention,

with projects that use technology to extend
learning far beyond the classroom,

For information about ordering any of these
publications, see the NWREL Products Catalog
Online, www.nwrel.org/comm/catalog or call
1-800-547-6339, ext. 519.



20 | revealed an alarming trend: Girls,
who were doing as well as boys
through third grade, were falling
behind by the fifth. “So we created
a gender-based math club,” says
‘Myers. “ Now girls’ scores have risen

to parity with boy
Child development specialist
Barbara Pittman finds that having
data on each student helps in her
work, too. “I can see how many
children I provided services to this
year compared to last,” she says. “I
can map out differences in attitudes
and behavior—like how many sus-
pensions we had, or how many stu-
dents were sent home.” Pittman
Tuns Second Step, a violence inter-
vention program; EJA Bucks
(Empathy/Impulse Control/Anger
Management), a program that sup-
ports the Second Step curriculum,
and Conflict Management peer
helping and tutoring. The data at
Applegate, Pittman s:

, Show posi-
tive change in all these areas.

“The children’s self-esteem has
improved,”
people feel good about themselves,
they achieve more.”

Staff dedication is a crucial
clement in Applegate's success.
“There's lots of after- school work
here initiated by teachers, students,
or their families,” says Colvin, who
stays until 6 p.m. most nights. “We
find that even the kids are very will-
ing to extend their days.”

she reports. “And when

Yet staff were not always so uni-
fied behind a common vision. At the
beginning of Myers'’s second year as
principal, she and the staff under-
took a two-day workshop to do the
hard work of developing a common
core of educational values. “We
agreed on professionalism, respect,
trust, commitment. By the end, ev-
eryone signed on to these values,”
says Myers. Myers also asked staff to
place arrows on a board indicating
their goals. Initially, the result re-
sembled a weather pattern gone
berserk, but by the end of the exer-
cise, all arrows pointed the same
direction.

However, the process of truly
uniting all staff behind Myers's
vision proved a little rockier. She
expected that. One of her oft-re-
peated mantras is, “Change is hard,
change is messy, change takes
time.” She notes: “When I came,
SARAH also came,” referring to an
acronym for common reactions to
change: shock, anger, resistance or
rejection, acceptance, and, finally,
hope. “SARAH was brutal last year,”
she admits.

Awoman of prodigious energy,
Myers cast a critical eye on virtually
every aspect of how the school was
tun. For example, she read every re-
port card teachers had written, cor-
recting spelling errors when she
found them. Not everyone appreci-
ated such scrutiny, but all got her

point: from now on every aspect of
their work would be held up to in-
spection and high standards.

Myers also focused immediately
on aligning curriculum with aca-
demic standards, and instituting
best practices—giving feedback to
students, for example, and using
assessment results to guide instruc-
tional decisions. She organized the
Classes to ensure smvall size, and
began to hold professional develop-
ment workshops on site so that
children could see that adults are
leamers, too. Last year, Myers had

ON
I ATED MANTRAS IS.
“CHANGE IS HARD,
CHANGE IS MESSY,
CHA

teachers rate workshops and report
how useful they were; she put those
data into a spreadsheet to help peo-
ple make more efficient choices in
the future.

Like their teachers, students at
Applegate encounter substantial
support along with high expecta-
tions. Myers has invited all students
to review with her the data that are
accruing about them, from atten-
dance to performance, in their
cumulative record folders. With
Myers’s help, they decide what ac-
complishment they are most proud
24

NW EDUCATION / Fall 2002

of and where they want to improve,
and then devise strategies to accom-
plish their goals.

Myers applies a similarly open
approach to discipline. “We had two
kids slapping each other recently,”
she says. “I showed them the part of
the school manual on behavior and
left them alone to problem-solve
They came up to me later and said
they realized I could suspend them,
but they proposed lunch detention
instead.” She smiles. “I accepted
their proposal.”

‘Myers works continually to build
more partnerships and find more re-
sources for the school. She and the
staff have tapped a variety of
sources, for example:

Student teachers from the
University of Portland run the
15-computer lab

© Run for the Arts brings in the
Young Audiences program, which
brokers visits by visual and perform-
ing artists and provides funds for art
supplies

Members of a local church spent
a week painting the hallways

© Owners of a nearby McDonald's
sponsor assemblies and contribute
coupons usable as incentives for the
students

© AmeriCorps volunteers work with
at-risk kids

© The Oregon Food Bank delivers
food for needy families

Through the Architect in the


joveryment ill launched its dual-!
notlage, pint with Sse ; lation but were benefiting from all

! WT a ,
dents —2' hts Spanish speqkers’

and 25 English speaers—Sin tw
combined kindergarten and first-
grade classrooms. Recruitment of

students was a challenge in the be-
ginning, Gullikson recalls, because
of the school’s reputation and its lo-
cation. She gives a nod of gratitude
to those “risk-taking parents” who,
despite misgivings, enrolled their
children and became solid backers
of the program. Many of those first
students are now in the Spanish im-
mersion program at Romig Middle
School, and the district has plans

in the works to create a high school
immersion program, as well.

Still, it was a rocky beginning,
remembers Kim Amaya, who started
as a parent volunteer when her
daughter was in the first class. Now
akindergarten teacher, Amaya says
“We were all still figuring out how
dual immersion works, and we
probably should have started out
with just kindergarten. There was
alot of concern, especially among
Spanish-speaking parents who were
not convinced it was a good idea
for their children to be learning in
Spanish, and some left.” The next
year, kindergarten and first grade
were taught separately.

The larger problem, however,
was the divide between the immer-
sion students—who constituted less

than 25 percent of the school popu-

sorts of new resources, plus highly
motivated parents—and the neigh-
borhood children, who came to
school with the same old problems:
poverty, transience, and unstable
families. “The principal, Shirley
Abrams, worked hard to build
bridges between the Government
Hill community and the immersion
parents,” says Superintendent
Comeau, remembering the struggle
of the first two or three years. “She
also did a fine job reaching out to
create school-business partner-
ships.” Volunteer reading tutors
were recruited from AlasCom, a
neighborhood business, and from
Alaska Railroad, which also spon-
sored an annual back-to-school
barbeque. “As word got out,”
Comeau says, “more and more
Government Hill families began to
come back to their neighborhood
school.”

GALVANIZING

THE SCHOOL

As the end of the three-year grant
cycle approached, a group of ener-
gized teachers, parents, district per-
sonnel, and community members
came together to develop a new vi-
sion for Government Hill that would
encompass both the immersion pro-
gram and the neighborhood school
population, which had grown to
include Korean, Russi an pln,

CLOSING THE GAP

and Alaska Native students. By then
the school had attracted a new prin-
cipal, Sandy Stephens, previously
supervisor of elementary special
education. “In Sandy, we discovered
we had hired a tireless worker who
was able to galvanize the school,”
says Leonard Cestaro, a sixth-grade
teacher who has seen Government
Hill through all its changes.

Stephens, who had also been a
Title | migrant supervisor, knew the
school well, and she quickly took
the lead in working with the com-
mittee. With their eyes on the prize
—a second Title VII bilingual
grant, plus a Title I grant for school-
wide restructuring—the committee
met 30 times in the course of the
year. “We did a mission statement,
and goals and objectives for the
school, so we would know where
we've been, where we're going,
and if we are achieving anything,”
Stephens says. She notes with pride
that the planning process alone
sparked change, and by the spring
of the following year students’ stan-
dardized test scores had already
begun to rise.

The hard work of the committee,
with the help of an excellent
grantwriter, paid off in 1996 when
Government Hill won a five-year,
$1.2 million grant to realize its vi-
sion of rebuilding a school where all
children would achieve academic
excellence. Five key strategies for

37


he stories of the Lewis
Te Clark expedition
draw many of us in as in-
exorably as the Corps of Dis-
covery paddled and pulled its
canoes across the continent.
Lior me, the first good tug
was reading Stephen Am-
brose’s book, Undaunted
Courage, which spun Lewis
and Clark’s journal entries
into a gripping narrative. Not
at all a history buff, | bought
the book because newspaper
reviews had made Ambrose’s

Hawthorne’s, says historian
James P. Ronda in his clas-
sic, Lewis & Clark Among the
Indians. For Ronda, a book
set him onto a new course

of scholarship. After reading
Passage Through the Garden:
Lewis and Clark and the
Image of the American North-
west by John L. Allen, he fo-
cused his research on the
roles Native people played in
the expedition. “Books make
a difference; reading changes
lives,” Ronda says.

storytelling sound irresistible. [hile the course of my life

It was. | read it at bus stops
and lunch breaks. | read it in
the evenings; in the morning
with my coffee. | read pas-
sages to my husband:
“Honey, listen to this: ‘The
men’s labor was. ..such that
each private ate as much as
nine or ten pounds of meat
per day.’ Can you believe
that?!”
ihe high adventures the
Corpsmen described in their
journals—capsizing boats,
attacking grizzly bears,
thrilling encounters with Na-
tive people—are page-turners,
but it is the small detail that
brings the humanity of the
trek to me most vividly: their
meals, their stomach upsets,
Lewis's careful ministration of
Sacagawea’s “female trouble,”

didn’t change, | did begin to
cross paths with others who
were also drawn to this story.
Later, joining the editorial
team of Northwest Education,
| “inherited” this issue of the
magazine—with its Lewis and
Clark theme—from former
editor Suzie Boss. Though
moving on to a new job, she
was easily persuaded to write
the lead feature story on Page
8. | met with NWREL's Patri-
cia Nida, who helps teachers
integrate expedition stories
into classroom learning, and
she told me about the redis-
covery of 100-year-old student
portfolios that commemo-
rated the centennial of the
expedition. Nida has written
about these treasures on
Page 36.

the power of an old Nez Perce Eihen | fell in step with Larry

woman to reassure her tribe's
men that Lewis's small band
was peaceful.

Lhe images stayed in my
mind long after I'd finished
Ambrose’s book.

Wow many a man has dated
a new era in his life from the
reading of a book?”

Bihe question was Nathaniel

McClure. He's education liai-
son for the National Council
of the Lewis & Clark Bicen-
tennial, a member of the Ore-
gon Chapter of the Lewis &
Clark Trail Heritage Founda-
tion, and recently retired from
NWREL. Many of the story
ideas in this issue of North-
west Education are his; two

of them he wrote. It seems
just about anywhere along
the trail to Lewis and Clark,
you'll find McClure’s foot-
prints: in classrooms, at
workshops, and trailside.
Eihe book that started it all for
McClure was Lewis & Clark:
The Journey of the Corps of
Discovery: An Illustrated His-
tory by Ken Burns and Day-
ton Duncan.
ED started writing in the mar-
gins about all of the things
we teach in school that fit
with this story,” he says.
Think of President Thomas
Jefferson's 16-page instruc-
tions to Meriwether Lewis as
today’s education standards.
The math, science, writing,
and social skills the Corps
members needed for the suc-
cess of the mission aren't
dissimilar to the skills kids
need today to succeed in life
Think of the teamwork and
leadership. The cultural diplo-
macy and understanding
Hilo me, you can take just any
part of the story and make it
leap back into the curriculum,”
says McClure. “It’s reality-
based learning.” And what
makes the story of the expe-
dition most real are the jour-
nals, those books that
changed the course of history
and, 200 years later, are still
changing lives.
—Denise Jarrett Weeks
jarrettd@nwrel.org



small-town newspaper
A: a San Francisco sub-

urb gave me my first
break as a writer. | was 15
and a bit on the nerdy side—
the only girl in an advanced
math class, an aspiring stu-
dent journalist, and a jock at
a time when girls were ex-
pected to “glow, not sweat.”
At the end of a winning
tennis season, our coach
pointed out that, while our
all-girl team had gone unde-
feated, we had yet to receive
any ink in the local newspa-
per. Meanwhile, the boy’s
football team dominated the
headlines, loss after loss.
Her words inspired me to
knock on the editor’s door
and ask for more balanced
coverage. His response: Why
don’t you cover girls’ sports
for us? He even offered to
pay me—25 cents per col-
umn inch. Waving the thick
black pencil used for editing
back in those days before
desktop publishing, he cau-
tioned against padding for
the sake of extra bucks. Ina
few curt sentences, he laid
out his rules to live by: Write
tight. Meet your deadlines.
And never spell a name
wrong. I’ve heard plenty of
other advice about writing
since then, but those early
lessons still ring true.

Masting lessons about writing
are the focus of this issue of
Northwest Education. We've
approached the subject from
a variety of perspectives,
drawing insights from
researchers, classroom
teachers, and professional
authors. You'll find examples
of student writing woven
throughout this issue, too.

section called “Ideas Worth
Borrowing” gathers great
classroom ideas, ranging
from whimsical projects that
use storybook characters and
fairy tales to inspire young
writers to ambitious publish-
ing projects that use writing
to connect students with the
world beyond the classroom.
In “Keepin’ It Real,” a remark-
able teacher named Erin
Gruwell shares her experi-
ence of coaching a group of
students who call themselves
the Freedom Writers. They've
harnessed words instead of
weapons to make a difference
in the world. In an article
called “What They Remem-
ber,” professional writers
reminisce about their own
classroom writing experi-
ences—for better or worse.

Lihis issue also includes a
special section about the 6+1
TraitTM Writing Assessment
and Instruction Model. Devel-
oped by Northwest teachers
to provide students with use-
ful feedback about key as-
pects of their writing, the
model has spread to every
state and many other coun-
tries. The Northwest Regional
Educational Laboratory has
developed a variety of tools
and publications to help
teachers use the traits to
promote better student writ-
ing. We highlight some new
products along with some
old favorites.

[hat gets your students
excited about writing? As
always, we invite you to share
your ideas and feedback with
other readers of Northwest
Education.

—Suzie Boss



Scores on standardized tests are
up dramatically (more about that
later). But there are signs of aca-
demic success that transcend num-
bers. A recent reading lesson for a
group of third- , fourth- , and fifth-
graders during the schoolwide 90-
minute reading block, for example,
strides broadly across the intellec-

dents travel beyond basic vocabulary
to poetic imagery. Discussions of
plot lead students well past simple
story lines to complex interpretation
of action, motive, and character. On
this stormy moming in mid-May,
there is, clearly, a whole lot of criti-
cal thinking going on

tual landscape. From the particulars ROOTS OF CHANGE

of a piece of literature—today it’s
“Dream Wolf” by Paul Goble—
students venture into local history,
Native lore, current events, environ-
mental issues—wherever, in fact,
the trails of ideas might lead them.
Under the skillful guidance of vet-
eran teacher Carolyn Pardini, stu-

Pablo Principal Andrea Johnson’s
roots run deep here. Back in the
days when a barge ferried folks
across Flathead Lake to Kalispell,
Johnson’s grandmother was one of
the children who attended tiny two-

PuncipaiAndeawonnsogiod
Pio Bt 7

room Pablo School. Johnson's par-
ents and in-laws all trace their up-
bringing to the farms and ranches
of this valley.

“This was coming home for
me,” she says of her move into the
leadership role of the struggling
school several years ago. “It helps
if you have an understanding of the
community and the diversity and
how everybody's interconnected.”

Aless spirited person might have
balked at the academic, behavioral,
and political challenges that were
inhibiting student performance
at Pablo. Not Johnson. This is a
woman who often races through the
Montana night in an ambulance as
an emergency medical technician,
rescuing people from car wrecks and
suicide attempts because she has
insomnia and likes to “stay busy.”
She's also done search-and-rescue

on horseback and in scuba gear.
Clearly, she likes to come to the aid
of people in trouble.

‘That is a trait she sorely needed
when she arrived at Pablo Elemen-
tary, where the problems seemed as
steep as the ski slopes of Blacktail
Mountain on the west shore of the
lake. Of the school’s 260 students,
65 percent are American Indian and
represent 32 distinct tribes. Achieve-
ment data showed a wide and per-
sistent achievement gap between
Indian students and white students
in all subject areas. But the prob-

23

Jems were not limited to academics.
‘Tensions simmered not only be-
tween Native and white students, but
also among local Native kids (those
hailing from the Salish and Koote-
nai tribes) and those whose parents
came from other towns and reserva-



28

and texts. The sample populations
were local, but they were collected to
be representative of the U.S. popula-
tion in terms of ethnicity and par-
ents’ educational levels, | was
looking for the early developmental
origin of writing problems, instead
of waiting until the upper elementary
or middle school years after years of
chronic failure. We think we found
it: It's handwriting and it’s spelling.
And, more importantly, it’s hand-
writing “automaticity’—how auto-
matically the student can make
those letters so they're not drawing
them. It needs to be automatic so
you're not using valuable mental
resources for making the letters, and
you have more room to think about
what you want to say and how you're
going to say it. In the beginning
stages of spelling, it’s not truly vi-
sual. It's a way of representing the
sound system of spoken language.
So children who have trouble with
that sound system, with those pho-
nemes and translating or mapping
those phonemes onto letters, are the
ones who have the spelling difficulty.
We really emphasize that the hand-
writing lesson is not independent
seatwork. It must be teacher led, be-
cause part of the secret is that you're
constantly naming the letters for the
kids. But teaching these systems ex-
plicitly is not the prevailing way that
writing is taught. Most schools use
whole language and journal writing,

where there isn’t a lot of explicit in-
struction and attention to transcrip-
tion. Journal writing doesn’t get at
the social part—sharing your work
— which is often what motivates
kids, And journal writing doesn’t give
them topics. Where a lot of kids have
trouble—beyond handwriting and
spelling—is planning, So first you
need to teach kids how to write the
letters, and then you need to give
them something to write about—a
plan—and let them read it out loud.
Maybe other people can’t read their
handwriting or spelling, but they can
still share. We tell them that great
authors like to read their work to
other people. Sharing is definitely
the motivational link for reluctant
writers. | think the whole-language
approach may have created a lot of
writing disabled kids—kids who are
curriculum casualties, not biologi-
cally based writing casualties.

NW: But curriculum design
doesn’t hold all the answers,
does it?

BERNINGER: We knew it wasn’t
totally curriculum, because let’s be
honest, there are an awful lot of kids
out there, even with whole language,
who do pretty well. So our study also
looked at writing from a neurodevel-
opmental point of view: What brain
processes were causing the hand-
writing and the spelling to break
down? Although some children are
at risk because of biological risk

factors—genes, brain wiring—it
doesn’t mean they can’t leam. It’s
just that for them, it really matters
what £ind of instruction they get. It
needs to be explicit. This doesn’t
mean you have to drill them to
death. It means that you have to
make it really clear and obvious to
them. You have to take all these
skills and break them down into
their little pieces and help them
learn all the processes. Using a lot of
statistics —with the able assistance
of Robert Abbott, a professor of
statistics and chair of educational
psychology—we were able to identify
which processes were the best predic-
tors of handwriting and which were
the best predictors of spelling. From
that, we developed a battery of assess-
ment measures that can be used for
screening and identifying those kids
who are most at risk and for diag-
nosing persistent writing problems.
We spent the next seven years doing.
instructional interventions to validate
what works to fix the kids at risk. We
wanted to cast our net widely and
help as many kids as possible, so we
went into first-, second-, and third-
grade classrooms and found all the
kids who were low achieving in vari-
ous writing and reading skills. But
we designed interventions based on
what we had learned about the neu-
rological processes that might be
breaking down.

NW: So schools need to look

148

[NW EDUCATION / Spring 2003

at curriculum first?
BERNINGER: What we really
should be doing when we design in-
tervention plans is to start by assess-
ing the curriculum, not the child.
We need to ask, given what we know
from research, what are the neces-
sary instructional components that
need to be in place? Let’s not blame
the teachers. Let's not blame the
families. Some people still think LD
kids are from dysfunctional families
and have a motivational problem
because they don’t produce. That's
not the case. These kids don’t come
from dysfunctional families any
more than anyone else. So let’s look
in the classroom, let's see what's been
tried, and see if we can help the
school tweak it, add some things,
delete some things, modify some
things.

NW: How does the teacher
know whether her approach
is working on an individual
basis—whether each child is
making sufficient gains?
BERNINGER: It’s got to be an in-
tegrated assessment-intervention
approach. You need to build in daily
progress monitoring—a way for the
child to get a little sense of progress.
You need to quickly get the kids to
feel like, “I can do it” —to feel like
they're readers and writers—because
motivation is such an important
part. You need to set goals and mon-
itor progress weekly, monthly, and


34

What Do We Do
When They Speak
a Language No
One Understands?

TATTOBRINE MCNEIL

EDITOR'S NOTE: Katherine Mc-
Neil teaches in a self-contained
classroom for students with
severe behavior disorders at
Northwood Junior High School
in Renton, Washington. Her
innovative, award-winning
approach draws on her own
history. Through high school,
she was a struggling student
whose teachers called her “lazy,
unmotivated, and immature.”
Not until age 33 did she gather
the courage to enroll in college.
There, she discovered that she
has profound learning disabili-
ties and attention deficit hyper-
activity disorder (ADHD). She
also learned that “with tremen-
dous effort, I could learn.” She
bas been learning ever since. In
1992, she became the first per-

NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002

son in her family to graduate
from college. In 2000, she
earned a master’s degree. Now,
in addition to coordinating
Northwood's JAG Program,
which stands for Just Achieving
Greatness, this Special Educa-
tion teacher and behavioral
Specialist is enrolled in the
Education Leadership doctoral
program at Seattle University.

At one time or another, they have
been in every classroom in this na-
tion. Voices in the staff lounge carry
the stories of frustration and anger
in dealing with “them.” They are
the bane of the educational system.
Who are they? They are students
with behavior disorders.

Oh, the stories 1 have heard about
these students. At various times,
educators, administrators, and the
public have offered numerous com-
ments and solutions to what ails
these students. One educator told
me, “The only thing these kids need
is some good ol’ butt whippin’ to
straighten them up.” When I told
him that most of these students have
been verbally, physically, and sexu-
ally abused and that corporal pun-
ishment has accomplished little, he
just said that if they come into his
classroom, they will either shape up
or he will ship them out.

Another time a teacher told me
that no teacher should be made to
teach “those” kids. “I don’t have
enough time as it is to deal with
‘regular’ kids. | don’t know what
they need. But they are not going to
come into my classroom and screw
it up for the others.” Sitting with ad-
ministrators, some teachers lament

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

the never-ending referral of students
for placement into programs for stu-
dents with behavior disor They
wonde~ ‘ lov” ow it is that refer-
rals mirrus the . tional statistics:
male, student. olor, single-
parent household, and of lower
socioeconomic status. This is fol-
lowed by the question: “Why?”

Uhave no solution to the larger
problem. But I know why. Most edu-
cators, parents, administrators do
not understand that these students
are speaking loud and clear. Their
language, however, is not under-
stood by many. They tell a teacher
Monday moming when they arrive
atschool that their father has beaten,
them over the weekend. How do they
communicate this? This is a dialogue
that I recently had with a student:

Monday morning 7:30 a.m.:

Amale student, 15, walks

through my classroom door.

“Good morning. How did

your weekend go?” He looks

at me with fire in his eyes

and replies, “Fu** You,

Bi*ch.” My heart sinks as |

reply to him in a quiel voice,

“I'm sorry you're angry. You

know that language is not

appropriate, but lam here if

you need someone to talk to,”

‘This student rarely spoke to me
in this manner, but | understood his
language all too well. You see, | used
to speak in his language. He behaved
in this manner every time his mother
let his father move back in. The
family has a history of verbal and
physical abuse. Being the oldest, he
has borne the brunt of his father's
drug- and alcohol-induced rages.

94

Simply, behavior is language; and a
powerful language, which few can
translate.

‘Their stories make my heart
ache. Students who enter my pro-
gram have very little desire to be in
school. The common threads that
tun through all the stories are pain,
rejection, isolation, and academic
failure. When our team convenes
an intake meeting, these students
view me uneasily and with a great
amount of distrust. [ ask them what
their previous educational experi-
ence has been like. Students usually
end their stories by looking directly
in my eyes. They search to see what
my eyes tell them. | just smile and
nod with deep understanding,

What they hear next is “the
promise.” | promise each student
who enters my program that every
day they enter my classroom they
are guaranteed four things:

1. They will be loved and told they
are loved by myself and my staff.

2. They will be cared for and told
they are cared about by myself
and my staff.

3.Bach day is a new day ... a
chance for a do-over. Nothing
is held against them.

4. 1f my staff or myself ever makes
amistake that impacts them, we
will publicly apologize to them
Over the past three years as I have

made these promises, I have seen

cold hard stares replaced by quiz
cal looks or even with ones of hope.

‘These are students whom other

teachers do not want, and they know

this. I welcome each and every one
of them to my program. Yes, there
have been students who have en-



is of superior design for the river
expedition.

But this morning, there’s a hitch
in the plan. Frustration is rising at
one of the computer terminals, and
Mapston goes to give aid. ‘Iwo Corps
members are struggling to save an
image to their PowerPoint file.

“Images do that, they’re huge,”
says Mapston reassuringly. “That's
why saving to the server is best.
Where are the two best places to
save?”

In unison, “William Clark” and
“George Shannon” (Megan and
Tylyn) reply, “To the server and to
the disk.”

But the disk is full and the
school’s server is down, so Mapston
has them save their image to the
desktop for the time being.

“Hopefully tomorrow the server
will be up,” she tells the girls.

In the resourceful spit
original Corps, the students leave
the computers for the day and go
back to their classroom to imple-
ment Plan B: testing the buoyancy

NW EDUCATION / Summer 2003

of their model boats and practicing
their oral presentations.
QUESTING

Being resourceful is the only way to
get by for teachers and students at
small schools with few resources
and isolated by great distances.
Cindy Mapston spends long nights
writing grant proposals to such fund-
ers as Albertson’s Foundation and
the federal Rural Education Achieve-
ment Program. Grants have enabled
her to expand her school’s resources.
She's become the educational tech-
nology expert in her building by de-
fault and determination, and, as a
participant in the Rediscovery Proj-
ect, she facilitates online teacher
training programs that help other
Montana teachers become more
skilled users of technology.

She's also participating in
another major project with other
teachers in the Golden Triangle Co-
operative, which has won a coveted
Teaching American History Grant.
‘The grant aims to raise teachers’
knowledge of the nation’s history
and sharpen their skills in present-
ing it to students. Much of what the
teachers have learned through the
Rediscovery Project, they'll apply to
the objectives of this new grant.

For the Rediscovery Project,
Mapston has created a WebQuest of
her iron boat curriculum for grades
5-12 that’s aligned to the curricu-
lum standards of the Golden Trian-
gle Cooperative and includes an
assessment rubric. WebQuests are
inquiry-oriented learning activities

that draw on the resources of the
World Wide Web (http:/Awebquest.
sdsu.edu/).

In the “Iron Boat Quest,”
(wwegiccmt.org/webquests/cindy/
teacher_page.html), students learn
all they can about Lewis's iron boat
and theorize about why it failed. To
test their theories, they build models
of the iron frame using materials
found in 1805. They create model
boats of their own design and test
their seaworthiness in a nearby pond.
They form “boat manufacturing
companies” and prepare sales pre-
sentations, advertising campaigns,
and mock patent applications to
market their boats.

Throughout, they're learning
history, math, science, technology,
language arts, fine arts, and wood-
and metalworking. They research
books and online sources, interview
experts, visit museums, and do
plenty of hands-on activities. This
project-based learning approach
also hones life skills, says Mapston,
such as critical and independent
thinking.

‘There's quite a bit of thinking
going on right now, as a matter of
fact, as team members huddle con-
spiratorially in the far comers of the
classroom. With whispered urgency,
they’ re preparing their presentation
strategies while being careful not to
give away any trade secrets.

Josh, as Charbonneau, closely
questions his mates about the fea-
tures of their boat: “Mr. Clark, does
this boat have any upgrades from

176

the previous iron boat?”

Clark/Megan: “This one’s bigger.
And if the middle part breaks, you
can take out the middle part and
hook the other two parts together.
And you can break it down into a
lot of little pieces if you have to cross
the mountains.”

Charbonneaw/Josh: “What hap-
pens if you come in touch with the
French or Spanish armies?”

York/Robert: “The cannons are
super-graded so they can do lots of
damage.”

Charbonneaw/Josh: “How many
gifts will you be able to store for the
Indians?”

York/Robert: “Two hundred
packs of beads, and they love metal
knives so we're going to pack 20 of
them.”

PROBLEM SOLVING

In the five years of the project, Map-
ston’s seen her students’ standard-
ized test scores go up, particularly in
math, science, and history. And she’s
seeing something else, too.

“T’'m not just teaching them.
American history, but to work coop-
eratively—citizenship, cooperation,
kindness, things they'll need to
know when they go beyond Denton
School,” she says. Learning in this
active, cooperative, and cross-disci-
plinary way allows even her special-
needs students to excel alongside
their classmates. And every student's
resilience and persistence have been
tested by unexpected obstacles.

Now, as seasoned problem
solvers, they know to always have a



44

they have a shoulder to lean on.”

‘Teachers at Grant offer their stu-
dents a great deal of support and
positive encouragement. They know
that these students need to believe
that their teachers care about them
and that what they're doing in
school has relevance in the world.
These messages are especially im-
portant to these at-risk children
because they may not be getting
academic support or encourage-
ment at home.

“The relationship is key,” says
Lively. She remembers a veteran
teacher once advising her, “The first
thing is to get them to love you be-
cause, if they love you, they'll do
anything for you.” Sometimes, she
says, when a child arrives below
grade level at the beginning of the
year, “that child has to do more
than a year’s work during the year.
They're not going to do it if they
think the teacher doesn’t care.”

Stueckle says she asks herself,
“How do I make them love to be
here every day?” The answer, she in-
sists, is to make learning fun and to
offer them lots of positive reinforce-
ment. She tells her students, “We're
going to work hard, but we're going
to have fun.” Additionally, she says,
“T make sure they feel success.”
Stueckle makes her way around the
room, giving kudos to individual
kids who have found the right an-
swer or used the right approach. She

also praises them for taking initia-
tive in their learning —for example,
consulting the dictionary for
spelling or clarification during
research on a project.

Multiple Approaches
To ensure that every child learns,
Indgjerd says, “we need to look at
every child individually and assess
each one’s needs.” As a result, Grant
teachers monitor students through-
out the school year to gauge where
they are on the learning continuum,
and where they need to go. Assess-
ments, tied to state and district
leaming goals, are conducted at
the beginning and end of the school
year from kindergarten through
sixth grade. Additionally, teachers
conduct classroom-based assess-
ments throughout the year to
identify areas of need for both indi-
viduals and the class as a whole.
These frequent assessments assist
the staff in monitoring student
progress, measuring instructional
effectiveness, and setting goals for
improving instruction.

“Even at first grade,” Lively says,
“kids are at such different levels.
It makes my job trickier.” To keep
track of student progress, Lively tries
to meet frequently with each stu-
dent. Additionally, each child keeps
a spiral notebook to record daily
notes about his or her reading expe-
rience, Lively then reviews the note-

NW EDUCATION / Fall 2002

books to see where her students need
assistance. “It’s difficult to keep
track of 22 students,” she says, “but
that's part of being a good teacher.
And these students need and deserve
good teachers.”

At Grant, staff members employ
multiple ways of teaching to be sure
they're reaching all students. Teach-
ers like Stueckle make use of recent
brain research to differentiate in-
struction and create learning oppor-
tunities for students of varied
leaming styles, Additionally, all
teachers report using a variety of in-
dependent and cooperative learning
approaches in the classroom.

“Sometimes,” Stueckle observes,
“students make the biggest strides
when they are working together.”
She shares the story of Khou, an ESL.
student who spoke Hmong at home
and wasn’t very comfortable with ei-
ther English or social interaction in
school. “Khou was quiet and with.
drawn and shy,” Stueckle says. “But
working with a partner helped her
blossom and become a leader in-
stead of a follower. She's gotten.
louder, more confident. Now, when
she knows the answer, her hand is
up high, waving in place. She's feel-
ing good about herself, talking
more, laughing.” Because many of
these kids need help learning social
aswell as academic skills, group
work can offer multiple advantages,
Stueckle notes.

48

Recognizing the importance
of literacy skills for their at-risk
population, Grant instructors work
extremely hard to develop accom-
plished readers. Indgjerd reports
that staff members use “lots of
strategies to teach literacy” and are
always looking for ways to improve
literacy instruction. Particularly
helpful, he says, has been a book
called Mosaic of Thought by Ellin
Keene and Susan Zimmerman,
which suggests strategies for teach-
ing reading comprehension. Addi-
tionally, the staff is committed to
providing early intervention for any
student experiencing difficulties.

“Alot of these kids don’t come
from literate homes,” observes Eide.
“People aren’ sitting down and
reading. They don’t have that mod-
eling at home.” As a result, Eide
opens up large blocks of time for
reading and writing and tries to help
his students “make connections —
to themselves, to the world, to other
texts. This makes a huge differ-
ence,” he says, “when it comes to
comprehension.” In a recent unit,
Eide introduced his students to bi-
ographies of famous African Ameri-
cans, pointing out the struggles and
achievements of such notables as
Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and
Martin Luther King, He hopes some
of his students will feel a connection
to these figures, perhaps identifying
with their struggles to overcome


want to study to be a doctor.”

The second wheel reveals stories
of four significant events in the
child’s life. Many focus on family—
important for all children, but espe-
cially in Hispanic culture. Students
write about holidays spent with ex-
tended families or the day a younger
sibling was born. “When my sister
Marisol was born,” writes Adilene,
“it was a very special day for my
whole family and also for me be-
cause before I didn’t have anyone
to play with.”

Often, events center on religious
holidays or celebrations. Students
write about “Las Posadas,” the
nine-day celebration leading up
to Christmas, or about a sister's
“quinceanera,” a celebration mark-
ing a girl’s 15th birthday, when she
becomes a young woman in the eyes
of her community. Students often
write about visiting family in their
or their parents’ home countries.
Julie, for example, writes of a trip
to see her grandmother in Mexico,
who owns three dogs and sells sweets

FOCUS ON WRITING

out of a little store in her home.

‘The final layer of the wheel, visi-
ble from the opposite side, includes
written descriptions of four “arti-
facts” from the child’s life. These
can include physical objects, such a
favorite gift, or things more esoteric,
including advice passed down from
an elder. Anaibett writes: “My great
grandfather gave me a chain [neck-
lace] that had a picture of my great
grandmother and me and my great
grandfather. He gave me this chain
in Mexico. I put it in the drawer
where I put my clothes and there is
where | left it in Guayameo, Mexico,
in my favorite country.” Julie, on the
other hand, sees her family members
as “gifts from God.”

‘Throughout the layers of the
wheel, illustrations highlight details
of the student’s prose, resulting in a
wheel that reflects the child’s life in
words and pictures.

“Writing needs to be engaging,
empowering, meaningful, and fun,”
says Lovato. That this project mea-
sures up on Lovato’s scale is evident

in the quality of student work.
“Writing is such a powerful mode
of expression,” she says. It “truly
empowers students and heightens
their levels of learning when given
opportunities to go through the en-
tire writing process—-brainstorm,
pre-draft, rough draft, peer confer-
ences, revisions, teacher-student
conferences, and final draft for
publication.”

Lovato models each part of the
project on a large easel at the front
of the classroom, while her students
gather on the magic carpet. “I model
everything,” she says, noting the
importance of showing her students
that “we are all writers.” She also
shows her students books that have
been issued in second and third
editions, evidence that even profes-
sional writers and editors go back
to revise and improve their work.

Lovato also credits “Las carac-
teristicas de la buena escritura”
(known more commonly as the

“Spanish Traits”) developed by
NWREL and tailored to the Spanish

89

language by former NWREL assess-
ment specialist Will Flores, as being
useful in her approach to teaching
writing, Flores “utilized rich Span-
ish language to describe each trait
and also provided great ideas and
many resources for writing in both
areas of instruction and authentic
assessment that I continuously use,”
Lovato says. She displays the traits
on a classroom wall and says,
“These are a great reference and
guide for my students—and myself
—to read and use over and over.
Further, the Spanish traits are zz0f
a translation. They were developed
in Spanish for Spanish writing, and
take into account the differences
that exist in Spanish writing.”
Lovato makes a point not to cor-
rect too much in students’ writing,
especially early in the process. “Fix-
ating on grammar can create road-
blocks” for students, she explains.
‘The important thing is for them to
leam to express themselves—to
build on strengths and then go back
See MAGICA, Page 35


Corps of Discovery,” reads the intro-
duction. “President Jefferson has
asked for a report of the members
you chose to make the trip. What
kind of people did you choose? What
expertise do they have for the jour-
ney into the unknown?”

To leam all they can about the
men and woman of the Comps of
Discovery, Schlepp and her students
traveled to the Lewis and Clark
Interpretive Center in Great Falls,
about 80 miles away. There, they in-
terviewed historians and reenactors
of the Corps members and took digi-
tal photos of the lifelike exhibits and
dioramas. They gathered informa-
tion and images on the weapons,
food, clothing, transportation, car-
tography, and ethnography of the
period. All of this went into their
multimedia presentations.
MAPPING
Students are also leaming to use
ArcView, a mapping tool that would
have made Lewis and Clark dance
around the campfire if they'd had it.
ArcView is a visualization software
program that tums data into power-
ful geographic displays. Students
can delve into the deepest of data-
bases and come up with all manner
of information that can be mapped
geographically.

In Conrad, these eighth-grade
digital explorers want to know:
What did the Corpsmen do for enter-
-| tainment when they camped along
the trail? Which tribes did they en-
counter, and where? Did their diet
change along the route?

NW EDUCATION / Summer 2093,

“We simply divided the trail
by the number of students in the
class,” says Schlepp. Students
queried a database of the expedi-
tion’s Montana campsites, created
by Robert Bergantino for the Univer-
sity of Montana (for more informa-
tion about this database, contact
him at BBergantino@mtech.edu)
‘They each chose a different segment
of the Montana trail to study, such
as from April 7 toJune 2, 1805—.
both as it was when Lewis and Clark
passed through and how it is today.

Then they queried databases
containing the original journal
entries, such as these caches of
all-things-Lewis-and-Clark: Public
Broadcasting System's www.pbs.org/
lewisandclark/ and University of
Nebraska at Lincoln's http://
lewisandclarkjoumals.unl.eduy.

Selecting journal passages dated
when Corps members were on a par-
ticular segment of the trail, students
read gripping passages about the ex-
pedition’s often hair-raising experi-
ences in Montana. Charging grizzly
bears, spine-tingling precipices,
boat-smashing waterfalls, and other
omnipresent challenges faced by the
Corps of Discovery make for some of
the best adventure travel writing any
middle school kid could want.

Each student brings his or her
research together with illustrations
from their own digital photographs
and images pulled from a Lewis and
Clark CD-ROM produced for the Re-
discovery Project. Then, they present
their geographical and illustrated

i
at

Indians throughout the region came to
Montana's high plains to hunt the
Js of buffalo. Upon seeing

Lewis exclaimed in his journal,

belief that there were not tess than 10 thau-
‘sand buttaloe within a circle of 2 miles

displays—constructed with ArcView,
Inspiration, PowerPoint, and Word
—on the SmartBoard to a rapt
audience of their classmates.

In the second half of the term,
they study the same segment of the
trail as it is today, 200 years later.
Using the same technology, as well
as Picture It! and Photoshop, they
build a “travel brochure” of the
area. Not only do they present their
travelogues digitally on the Smart-
Board, but they create graphically
tich paper brochures that test the
limits of their digital publishing
skills. These inviting paper
brochures are displayed now on the
classroom wall, colorful artifacts of
these students’ digital journeys into
American history. 0



writing teachers:
© Grammar and conventions are ineffective when taught
in isolation from students’ actual writing efforts. Instead,
teach grammar in response to students’ needs.
» Peer editing and evaluation can be just as effective as
teacher evaluation of students’ work in progress.
© Provide time for writing—students need practice to
become capable writers.
» Provide models to allow students to “get a feel” for good
writing. Reading experiences also enhance writing skills.
* Encourage good writing across the curriculum.

An ERIC Digest that traces how writing instruction has
evolved (Writing Instruction: Changing Views Over
the Years, November 2000) also outlines several ideas to

“reconceptualize teaching” in the writing classroom. Au-

thor Carl Smith summarizes research suggesting that
teachers:
© Allow students to take a more active role (i.e., let them
choose their own writing topics)
Build on students’ knowledge while introducing chal-
lenging new material (sometimes called providing
“instructional scaffolding”) :
© Collaborate with students to help them solve
problems
© Encourage students to take increasing responsibility for
their own learning

In many communities, teachers have taken the lead in
promoting effective classroom practices. The National Writ-
ing Project (NWP), founded in 1974 at the University of
California at Berkeley, has grown to include some 165
local sites—including at least one in each of the five
states in the Northwest region—that help teachers improve
how they teach writing. Local sites also develop pro-
grams that address particular needs in their communi-
ties, such as effective writing assessment or strategies to
help students meet state writing benchmarks.

The grassroots project first engages teachers in the
learning process, giving them a chance to focus on their

NW Education / Winter 2002

own writing during an intensive summer institute. Then,
throughout the following school year, teachers reconnect
with fellow participants to continue brainstorming, prob-
lem solving, and providing peer support. Educational
Leadership has called the project “arguably the most
successful teacher network in the United States.”
Researchers Ann Lieberman and Diane Wood share
their analysis of what makes the project effective in the
March 2002 issue of Educational Leadership. They
write: “Because teachers engage directly in the learning
process, they pay attention to the frustrations, fears, joys,
and triumphs of being a learner. They can apply these in-
sights to their teaching practic

‘Two key features
emerge from their study of NWP sites:

© A distinctive set of social practices that inotivate teach-
ers, make learning accessible, and build an ongoing
professional community

* Developing local networks that organize and sustain
relationships among these communities and produce
new and revitalizing forms of support, commitment, and
leadership

Such supportive learning communities for adult learn-
ers mirror classrooms where students find time, effective
instruction, and encouragement to develop into strong
writers.

A recent evaluation of the National Writing Project by
the Academy for Educational Development found that
the project has “a profound impact” on participating
teachers’ beliefs and practices. NWP teachers make writ-
ing “part of everything we do.” They tend to infuse writ-
ing throughout the curriculum and across subject areas,
spending more time on writing instruction than non-
participants. They are more likely to use exemplary in-
structional practices such as asking students to produce
more than one draft, write in journals, choose their own
topics, and use a computer to write and edit. (For more
information about the National Writing Project or its
local affiliates, see sidebar on Page 8.)

68


They
Remember

NORTHWEST AUTHORS LOOK BACK
ON THE LESSONS ‘THAT HAVE LASTED

By SUZIE BOSS and
DENISE JARRETT WEEKS

By the time an author holds her
published book in the palm of
ands, she has done the

ming to write.

she can then expect to hear
questions from admiring read-
ers: How did you learn to do
/hat mattered along the

y to becoming a writer?
Teachers of writing can

be forgiven if they hope for the

best—a kind word about a

the gifts of the proté
story fit for Hollywood—

Finding Forres

mind (the Sean Connery r
of course, not the meanspirited
h teacher).

But what happens in real life? In
a high school class of 21 students in
Valier, Montana, the red-headed son
of a ranch hand gets a strange no-
tion in his head, and “makes up his
mind to be a writer of some kind.”
As Ivan Doig recalls, the inspiration
towrite came from wanting to es-
cape the drudgery of ranch work.
He grew up to write Dancing al the
Rascal Fair, This House of Sky, and
other fine books that capture the
spirit and people of the West. Writer
Anne Lamott recalls in Bird by Bird
how it felt to have her words read
aloud for the first time. She was in
the second grade:

“It was a great moment;
the other children looked
at me as though I bad
learned to drive. ... 1
understood immediately
the thrill of seeing oneself
in print. It provides some
sort of primal verification:
you are in print; therefore
Jou exist.”

Eudora Welty, in One Writer's
Beginnings, reports of her educa-
tion: “I was always my own teacher.”
Others recall classroom experiences
that improved their craft, and some

remember best the lessons they spent
years unlearning. Stephen King,
in On Writing, recalls an eat

counter with a teacher who accused
him of wasting his talent on writing
“junk”:
1 was ashamed. I have
Spent a good many years
since—too many, I think
—being ashamed about
what I write. 1 think I was
forty before I realized that
ahnost every writer of fic-
tion and poetry who bas
ever published a line bas
been accused by someone
of wasting bis or ber God-
given talent. Ifyou write
... someone will try to
make you feel lousy about
it, that’s all.

The Northwest region is blessed
with many fine writers, a few of
whom agreed to reflect on the writ-
ing lessons they remember—for
better or worse.

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002


1

G G Learning
disabilities
encompass
awide range

of disorders

in listening,
speaking,
reading, writing,
and mathematics
that are frequently
accompanied

by ... deficits

in attention

and social
behavior. V9
—G. Reid Lyon, National

Institute of Child Health and
Human Development

Lyon and others argue that countless kids are being mis-
takenly labeled as disabled—that with the right instruc-
tion at the right time, these at-risk students would be
spared the trauma of special ed placement and all the emo-
tional baggage it carries. Unnecessary special services
can be a cosily drain in this era of budgets worn thin by
tax revolts, slumping markets, and rising energy pricesp—
an era when many schools are hard-pressed to fund sep-
arate programs for lagging learners. Timely teaching with
scientifically supported strategies can negate the need for
pricey intervention for all but the most disabled.

“Researchers suspect there’s a window between the ages
offive and seven when the underlying skills of reading are
most casily learned,” Kantrowitz and Anne Underwood
wrote in a 1999 Newsweek article. They note that a kin-
dergarten teacher can accomplish in 30 minutes what a
fourth-grade teacher would need two hours to do.
Extrapolate those figures to the sixth or seventh grades—
the time when many LD kids finally start getting help—
and you begin to get a sense of the costs of waiting. Notes
Lyon: “Unless children are identified and provided with
appropriate interventions by the second or third grade,
their chances of ‘catching up’ in reading are reduced dra-
matically. This does not mean that we cannot succeed with
older students. We can, but the cost in both time and
money is essentially tripled.”

Read the research literature about what kind of inter-
vention LD kids need, and you'll find two words turning
up again and again: “early” and “appropriate.” No one
really argues about what “early” means. As noted above,
the jury is in on third grade as the pivot point for long-term
reading proficiency. But when you take up the topic of
what's “appropriate,” you'd better put on a heat shield.
That's because you've dropped a match into the most
explosive cauldron of educational philosophy: whole lan-
guage versus phonics. The decades-old debate about
direct instruction versus discovery learning crystallizes
clearly in the field of reading disabilities. Here's why: A
mounting body of evidence shows that struggling readers—

both the truly disabled as well as the chronically con-
fused—tack a skill that is absolutely essential to the read-
ing process: phonemic awareness. Simply put, it’s the
ability to hear the individual sounds in spoken words. The
typical disabled reader can’t distinguish those sounds
(called phonemes), so she fails to make the next leap—
linking sounds to letters. Without these basic building
blocks, the rest of the reading skills—decoding, word
recognition, and reading comprehension—are all but
impossible.

Researchers point to this deficit as the missing piece
in the puzzle of dyslexia among children who have
“average or above average intelligence, robust oral lan-
guage experience, and frequent interactions with books,”
to use the language of Lyon. He notes that many of the chil-
dren studied under the NICHD-funded research have
been read to regularly since infancy, have well-
developed speaking vocabularies, and “can quickly
understand and discuss in rich detail” the content of
text read aloud to them. Yet they “flounder” when they try
to read age-appropriate material on their own.

The nub of the problem lies in whether kids can grasp
the “alphabetic principle” on which the English language
rests, To read the language, Lyon explains in the Washington
Post, one must “unlock the relationships” between 40
sounds and 26 letters. A decade of NICHD research has
taught us, he says, that “in order for a beginning reader to
learn how to map or translate printed symbols (letters and
letter patterns) to sound, he or she must intuitively
understand that speech can be segmented, and that seg-
mented units of speech can be represented by printed
forms”—an awareness that to most of us seems “so easy
and commonplace that we take it for granted.” But recent
findings in university laboratories have turned up a juicy
tidbit: It is not the ear that helps children understand that
aspoken word like “cat” is divided into three sounds and
that these sounds can be mapped onto the letters /</, /a/,
and /1/, Rather, it is the brain. “In many individuals,” Lyon
says, “the brain is not processing this type of linguistic

ie

—

‘THE HIDDEN DISABILITY

5


U.S. Department of Education E | C
Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI)
National Library of Education (NLE) aca Rcomet nto Ce

Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC)

NOTICE

Reproduction Basis

This document is covered by a signed "Reproduction Release (Blanket)"
form (on file within the ERIC system), encompassing all or classes of
documents from its source organization and, therefore, does not require a
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X This document is Federally-funded, or carries its own permission to

reproduce, or is otherwise in the public domain and, therefore, may be
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EFF-089 (1/2003)


c

approach. A statewide pilot project tested at 18 Washing-
ton schools, the Student Responsive Delivery System, is a
Tier 2 model sponsored by the state office of public
instruction, the Washington State Association of School
Psychologists, and the Washington State Speech and Hear-
ing Association. The model has reaped impressive gains,
based on findings from the 1998-99 school year. Of the 215
students who participated in the collaborative problem-
solving process, 138 students (64 percent) needed no
further intervention. Their academic and/or behavioral
troubles were resolved. The number of students who
needed a full-blown assessment for special ed was axed by
astaggering 73 percent across the pilot sites. Ultimately, only
28 students (13 percent) were placed in special ed.

Another study out of UW not only offers compelling
evidence of promising strategies—it exemplifies a new
generation of education research that rivals the rigor of
medicine and other “hard” sciences. Fifteen 10- to 13-
year-old boys in two matched groups—eight dyslexics and
seven nondyslexics—participated in a yearlong treat-
ment program designed by Berninger and her colleague
Todd Richards to improve their skills in understanding
and using the sounds of language. Reading instruction was
blended into a hands-on workshop exploiting the boys’
love of science. Images of their brains taken before and
after the treatment found that the dyslexics’ brain chem-
istry had changed significantly. At first, they used about four
times the brain energy of their nondisabled counterparts
to process sounds. Afterwards, they used only 1.8 times
the brain energy—a huge leap in efficiency. The dyslex-
ics also made big gains in reading. They all started out well
below grade level. Yet, by the end, all but one could read
grade-appropriate passages.

“This research offers a message of hope,” Berninger
said in 2000 when the findings were released. “Parents
of the boys in the study told us that children who didn’t
read independently before are now picking up books on
their own and reading them.” 0

NW Education / Spring 2003



‘upon children norms:such as generosity, sharing,
social interdependence; and cooperation.”

CLASH
IN THE
CLASSROOM

Training in Native
ways gives teachers
the sensitivity to
work effectively
with Native kids

By Michael Pavel

Research has shown that Native
students’ culturally influenced
learning behaviors, communica:
tion styles, and values are often
misinterpreted in the classroom
| andclash with their teachers’
dominant-culture perceptions of
how a “normal” student learns
and behaves. Research on Native
students’ difficulties in dominant-
culture classrooms has yielded

three major findings about their
learning behaviors and the condi-
tions they typically encounter at
school.

First, Native students from
many different tribal backgrounds.
Iearn best by processing visual
information—as, for example,
they observe and then model the
behavior of parents, elders, and
older siblings. A curriculum
development committee of WSU
faculty, NWIC faculty, and com-
munity members from the
Lummi reservation participated
in an effort to revise standard
teacher training curriculum to be
more sensitive to Native learning
styles. We have found that our
students at NWIC have the most
difficulty acquiring new skills
when they are taught only
through verbal instruction. Un-
fortunately, verbal instruction is
still the predominant mode of
communication in public school
classrooms.

CLOSING THE GAP

Moreover, in our work with
school districts in Washington
state, we have seen that Native chil-
dren of many different tribes also
avoid public performance of new
skills and are unprepared or ill-
at-ease when pushed into doing so
without adequate opportunity for
private practice. In our Native
teacher preparation program, we
feel that the steps involved in the
acquisition and demonstration of
knowledge at home versus school
are reversed. At home, observation,
private self-testing, and demonstra-
tion of a task for approval are
essential steps in the learning pro-
cess. In school, Native children are
expected to learn by responding,
publicly to direct questions from
teachers even if they are uncertain
of the answers, and opportunities to
practice new skills privately before
performing them publicly are rare.

Lastly, Native children from nu-
merous tribal backgrounds are so-
cialized to avoid competing with
peers and are more likely to partici-
pate in classroom situations that
emphasize cooperation rather than
competition. The child-rearing
practices of many tribes impress
upon children norms such as gen-
erosity, sharing, social interdepen-
dence, and cooperation. In
comparisons of white and Native

students, whites were found to be
more competitive and, even when
cooperative behavior was rewarded,
they still preferred to compete with
classmates rather than cooperate.

It is clear that assimilationist ed-
ucation policies aimed at changing
Native students’ learning styles
have failed. Given that the strength
of cultural identity is actually bene-
ficial to Native student academic
success, the only reasonable course
of action is to address teacher
training to be more responsive
to the needs of Native learners. A
widely accepted strategy to improve
American Indian and Alaska Native
student learning outcomes is in-
creasing the number of Native and
non-Naltive teachers who are prop-
erly trained to meet the needs of
Native students. (See the Indian
Nations At Risk Task Force final
report, Indian Nations At Risk: An
Educational Strategy for Action,
USS. Department of Education,
1991.)

Although Native Americans are
one of the youngest and fastest
growing segments of our popula-
tion, Native people make up fewer
than one-half of 1 percent of those
currently teaching and only 1 per-
cent of those enrolled in teacher

31


‘SNUMBER 4
SUMMER 2003

(ON THE COVER:

‘Montana's Square Butle with ingels of the statue of
‘Sacagawea with child in Portland's Washington Pat,
yucca ilowers from the Missouri Breaks, and porta of
Montana teacher Charlie Brown as Corpsman “Joseph
Fields’ by Denise Jarret Weeks, Inset of sketches from
‘one of the Corps of Discovery journals is courtesy of the
Lewis and Clerk National Historic Trail Interpretive
Center, Grea Falls, Montana,

Quotations of Meriwether Lewis and Wiliam Clark that
appear throughout the magazine are trom the 13-volume

. The Journals of the Lewis and Cark Expedition
edited by Gary E. Moulton and published by University
(of Nebraska Press in 1983, as wel as the online version
ofthe same ttle (hitp:/lewisandclarkjournals.unl edu)

24

26

30

34
36

Discoveries in Leaming
Lessons From Lewis & Clark

ARTICLES

Historical Inquiry

When kids study history like historians do—charting some of their own
learning by reading primary documents, visiting historic places, and
pursuing investigations of their own theories—they find history to be
alive with meaning.

Course of Discovery

All along the Lewis and Clark trail, teachers and students are using 21st
century technology to explore their communities’ past and present—
discovering the changes that have taken place since the Corps of
Discovery journeyed by 200 years ago.

On the Trail of History in Montana

Crossing great distances of time and place, six rural teachers and their
students plunge together into the enduring lessons of Lewis and Clark

Right Under Their Noses

Nose-to-needle, finger-to-leaf, students in a Portland ethnobotany class
learn about native plants of the Lower Columbia River region by tending
their own native plants garden, studying Meriwether Lewis's journal and
other sources—even putting canoes into the Columbia River to explore
the flora of its banks.

Native Plants, Native Knowledge

An Indian education specialist and expert herbalist, Judy Bluehorse
Skelton goes into classrooms and fields with students and teachers,
sharing her broad knowledge of native plants and their uses. Along the
way, she helps them gain a deeper understanding of Native American
Cultures and knowledge of the natural world

Expeditions in Learning

On the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge, high school students
are taking part in a new project-based course—The Lewis and Clark
Expedition—that administrators see as the leading edge of the school's
wall-to-wall reform.

Many Nations

A Canadian teacher and his multicultural students in Woodburn, Oregon,
are learning about Lewis and Clark's passage across the continent, where
people of many nations were shaping history.

DEPARTMENTS,
Resources
First Person

al,
] & 0

ary


her students through a complex
process of using technology to docu-
ment their chosen plants. Students
take photographs using digital cam-
eras, then leam how to digitally edit
them using Photoshop software.
Next, she guides them through the
process of using Adobe Acrobat to
create portable document format
(PDE) files so they can post the
information they have gathered
online. Finally, Lampi and her stu-
dents work on a Web page that
shares their knowledge with the
world, so that anyone who wants to
can use the information fora jour-
ney of his own (www.nwrel.org/
teachlewisandclark/free/portland.
html).

While Lampi has been teaching
her Lewis and Clark—oriented eth-
nobotany class for more than 10
years, the Lewis and Clark Rediscov-
ery grant has provided equipment
and training in the use of global po-
sitioning system (GPS) units, geo-
graphic information systems (GIS),
and other advanced technology that
neither she nor her students would
otherwise have had a chance to
learn to use.

ON THE RIVER
Each year, on the last weekend of
May, Lampi leads her students on a
three-day canoe trip down the
Columbia River. It is a chance to
complete the circle of leamning—to
bring all of their classroom and field
studies to bear in one real-world sit-
uation. “One of my main goals for
the class is that students get to expe-

DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING

rience a small part of what Lewis and
Clark experienced,” she says. “I em-
phasize that we are on the river for
three days, while they were on the
river for nearly three years, but it is a
very valuable part of the learning
process.” By taking her students on
the river, Lampi hopes to replicate
Lewis and Clark’s progression from
studying and planning to the testing
of their knowledge in the real world.

Students prepare for the trip by
making a list of all necessary equip-
ment. During the course of the jour-
ney, they will keep a journal, take
photographs, read aloud from the
journals of Lewis and Clark written
on the exact same days almost 200
years earlier, and experience many
of the joys and struggles of canoeing
and camping alongside a major
western river.

While some teachers might find
canoe trip with 20 middle school
kids nearly as daunting as the origi-
nal journey of Lewis and Clark,
Lampi obviously loves the chal-
lenge. And she has a lot of help.
“The Multnomah Athletic Club do-
nates the use of the canoes and all
the other necessary gear, and we
have a lot of parent volunteers. We
also take every precaution: trained
lifeguards, an emergency-response
team on call, cell phones, volunteers
that follow in cars, and one adult for
every child in a boat: It’s definitely a
team effort.” For Lampi it is also a
kind of annual homecoming ritual.
“My dad crosses the river in his boat
to help us safely cross the shipping
channel, and he also brings us fire-

a8

‘wood. It's a real family event for me.”

The first day of the trip is spent
on the Washington side of the river.
Students are given ample time to
observe the flora and fauna, write
and draw in their journals, search
the banks for native plants they have
studied, and enjoy the camaraderie
that teamwork and cooperation
bring, At meal times they read from
Lewis and Clark’s journals and com-
pare them with their own, trade sto-
ries and observations from their day,
and, in some years, are entertained
by the sounds of the Washington
Old-Time Fiddlers Association as it
plays tunes that Lewis and Clark
might have enjoyed while sitting
around the campfire

‘The following days include
many more opportunities for adven-
ture and learning. From the occa-
sional overtumed canoe, to
portaging around difficult (or low-
tide) areas, students gain a first-
hand experience of the difficulties of
river travel. The trip is also a lesson
in the changes that 200 years have
brought to the region. “The most
nerve-wracking part of the trip is
crossing from the Washington to the
Oregon side of the river during the
second day,” says Lampi. “Many
people don’t realize that on the
Columbia there are major shipping
vessels coming through every 26
minutes. That’s how long we have to
get from one side of the river to the
next without getting caught in the
wake of one of the ships.

“Min all, we've had very good
luck,” says Lampi. “The weather has

generally been amazingly good for
us. But no matter what, it's a really
great time and a special experience
for the kids.” For anyone who has
spent even one sunny afternoon on
the Columbia in late spring, it's easy
to understand the powerful impres-
sion the trip can make on students.

After months of study, learning
about native plants, Native Ameri-
can cultures, and the journey of
Lewis and Clark, students have a
context for understanding their
home region that many residents
will never have. At the end of their
trip, the end of their school year,
pulling their canoes on shore as the
late-afternoon sun spills over the
river, smelling the willow and cattail
and tule on the riverbank, feeling
the wind in their hair and the grati-
fying soreness in their muscles, per-
haps the students have come to
know this one part of the world in a
deeper, more meaningful way than
they did before.

For Judi Lampi, sharing this ex-
perience is the greatest reward. It
continues a joumey that her grand-
father began for her in the woods
and waterways of the Northwest
coast. At the end of a school year,
she has taught her students many
things and many new words, but
perhaps more than anything, she
has taught them what we might
mean when we say the word
“home.” il

BEST COPY AVAILAS: :


1 The personal
relationships
among students
and school staff
created a powerful
context for good
behavior.

—Hope for

Urban Education,
Charles A.

Dana Cent
University
Texas, 1999 [) ()

over a six-year period, Haycock and her colleagues at the
Education Trust have “come away stunned” at how little
is expected of students and by the low level of assignments
they get. In August 2001, The New York Times reported
that Jack Jennings, director of the nonprofit Center on Ed-
ucation Policy, charges impoverished schools with a
“general lack of rigor.”

“Ask little of children in the way of academic achieve-
ment and little is what you tend to get,” Stephan Thern-
strom and Abigail Thernstrom note in their 1997 book,
America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible.
“Tf the bar is raised, children work harder, and hard work
is the road to success.”

Recent findings show that all kinds of kids respond to
challenging material that requires them to contemplate
and cogitate. Borman cites research by M.S. Knapp in ra-
cially diverse, high-poverty schools showing that the
more classrooms focused on teaching for meaning—“that
is, geared mathematics instruction to conceptual under-
standing and problem solving, reading instruction to
comprehension, and writing instruction to composing ex-
tended text”—the more likely students were to attain pro-
ficiency in higher-order areas. And they mastered basic
skills, to boot!

Top-performing schools, researchers say, tie their rig-
orous curriculum tightly to district and state standards.
“Clear and public standards for what students should learn
at benchmark grade levels are a crucial part of solving the
problem,” Haycock says. “They are a guide—for teach-
ers, administrators, parents, and students themselves—
to what knowledge and skills students must master.”

Haycock stresses, however, that many kids will need a
leg up to meet those high standards and master that
beefed-up curriculum. She says: “Ample evidence shows
that almost all students can achieve at high levels if they
are taught at high levels. But equally clear is that some stu-

dents require more time and more instruction. It won't
do, in other words, just to throw students into a high-level
course if they can’t read the textbook ....”

Led Ai

Haycock is clear about what's required.

“One of the most frequent questions we are asked by
stressed-out middle and high school teachers is, ‘How am
I supposed to get my students ready to pass the ({ill-in-the-
blank) grade test when they enter with third-grade read-
ing skills and I have only my 35-minute period each
day?” she says. “The answer, of course, is, ‘You can’t.’ Es-
pecially when students are behind in foundational skills
like reading and mathematics, we need to double or even
triple the amount and quality of instruction that they get.”

TOP-NOTCH TEACHERS

In its 2000 report, Honor in the Boxcar: Equalizing
Teacher Quality, the Education Trust bemoans the “per-
vasive, almost chilling” disparity in the quality and qual-
ifications of teachers across neighborhoods. Analyzing data
from several studies, the group found that kids enrolled
in schools with high numbers of minority students are
twice as likely to have teachers who lack state certifica-
tion in their fields. In California, for example, 20 percent
of teachers at high-poverty schools are not fully creden-
tialed, compared with only 4 percent at other schools. In
mainly minority high schools, the numbers are even
bleaker. Only about half the teachers in high schools
with 90 percent or greater minority enrollment meet
even the minimum requirements in their states to teach
math or science. Teachers at high-poverty schools are also
less likely to have a college major—or even a minor—
in their teaching field or classroom experience. And they
bring weaker math and verbal skills to their jobs.

A 1998 Boston study of how teachers affect learning are
typical of other findings. In one year, the top third of teach-
ers produced as much as six times the learning growth
as the bottom third of teachers. Tenth-graders taught by
the least effective teachers made nearly no gains in read-
ing and even lost ground in math.

“We take the students who most depend on their teach-
ers for subject-matter learning and assign them teachers

CLOSING THE GAP


no clue what to do. They couldn’t
spell, they couldn't write, they didn’t
know the alphabet, so they couldn’t
even put the spelling words in alpha-
betical order.”

After a few months of frustration,
she rummaged through her students’
records looking for clues. What she
found stunned her: The worst readers
and spellers in the bunch had the
highest 1Qs—normal and above.

But it wasn’t until she returned
to her hometown of Portland a few
years later that she finally, serendip-
itously, came upon an answer to the
enigma. A young woman sitting
beside Kaplan on a city bus told her
about a teacher named Dorothy
Whitehead in the Beaverton School
District who was getting great results
with LD kids using a method called
Orton-Gillingham (see the sidebar
on Page 25). After volunteering at
the school for a year, Kaplan joined
Language Skills Therapy, a Portland-
based group of professional tutors
founded by Whitehead. Today,
Kaplan coordinates the nonprofit
organization—the first of its kind
in the country—which employs 25
tutors,

When Matt's frantic parents
found Kaplan, the child was enrolled
in the Talented and Gifted program
at one of Portland’s top elementary
schools. Yet, the third-grader’s only
literacy skill was the ability to write
his name. But under Kaplan's tute-

lage, he “just soaked it up—he was
like a sponge,” she recalls, relishing
this story of student success. In fifth
grade, despite being unable to mem-
orize his times tables, Matt got the
school’s highest math score on the
district standardized test. “He could
tead the math problem and look at
the four possible answers,” she says.
“His reasoning was so good that he
could just estimate what it was.”

Matt earned straight A's in mid-
dle and high school, and went on to
graduate samma cum laude from
California Maritime Academy in
Vallejo, where the boy who couldn’t
memorize his times tables not only
received an award in math, but was
voted “most likely to succeed in
marine architecture.”

Kaplan ran into Matt’s mom and
dad not long ago. Her face lights up
when she shares their news; to her, it
feels pretty personal. “Matt,” she says,
“wants to teach.”

Sitting in her elegant blue-and-
white living room, surrounded by
the Japanese art she collects, Kaplan
tells the story of the career she has
dedicated to dyslexic kids.

NW EDUCATION: What did
you do in those early days to
try to help the “eight/nines”?
KAY KAPLAN: | went to the read-
ing specialist in the district and asked
her about them, and she said, “Oh,
they come from bad homes, or

they’re not very smart.” She just
basically dismissed them. About Jan-
uary, | looked up the IQs of these 15
kids—they were all boys—and it
was an epiphany. [t was this life-
changing event, because what I
discovered was that my two star stu-
dents—the ones who read the best
and wrote the best and spelled the
best—were in the 80 range for IQ.
And the worst students had average
or above average IQs—in some
cases, quite high.

NW: So what did you do then?
KAPLAN: | went back to visit the
reading expert and tossed this infor-
mation at her, and she looked at me
as if | were totally crazy—as if to say,
“What are you talking about?” | was
trying to get her to explain what this
meant—why is it that the lowest-
ability kids were the best readers?
She just absolutely blew me off. But
it was the question that stuck with
me from then on.

NW: So you felt that the school
was making no effort to un-
derstand or help this group
of kids?

KAPLAN: | had a boy in my eight/
nine class named Dennis. He was one
of the better-behaved little boys in the
class, and I liked Dennis. One day,
some of the other teachers were sit-
ting in the teachers lounge talking
about the eight/nines—one of the
teachers had them for social studies
and one had them for math. They

143

were talking about what a sorry lot
they were, and they said something
mean about Dennis. I said some-
thing in his defense, and they said,
“Well, he’s a vegetable.” | was so, so
horrified. And they said, “Well, have
you gotten any work from Dennis
—anything besides a piece of paper
with his name at the top?” I had to
admit that [ hadn't.

NW: What did you do then?
KAPLAN: A couple of days later, |
had the students write paragraphs
—a description of a place they loved.
I parked myself right beside Dennis.
He had written his name at the top
of his paper, and that’s all. I said,
“Tt’s really hard, isn’t it?” He said,
“Lcan’t.” I said something about
writer's block. He said, “No, I can’t
do it.” Finally, I said, “Dennis, you
mean you literally don't know how
to write?” He said, “No.” He was in
the eighth grade. So I said, “You tell
me what to write, and I’ll write it
down for you.” So he said: “I love to
go fishing. | love the feel of the moist
earth under my feet.” That was not
the work of a vegetable. | said, “Den-
nis, that's really descriptive! You're a
poet!” A big smile came over his face.
I taught for a few more years in New
York and then in California, and
kept running into kids with the same
syndrome—kids with a similar kind
of profile. | just kept trying to figure
them out.

NW: Had you received any

‘THE HIDDEN DISABILITY

23


Say Please
and

You |



NWREL BOARD OF DIRECTORS

John Pugh Sharon D. Parry
(Chairperson) (Vice Chairperson)

Chancellor ‘School Board Member
University of Alaska Southeast iaho Falls Schoo! District

NORTHWEST EDUCATION Henry Beauchamp Richard McCullough
Executive Director/CEO ‘Superintendes
Quarterly magazine of the lley torn ‘Snoqualmie School District (WA)
Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory Dr. Bill McDiarmid
Dr. Teresa Bergeson Boeing Professor of Teacher Education
Chief Executive Officer: ‘Washington State Superintendent University of Washington
Dr. Carol E ‘Thomas of Public Insiruction

Dr. Elmer Myers

Issue Editor: Susan Castillo Superintendent
Lee Sherman onan Sapien be Instruction plo Elementary School District (NT)
Elec
ae David J. Parker
Associate Editors: ; Jerry Colonna Elementary Principal
Lee Sherman, Denise Jarrett Weeks Superintendent Kalispell School District (MT)
Redmond School District (OR)
Contributing Writer: ; Ted Popplewell
Catherine Paglin Dr. John Davis Principal
Superintendent Oregon Trail Elementary School
Graphic Production Bering Strait School District (AK) ‘Twin Falls (1D)
Denise Crabtree Rubén Degollado Kay Purcell
Teacher Principal
Graphic Design: Hillsboro School District (OR) ‘St. Rose Parish School
Dan Stephens Longview (WA)
Dennis Haverlandt
‘Technical Editing: & retary Treasures) Janice Rauth
Bugenia eacher Teacher
Eugenia Cooper Potter Great Falls School District (MT) Longview School District (WA)

Lawrence Righy
‘Superintendent

THE ASSOCIATION and Karly Development Soda Springs School District (1D)
OF EDUCATIONAL

Alaska Commissioner of liducation

Dr. Marilyn Howard

Barbara J. Riley
Waho State Superintendent of Public

Project Director

Instruction ‘Women's Opportunity and Resource
, Development, Ine
Steven Jacquier Missoula (WA)
Teacher
NORTHWEST EDUCATION ‘Southwest Region School District (AK) Roger G. Wheeler
can be accessed on NWREL's Web site: Dr. Michael Jaeger Pott)
www.nwrel.org/nwedu/ (Immediate Past Chairperson)

Dean, School of Eucation and Business

E Univer Estella Zamora
‘This publications based on work sponsored wholly or in party he US. Department of Paste Oregon University District Court Interpreter/Coordinator

#lveon under contac number ED-01-000013, The een fthis ples oes Caldvell (ID)
tot neces lett ves ode dearer ray her ageney of the US. over

cv Ts publieadon as opin th ovement fds Arcs nfuion
snthspublieaon aren he public domain nd maybe produce and diseanted Coeur D'Alene School District (1D)
‘hut penmision lee acknumlele NREL she soe

Richard Maver
‘School Board Member
&3 pNTED Qt RCHEED Pee Delta-Grely School Dstt (AK)

Linda McCulloch
‘Montana State Superintendent
of Public Instruction



6)

Astrong work ethic keeps three top students at “Jeff” moving toward their goals despite the tribulations of their struggling urban high school
Story by LEE SHERMAN, photos by DENISE JARRETT WEEKS.

PORTLAND, Oregon—When researchers Each of the three students interviewed here has
go in search of big trends, underlying causes, or found the inner drive to set and achieve his or
overarching theories, the individual student is her academic goals. They offer their outlook
often reduced to a hatch mark on a tally sheet. with intelligence, humor, honesty, and hope.
To give our readers a glimpse behind the statis- The sophomore English and journalism
tics, a trio of hard-working sophomores agreed _ teacher, who has just finished his second year at
to share their perspective on life at Jefferson Jefferson, joined the conversation. Meet Shawn-
High School in Portland’s inner city. As one of — tena Norman, Lamar Franklin, Bayo Arigbon,
the metro area’s most troubled schools, Jeff was and Andrew Kulak:
“reconstituted” a couple of years ago—a new
administration took over, the teaching staff was
revamped, the curriculum was infused with
new rigor. Now, staff and students are working
mightily to rebuild their once-proud perform-
ing arts magnet.

og

NW EDUCATION / Fall 2002


is that the focus of professional development seems to be
centered on helping students to meet specific academic
standards.

» Implementing comprehensive systems to mon.
itor individual student progress and provide extra
support to students as soon us it's needed, Four out
of five of the schools had systematic ways to identify and
provide early support to students in danger of falling be-
hind in their instruction.

* Focusing their efforts to involye parents on
helping students meet standards, In these schools,
traditional roles for parents and fund-raisers are giving
way to activities that address parents’ knowledge of stan-
dards, encourage their involvement in curriculum, and
involve them in reviewing students’ work.

* Having siale or district accountability systems in
place that haye real consequences fov adults in the
scliools. Nearly half the principals in these schools were
subject to some kind of sanctions if their students fail to
show measurable academic improvement.

The elements on this list, it turns out, capture many of
the key factors that are emerging in the literature about
equity and excellence among underserved populations.
These factors are not separate and distinct; they merge
and overlap. Still, it's possible to lay down some broad
brush strokes for the critical elements in successfully ed-
ucating minority students. Each school or district will then
fill in the details from its own pallet of local needs and pri-
orities. Research suggests that the following factors are
absolutely essential to closing the achievement gap:

1. High expectations: This factor features rigorous
curriculum geared to clear standards, as well as timely
intervention for struggling students.

2. Excellent teachers: Good ethnic representation on
the faculty and high-quality professional development
are both critical here.

3. Early childhood education: High-quality preschool
programs enhance cognitive development and ready chil-
dren for school

4. Schoolwide commitment: The entire staff is dedi-
cated to the well-being of students and diligent in stick-
ing with the reform agenda.

REACHING HIGH

Research shows that disproportionate numbers of minority
students have been shunted off to special education
classes, sidelined on compensatory education tracks, or
saddled with watered-down curriculum. Underlying these
practices, often, is a pernicious belief that minority kids
aren't up to tackling challenging material.

“Teachers underestimate the intelligence of their black
students, contributing to the test-score gap,” Education
Week notes in a 1998 article about the release of The
Black-White Test Score Gap published by the Brookings
Institution Press.

Researchers have found that teachers, especially white
teachers, “held more negative expectations” for African
American and Mexican American students than for white
students, Geoffrey Borman and his colleagues report in
the 2000 College Board study, Advancing Minority
Achievement: National Trends and Promising Pro-
grams and Practices. For example, researchers have
found that teachers who view Black English negatively rate
kids significantly lower in reading comprehension if they
speak Black English.

“all teachers tend to communicate their expectations
to students in either subtle or overt ways,” Borman writes.
When teacliers hold low expectations for certain kids, Bor-
man says, they call on them less often, give them less time
to respond, or provide the aiswer rather than help them
solve the problem themselves. Teachers may also criticize
these students more, praise them less, discipline them
more strictly, and in general pay less positive attention to
them. These kinds of negative or dismissive behaviors, the
researcher notes, fuel the “disengagement and under-
achievement” of students who experience them.

Observing classrooms in high-poverty communities

Vin

NW Education / Fall 2002

Young
people talk about
teachers who often
do not know the
subjects that they
are teaching.

They talk about
counselors who
consistently un-
derestimate their
potential and place
them in lower-level
courses. They talk
about principals
who dismiss their
concerns. And
they talk about a
curriculum and a
set of expectations
that feel so miser-
ably low-level that
they literally bore
the students right
out the school
door.

—Kati Haycock,
Education Trust,
March 2001



40

NOTHING BUT THE BEST

At Grant Elementary, teachers expect their multiethnic students to strive for the top

Story by Joyce Riha Linik

Photos by Kathryn Stevens

SPOKANE, Washington—

‘The singing, chanting, and juggling
make Diane Stueckle’s early-mom-
ing routine seem as much theatrical
production as classroom warm-up.
But the second-grade teacher's daily
ritual is designed with the latest
brain research in mind. Her objec-
tive: to bridge kids’ corpus callo-
sum (the connection between the
right and left cerebral hemispheres),
thus engaging and readying these
second-grade brains for learning.
The 20-minute warm-up includes a
lively recitation—something like a
pep-rally cheer—between teacher
and her students:

Stueckle: “Are you smart?”
Students: “Yes.”

Stueckle: “How smart are you?”
Students: “Very smart.”

Stueckle: “What are you willing to give today?”

Students: “Nothing but the best.”
Stueckle: “How do you treat an instructor?”
Students: “With respect.”

Stueckle: “If someone tells you that you can’t leam,

what do you tell them?”

Students: “I determine what I can leam.”
Stueckle: “How do you walk through life?”
Students: “With pride and confidence.”
Stueckle: “What road are you on?”
Students: “The road to college.”

Practiced every morning, these
empowering thoughts are intended
to take root in students’ minds, en-
abling them to envision and reach
for academic success, not just while
they're in Stueckle’s classroom, but
in the years ahead. For these chil-
dren, this message is especially im-
portant because it’s one they might

not otherwise get.

Paul Eide brings compas-
sion and caring to his job
teaching fith grade at

Grant Elementary Schoct

at

#



These discoveries constitute a death blow to the widely
held notion that learning disabilities don’t really exist—
that kids with normal intelligence who struggle to learn
just aren't trying hard enough or aren’t getting enough sup-
port from Mom and Dad. As knowledge about learning
disabilities has grown, so have the numbers. Fewer than
800,000 kids were identified as LD in the mid-1970s. But
by the middle of the 1990s, that figure had swelled to 2.5
million, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
By the new millennium, LD kids accounted for half of all
placements into special ed.

The ways kids can be disabled vary. In her classic
book, Learning Disabilities: Theories, Diagnosis, and
Teaching Strategies, Janet Lerner, a professor of education
at Northeastern Illinois University, identifies several types
of learning disabilities:

Dyslexia: Unusual difficulty sounding out letters and
confusing words that sound similar; the most common
form of disability

Dysgraphia: Difficulty expressing thoughts on paper
and with the act of writing itself; characterized by prob-
lems gripping a pencil and unreadable penmanship
Dyscalculia: Incomprehension of simple mathemati-
cal functions; often, a child won't perceive shapes and will
confuse arithmetic symbols

Lerner then goes on to describe several related prob-
lems that tend to turn up in the same kids:

Dyspraxia: Difficulty performing complex movements,
including muscle motions needed for talking
Auditory discrimination: Trouble distinguishing
similar sounds, or confusing the sequence of heard or
spoken sounds

Attention deficit disorder: Extreme hyperactivity and
distractibility, many children with learning disabilities
suffer from ADD as well

Dysnomia: The inability to recall the names or words for
common objects

Visual perception: The inability to differentiate
between foreground and background, as well as similar-

looking numbers, letters, shapes, objects, and symbols;
problems may include habitually skipping over lines of text
Although learning disabilities have distinct names, they
typically occur in clusters rather than in isolation. Peo-
ple who have trouble reading, for instance, very often have
trouble writing, too. Other problems, sucli as attention
deficit disorder, complicate the picture even further. For
example, 30 percent of people with learning disabilities
also struggle with ADD. “Disabilities don’t fit into neat cat-
egories,” Pat Wingert and Barbara Kantrowitz explain in
a 1997 Newsweek piece. “They are more likely to be a
cocktail of disability types and associated problems.”

BRAIN WAVES

Of the various disorders, dyslexia is by far the most com-
mon (hence, the most widely studied and well under-
stood). Fstimates of dyslexia among students range from
5 to 20 percent, nationwide. Shaywitz, who conducted a
long-term study of 450 Connecticut kids beginning in
1983, categorized 20 percent of the children as reading
disabled. That's one in five kids, adding up to at least 10
million children across the U.S. The University of Wash-
ington, in a 2000 press release, puts the proportion of
dyslexic kids at between 5 and 15 percent of all students.
Many researchers posit a continuum of disability.
Where each child falls on that continuum depends on a
unique blend of genes, environment, and what Thomson
and Raskind call “stochastic processes” —what most of
us term “chance events.” Lyon contends that among the
typical 20 percent of troubled readers (those who have
“substantial difficulties” learning to read), only about half
are truly dyslexic. And that's where a grey mist rolls in to
cloud the landscape of diagnosis and treatment. With
this “disability,” hidden behind the fagade of a smart
child who is very often clever and creative, the designa-
tion of “LD” can be tough to make. And what about uor-
mat IQ kids who struggle to read, yet don’t have that telltale
“neural signature”? Sorting out the infinite gradations of
learning difficulties can boggle the best of teachers.

NW Education / Spring 2003

GG children
humiliated by
their inability to
overcome their
learning problems
also tend to
develop behavioral
and emotional
disorders. Kids
with learning
problems are twice
as likely to drop
out of school; a
disturbingly high
number end up
with criminal

records. ) )

—Pat Wingert
and Barbara Kantrowitz,
Newsweek, Oct. 27, 1997


performance, One of Myers’s central 19
innovations has been quarterly

spreadsheets showing how each of

Applegate's

students is perform-
ing. “If there's no improvement, we
see it immediately and ask how to
effect the change we need,” she ex-
plains. “Ifa student shows effort,
but testing demonstrates no gain,
we ask, ‘How can we change our
practices?” The spreadsheets are
supplemented by a display in the
conference room, where tags repre-
senting each student hang in
columns indicating the level of
test he or she has passed. This helps
teachers get a clear visual picture of
what's going on so they can readily
share ideas for improvements.
“Then,” says Myers, “data can drive
decisions.”

To produce this data, assessment

is continuous. “The school staff here
has decided that quarterly assess-
ments are required to mark student
achievement, and | assess them in
between, which means each student
is evaluated every three weeks,” says ”
first-grade teacher Janice Davis.
Every day, Davis asks one of her
19 students to read aloud to her.
“If there’s no progress, I get busy!”
Davis says. Depending on the prob-
lem, she invites the student to join
her after-school reading program or
asks instructional specialist Vivian
Colvin to work with the child.

Math spreadsheets recently

CLOSING THE GAP


14

Let
Student named
Chanel says
teachers are
approachable
Right

Elaine Welleraver
helps students
edit ther video
guilts.

tracked classes up to now, they've
had few models of success in their
classrooms,” she says, With a more
inclusive approach, she adds, “more
class time is spent on instruction,
which benefits everyone.”

Each academy is assigned a
teaching team of four to teach the
core subjects of English, history, sci-
ence, and health. Teachers have to
apply specifically for these slots,
agreeing to participate in team.
teaching and collaborative plan-
ning. Typically, academy teachers
loop up with their students to the
10th grade, where integrated studies
focus on biology, history, and lan-
guage arts. Freshmen spend the first
three hours of the school day in
their academies, where teachers get
to know them well and personaliza-
tion is more than a noble goal. It's a
fact of life.

Health teacher Devora Eisen-
berg, in her fifth year at Hale, says
the academies create “‘a sense of
community. It's definitely working.”
She knows the benefits of small
schools firsthand, having graduated
in a senior class of 18 students.
“When it’s smaller, you develop rela-
tionships that go beyond the superfi-
cial level. It teaches you to be more
compassionate,” she says.

Academy teachers are given
planning time to work in their
teams—an essential ingredient for
the system to work effectively, Ben-

NW EDUCATION / Fall 2002

leis =

son believes. “Collaboration is key.
Historically, teachers have had very
little contact with their colleagues,
and kids have seen no connection
from one subject to the next.” In
the academies, however, “these kids
know that all the teachers on their
team are keeping track of them,”
he says. Teaching a mixed-ability
group is demanding of teachers.
“You have to differentiate,” Benson
explains. “You aim for high levels
and support those who need extra
help.” Students who are struggling
because of low skills can elect to
take focus classes in the afternoons
that provide them with extra help.
Students ready for more challenge
can pursue optional assignments
that take learning into more depth.

Planning time gives teachers a
chance to coordinate projects, focus
on individual students, or compare
ideas about teaching strategies. A
consistent approach is used through-
out the academies for details such
as how and when homework is as-
signed and collected. “It’s set up the
same way in every class, so there's
nota lot of time spent getting used
to teachers’ different styles,” Tudor
explains. “Consistency is a key to
success for our students. They hear
that everyone is expected to do the
same work, that the teachers have
the same expectations for all of
them. It’s fair.”

A uniform homework procedure

wie

is the sort of small but significant
step intended to bring success within
every student's reach—regardless
of background or academic history.
“Many students find themselves in a
whole new role here: being someone
who completes his or her work on
time,” says Tudor. Most students
realize early into their ninth-grade
year that they are being offered a
chance to start fresh. “They see that
high school does not have to be the
four worst years of your life.”

Some students arrive with a
rocky history. They may have been
unsuccessful in previous schools,
They may have bounced around
because of family issues or the bad
breaks that often come with poverty.
‘They may be adept at using distract-
ing behavior to take attention away
from low academic skills. “A lot
of these kids have attended many
schools before they get to Hale,” says
Tudor. “They've never had time for
relationships to develop, never had
time to finish their academic work.”
She describes a typical experience:
“If they're struggling academically,
their first reaction may be to think,
‘How do I get myself out of this
class?’ But in the academies, there's
no changing around schedules or
class assignments. There’s a com-
mitment to stick it out. The message
they get from the teachers is clear:
We're in this together. We will not

cycle you out,” Te says.

SUSTAINING THE TEAM
Around Seattle, some 85,000 radio
listeners regularly tune into 89.5FM
for their daily dose of news and
music. Callers are often surprised to
leam that the broadcasts emanate
from Nathan Hale High, where
shows are produced by a “staff” of
about 40 students. The 30,000-watt
station, a campus greenhouse and
horticulture program, and the inte-
gration of technology were among
the features highlighted when Hale
earned the status of “Cool School”
ina past issue of Zeen People
magazine.

Broadcasting teacher Gregg Neil-
son, on the Hale faculty since 1977,
calls the radio station a good exam-
ple of “project-based learning. It's a
way to keep kids engaged, interested.
We give them opportunities for suc-
cess so that they can apply what they
know. They learn to write in English
class, but they tend to be more en-
gaged when they know that what
they write will be heard by 85,000
people.” Neilson adds, ‘They also
learn to work together as a team,”
whatever their academic back-
ground or race. “They don’t want
to let each other down.”

Yet even within this positive,
team-building environment, voices
of dissent are heard from time to
time. A girl now in her junior year
says she enrolled at Hale for a
chance to work on the radio station,


=
3
$
2
2



16

was the skill you had to have to be
successful in life? Musical ability is
just another set of neurological
skills that some people come by nat-
urally. How many of us would suc-
ceed if that were the standard?

NW: You mentioned the neu-
rological roots of dyslexia.
Brain research has recently
shed a lot of light on this dis-
ability, which until recently
has been poorly understood.
RAMSEY: Yes. For many years—
andstill, for many people—it was
considered a moral failing of the
individual: They're not trying, they
could do better if they only worked
harder, Yet in fact, they're working
harder than anybody else because of
the wiring in their brain. (For more
on current brain research, see the
interview with University of Washing-
ton researcher Virginia Beminger on
Page 26.)

NW: In addition to hiring a
tutor, were there other things
you pursued on Jon’s behalf?
RAMSEY: Right after we hired the
tutor, Don happened to meet a dys-
lexia expert who told him about a
Support group at Lewis & Clark Col-
lege for LD kids and their families.
It's called Reversals. We started going
asa family and leamed all about
IDEA and all the things you need

to do to be a good parent of an LD
child. That's where we gained the
expectation that Jon could succeed

and go to college, because it didn't
really look like that was possible at
the time. Meanwhile, I kept reading
to him every night through middle
school. We also started him on a
regular program of listening to books
on tape from the Oregon State
Library for the Blind. | would check
out the print version of the book at
the county library, and Jon would
read along with the tape. It really
improved his vocabulary, syntax,
and fluency. We had a Spanish-
speaking friend who read his Span-
ish-immersion textbooks aloud to
him, and other people taped text-
books for him. A lot of people helped
out.

NW: What about the
nonacademic arena?
RAMSEY: Parents need to find out
what their kid is good at—to make
sure he’s successful at something.
For my kid, it was music. He played
the string bass. But his high school
didn’t have an orchestra program,
so I started an orchestra as a before-
school club. We had 20 kids. I hired
a director and raised money through
the booster club to pay her. I did all
the attendance and organizing, Jon
went on to play in the Portland
Youth Philharmonic for five years.
NW: So Jon was pretty lucky.
He got a lot of specialized
help and support starting in
second grade. Many LD kids,
however, don’t get identified

INW EDUCATION / Spring 2003

until much later.

RAMSEY: Most dyslexic kids aren't
identified til third, fourth, fifth grade.
That's too late. The research shows
that if you're not reading by third
grade, you're going to have a lot of
trouble. And the longer you wait, the
more emotional problems you have
to deal with. There are basically two
kinds of kids—those whose behavior
brings them to attention and those
who fake their way through. The
kids who act out tend to get identi-
fied earlier. But a lot of other kids,
especially girls, will fool the teacher.
They'll memorize passages ahead of
time, for instance, and then when
it’s their turn to read aloud, they'll
pretend to be reading, Jon tells a story
about being in SSR (silent sustained
reading). He'd sit there with his
book, pretending to read, looking
around at the other kids and won-
dering, “How do they do it?” I feel
so bad for these kids!

NW: Can you talk about the
emotional damage that hap-
pens to kids who struggle
along without appropriate
intervention?

RAMSEY: If you've got a kid who's
acting out, he needs a thorough
evaluation to see if the problem is
really an underlying disability. You
teally have to look deep to see what's
troubling him. If you don’t deal with
the disability, you'll never properly
address the emotional issues. The

136

problem with the current system—
and this is beginning to change—is
that there's this “wait to fail” policy.
My son had to fail to leam to read
before he could get help. Over and
over again, we ask these kids to fail,
and when we see that they've failed,
we'll try something else. What will
serve us better is when we can iden-
tify these kids when they're four or
five years old and start working with
them then—and then, all the way
through school, accommodate their
learning differences. They'll never
develop these emotional problems
because they will be successful from
the start. If they have early interven-
tion, many of them will actually be
able to go on and do standard work.
This approach is being talking about
in Congress with the reauthorization
of IDEA, and there’s also a lot of this
thinking in the Reading First pro-
gram enacted as part of the federal
No Child Left Behind Act. It’s much
easier to turn things around when
kids are little than to wait til they fail.
NW: How can schools identify
learning disabilities in very
young children?

RAMSEY: There are two tests—a
phonemic awareness test and a letter
naming test—you can give to five-
year-olds that will predict pretty
closely how they're going to be read-
ing at third grade. Each test takes
about five minutes. Some districts in
Oregon are screening all kindergart-



16

A

For older as well as younger students,
using picture books in the classroom
can bring the writing traits to life. That's
the premise of Picture Books: An Anno-
tated Bibliography With Activities for
Teaching Writing by Ruth Culham. The
bibliography describes more than 200
first-rate children’s books, grouping
them by the trait they illuminate best.
For example, for illustrations of strong
sentence fluency, teachers might turn
to The Table Where Rich People Sitby
Byrd Baylor, S/ugs by David Greenberg,
The Great Migration by Jacob Lawrence,
or River Dream by Allan Say.

Following the bibliography, more
than 50 teacher-written lessons and ac-
tivities, also grouped by trait, suggest
ways to integrate the traits and the books
into writing instruction at al! grade lev-
els. A related NWREL product—the
training video Picture This: Using Pic-
ture Books in Middle and High School
To Teach Writing—goes inside real
classrooms to observe teachers using
picture books as models to help stu-
dents with ideas, organization, and
other facets of writing.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE TRAITS
‘Spanish-speaking English language
learners are a significant and growing
population in U.S. schools. What is a
fair and reliable method for assessing
these students—one that promotes as
well as measures learning? The authors
of The Traits of Effective Spanish Writ-
ing believe the answer lies in assess-
ments that parallel those in English, but
are developed in the native language.

The Traits of Effective Spanish Writ-
ing brings “las caracteristicas” to the

NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002

WR fat

bilingual classroom. Not a mere trans-
lation of the English version, the Span-
ish traits grew out of real bilingual
classrooms, authentic student writing
samples, and research on how students
learn to read and write Spanish. While
the traits are similar in Spanish and En-
glish, the Spanish version reflects char-
acteristics particular to Spanish. For
instance, Spanish writing may have a
greater number of long sentences than
English; organization of Spanish writing
may not be as linear as that of English
writing; and Spanish spelling, grammar,
and punctuation conventions are very
different from those of English, poten-
tially causing difficulty for bilingual stu-
dents. This guidebook contains scoring
rubrics, sample papers, and the 6+1
‘Spanish traits—tema e ideas, organi-
zaci6n, tono y estilo, uso del lenquaje,
fluidez, gramética y ortografia, and
presentaci6n.

Like its English counterpart, Spanish
Picture Books identifies high-quality
children’s literature to enrich the teach
ing of writing. An annotated bibliography
lists by trait more than 50 books either
written in or transtated into Spanish.
Books like Pelitos by Sandra Cisneros
and E/ Viejo y Su Puerta by Gary Soto
illustrate strong word choice or uso def
Jenguaje. La Tortilleria by Gary Paulsen
and La Lagartija y el So! provide exam-
ples of the trait of organizacién. English
books that celebrate Spanish language
and Latino cullure also are included.
Thirty sample lesson plans written in
Spanish present ideas on how to use
the books for teaching particular traits.

Al

SPREADING THE WORD

NWREL staff members haven't had to
go door-to-coor to convince teachers to
try the 6+1 TraitTM Model. Instead, every
week they field hundreds of e-mails and
phone calls concerning the traits. The
Laboratory disseminates the model to
teachers, administrators, and staff de-
velopment experts through school
workshops and training institutes held
around the country. Workshop topics
include 6+1 TraitTM writing assessment,
integrating writing assessment anc in-
struction, using the traits with begin-
ning writers, tips for administrators,
and using the Spanish writing traits for
instruction and assessment. Advanced
institutes and workshops train experi-
enced users of the model to spread the
word back at their own school or district.

For those who can't attend a NWREL
training event, a video series, producec
by NWREL and distributed by Carson-
Dellosa Publishing, may be the next
best thing. The eight videotapes and as-
sociated materials in 6+7 Trait Writing:
A Mode! That Works help maintain con-
sistency and quality in the 6+1 TraitTM
training process and content. Each
eight-minute video (one on each trait,
plus an introduction) features a defini-
tion of the trait, a stucent skit, teacher
interviews, and sample assessments.
The facilitator's guide gives tips for
using the videos and sample overheads
to best advantage.

‘When a schoo! begins using the
6+1TM Trait Model of Assessment and
Instruction, parents shouldnt be left out
of the loop. Unfortunately, with the in-
tent of helping, parents sometimes feel

4

compelled to point oul a!l the errors
and defects they see in a child's work.
Whal is the result? Frequently it’s not
an improved piece of writing, but a
sulky, angry, even tearful child. Dear
Parent: A Handbook for Parents of
6-Trait Writing Students suggests ways
parents can respond positively and con-
structively to a child's efforts, as well as
encourage more reading and writing.
Just phrasing suggestions differently
may make a big difference in how a
child reacts, the booklet points out.
Dear Parent also explains the traits,
the scoring rubric, and the revision pro-
cess. It answers frequently asked ques-
tions such as, "What about invented
spelling?’ and, “Is a5 the same as an
A?" and, “If my child writes on a word
processor, what differences will this
make?" A Dear Parent companion
viceotape features teachers, parents,
and students discussing the 6+1 TraitTM
model.
6+1 TRAITTM SPIN-OFFS
Like a popular movie or television show,
the 6+1 TraitTM Writing Model has in-
spired a raft of what one distributor dubs
“coordinating products.” No, students
will not, any time soon, be dressing as
Conventions or Sentence Fluency at
Halloween, or toting their sandwiches
in 6+1 TraitTM lunch boxes. Teachers
can now buy numerous items to en-
hance their use of the 6+1 TraitTM Model.
Charts and bulletin board sets focus
on the traits and the writing process.
The “Wonderful Writers” bulletin board
set, for example, gives teachers an in-
structive way of displaying strong stu-
dent writing. Writing trait icons such as


ront oftheir ins
mural,
a movie theater.

where her own daughter is now a se-
nior in high school. Aware of how
full teachers’ days are already, Keller
worked with the school district cur-
riculum director to determine how
this new project could mesh with ex-
isting learning goals. “We explored
the whole question of curriculum.
How could we justify this project in
the classroom?” As they looked at
standards, they found a natural fit
in the content areas of language
arts, history, and visual arts.

Before students sit down to inter-
view longtime community residents,
they talk in class about “what makes
good question. What should you
not ask? How do you open a conver-
sation and draw someone out?”
Keller explains. Because many of
the interviews take place at nursing
homes and extended care centers,
students also talk about fears or dis-
comfort they might have about en-
tering the environment of the elderly
and infirm. The younger students
are candid, Keller admits. “They
want to talk about what to do if their

subject doesn’t hear well, or smells
funny.”

‘The goal, Keller explains to stu-
dents, “is to breach barriers so you
can get at the heart of the question:
Who are you? What can you share
with me about your life, your gener-
ation, your experiences?” Students
tape record the conversations, which
take place over several days. Many of
the tapes are later added to oral his-
tory collections of local historical
societies and museums. Listening to
the tapes, Keller says, “You can hear
when a student connects with an
older person.”

Whitefish High School language
arts teacher Norma MacKenzie has
been involved in producing four
murals so fa-—three with her ad-
vanced junior and senior students
and one with a class of freshmen.
Some of the students go into the in-
terviews “expecting to have nothing
in common” with their subject.
“But the older people grow in the
kids’ eyes,” she observes, as students
coax out the stories behind the gray

hair and wrinkled brows.

Students know from the start
that this is no classroom exercise.
‘Their writing will appear in public
and be read by a broad audience—
not only by passing tourists, but also
by their subject and his or her fam-
ily members. Their work must not
only be accurate, but also “honor
the person they’ re writing about.
This is the ultimate respect of a per-
son—a tribute to someone's life,”
MacKenzie says.

Once they have conducted their
interviews, students write an oral
history that's factually accurate.
‘They may need to do additional re-
search in the library, sifting through
old newspapers to gel a better sense
of a distant decade, or reading his-
tory books to learn more about an
event such as World War II. Context
becomes an important part of story-
telling, and also reminds students of
how the Flathead Valley is changing
as the economy tilts toward tourism.

Using their prose as a founda-
tion, students next move to writing

73

poetry. “They try to capture the heart
of their person in a poem,” MacKen-
zie explains.

Moving from research to prose
to poetry is a powerful lesson in how
language can serve many purposes.
When Keller guides students “deeper
into the writing process,” she might
ask them, “Tell me the depth of the
person in your poem. Tell me what
you saw when you looked into her
eyes.” Brevity is important, given the
limited physical space of the mural
panels and the concise nature of po-
etry. Keller encourages young writers
to hone their ideas, using action
verbs to tell a story in short, punchy
strokes; using metaphor to carry an
image, using emotion to transcend
a mere recitation of facts. Do all
that, she promises, “and then you
come down with poetry.”

xamples abound: A fifth-grader
from Edgerten School in Kalispell
wrote of a woman whose smile
“glows like a million-volt light
bulb.” Aclassmate described a man
of advanced age as being “almost to

FOCUS ON WRITING


24

tions across the country to attend
Salish-Kootenai College in Pablo.
Behavioral referrals were too high.
Some scuffles even came to blows.
‘Then a review by the U.S. Office for
Civil Rights found a disproportion-
ate number of referrals among Na-
tive kids in the Ronan-Pablo School
District. The reservation’ tribal gov-
ernment, the Confederated Tribes of
the Salish and Kootenai, demanded
reform.

‘The picture was made infinitely
complex by thorny problems hidden
beneath students’ low scores and
angry outbursts. Kids whose grand-
parents spoke a Native tongue, for
example, might come to school
without fluency in either English
or their ancestral language, making
literacy doubly tough to tackle in
the classroom. And a lot of the
students are descendants of family
members who, early last century,
were tom from their families at
young ages and forced into board-
ing schools where they were system-
atically stripped of their language
and culture. The resulting bitterness
and suspicion among many Indian
people toward government-run
schools is a persistent undercurrent
in the dealings between parents
and educators on the reservation.

NW EDUCATION Fall 2002

But Johnson, who's accustomed
to digging into twisted metal and
broken bones at car crashes, didn’t
blanch at moving back to the reser-
vation and bringing her own three
children to the school district.

The change process began five
years ago when Ronan Public
Schools administration, responding
to tribal concerns for educational
equity that coincided with new state
requirements for standards-based
reform, engaged the whole commu-
nity in improving education on the
reservation.

“Our strategic planning came
about because of a huge rift between
the Indian community and our
school administration and school
board,” says Terrie Alger, who has
lived and taught in the community
for 16 years. “We knew we needed to
do something to put us back on the
right track,”

Yet when the principal asked
Alger to represent Pablo Elementary
in the planning process, she at first
refused.

“[said: ‘Not me. Conflict is not a
place where I'm comfortable.” Re-
luctantly, she allowed herself to be
persuaded to go to the first meeting,
She told Johnson up-front, however,
that “if everyone's yelling and

screaming and fighting, that’s it—
I'mdone.”

Buta gifted Missoula-based pro-
fessional facilitator named Virginia
‘Tribe, hired by the district, kept the
lid on the bubbling pot of friction.
Over a yearlong series of meetings,
she helped to redirect the school
community's energies from division
to vision.

“Virginia Tribe moved that po-
larized group to a cohesive, unified
group that set a real strong vision
for our district,” Alger recalls. “In
the end, what's best for kids rose up
like cream off all the other issues.”

‘The district’s eloquent vision
statement leaves no doubt about the
centrality of children’s overall well-
being in the community's expecta-
tions for its schools:

RRONAN-PABLO PUBLIC
SCHOOLS AND THE COMMUNITY
JOIN IN PARTNERSHIP TO PROVIDE
A SAFE, ATTRACTIVE, AND ORDERLY
LEARNING ENVIRONMENT. THIS
POSITIVE CLIMATE PROMOTES
HEALTHY LIFESTYLES WHERE STU-
DENTS REALIZE THE IMPORTANCE
OF LIFE-LONG LEARNING, TAKE
RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIGH PER-
SONAL STANDARDS, AND FEEL A
GREATER SENSE OF SELF-WORTH
AND BELONGING. EACH INDIVID-
UAL WILL LEARN TO CELEBRATE
AND BE RESPECTFUL OF OUR RICH
MULTICULTURAL COMMUNITY, AND

28

With this ideal as a guidepost,
each district school—a high
school, a middle school, and two
elementary buildings—then under-
took a comprehensive needs assess-
ment after receiving training from
the Northwest Regional Educational
Laboratory (NWREL). Not a stone
was left unturned.

“We looked at curriculum and
instruction, we looked at achieve-
ment data, attendance data, school
climate—everything we could look
at about our kids from Grade One
up,” Johnson says. “We asked the
kids, ‘Do you like math, do you like
lunch, do you like riding the bus?”
We asked, ‘What's your favorite sub-
ject and why?’ When we were done,
it was very clear what our needs

were,

STUDENTS WILL LEARN TO APPRE-
CIATE THE UNIQUE HERITAGE AND
HISTORY OF THE FLATHEAD
IRESERVATION. THIS PARTNER-
SHIP STRIVES FOR A STANDARD

OF EXCELLENCE WHERE ALL STU-
DENTS ACHIEVE THEIR HIGHEST
PERSONAL EXPECTATIONS AND ARE
PREPARED TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN
‘TODAY'S COMPETITIVE GLOBAL
SOCIETY. IIN THIS LEARNING ENVI-
RONMENT, STUDENTS WILL GRAD-
UATE, PREPARED TO PURSUE
‘THEIR LIFE CHOICES AND TO
ATTAIN THEIR PERSONAL VISIONS
OF SUCCESS.



struggle to learn.

Berninger’s graduate education
at the Johns Hopkins University was
in experimental psychology, focus-
ing on the three areas she thought
“held the clue to figuring out what
to do with leaming disabilities" —
cognitive psychology, psychobiology,
and psycholinguistics. Her postdoc-
toral work took her to Boston Chil-
dren’s Hospital, where she taught
with a group of physicians from all
over the country about child devel-
opment and learning disabilities
and worked in clinics serving chil-
dren with developmental and leam-
ing disorders.

Eventually, she and her husband,
Ron—an organic chemist tumed
biomedical research scientist—came
west, after each received a job offer
in Seattle on the same day. “Our
families thought we were nuts, be-
cause both our families have been on
the East Coast for generations,” she
says, and then jokes, “A lot of people
felt we went to another country.”

Now a widely published professor
in the University of Washington Col-
lege of Education School Psychology
Program and director of the UW
Multidisciplinary Leaming Disabili-
ties Center, Beringer designs and
oversees cutting-edge research on the
brain-based learning disorders and
strategies for addressing learning
differences. The center, one of several

such centers housed at universities

around the nation (including Yale
and Georgetown), is engaged in re-
search on brain imaging, as well as
genetic clues to learning disabilities.
‘The UW brain imaging team, headed
by Todd Richards and Elizabeth Ayl-
ward, has discovered, for example,
that dyslexic children differ from
good readers in brain activation as-
sociated with several language tasks,
but these differences disappear after
instructional intervention. (For more
on Berninger’s research and writings,
see “Why Can't I Read?” beginning
on Page 2.)

Sitting in her office among teeter-
ing paper towers of research reports
and scholarly journals, Berninger
shares a sampling of her knowledge
and experience with Northwest
Education.

NORTHWEST EDUCATION:
Why is it important for teach-
ers to study the brain?
VIRGINIA BERNINGER: | find
that teachers are hungry for infor-
mation about the brain. Yet, there’s
so much bogus information out
there. It's very easy to be naive—to
not be a critical consumer of what’s
out there, There are a lot of people
who are capitalizing on this gap in
teachers’ knowledge. It also concerns
me because teachers are expected to
help kids leam and develop, and the
major organ for that is the brain.
Yet, they are given no training for

bey

this in their teacher education pro-
grams. That's one of the reasons we
wrote our textbook (Berninger, VW,
and Richards, T.L, Brain Literacy
Sor Educators and Psychologists,
Academic Press, 2002). Neuroscience
has been around for about 150 years,
and we're getting to the point where
there are certain general principles
that are givens—a body of shared
knowledge. Not that we fully under-
stand the brain by a long shot. But
if you don’t understand these princi-
ples, you're going to remain a naive
consumer of this information.
NW: If learning disabilities
occur in only about 10 per-
cent of the population, as
many experts suggest, why do
general education teachers
need to concern themselves
with this?
BERNINGER: We have learned
that there’s an incredible amount of
normal variation in learning pro-
cesses among the general popula-
tion. We did a study in a very large
school looking at kindergartners and
first-graders. We started with inten-
sive, one-and-a-half-hour testing of
each child at the end of kindergarten.
Then we followed them to the end of
first grade, going back five times to
test all of these kids on reading and
related skills. So I really hada
chance to look at this longitudinal
unfolding of the process. When we
started, the teachers said: “We need

147

to tell you that this is a very homo-
geneous group. These kids all lear
to read. You're not going to find a
lot of variation here.” Well, surprise,
it was just #recredibly diverse. | don’t
think the public, the politicians,
parents, teachers understand how
much diversity they're dealing with
inside the minds of learners. | stayed
in touch with the psychologist at
that school, and she said: “Ginger,
you were right on. All the kids you
flagged for us in first grade who were
at risk because they couldn't do tasks
based on phonological awareness
—they couldn’t segment words into
phonemes and they couldn’t write
their alphabet letters from memory
—these are the kids who continued
to have difficulties in high school.”

27

661 find that teachers

are hungry for informa-

tion about the brain. ??

NW: You have done a lot of
investigation into the connec-
tion between reading and
writing difficulties.
BERNINGER: I couldn't help but
notice that the kids with reading
problems generally also had writing
problems. Writing disabilities are
less understood, even, than reading
disabilities, One of the first grants
got was looking at individual differ-
ences among children in their abili-
ties to write letters, words, sentences,

‘THE HIDDEN DISABILITY


10

fy NATHAN HALE HIGH SCHOOL
a CREATES A MORE PERSONAL

PLACE FOR KIDS

- Story‘and photos by-Suzie Bossi

SEATTLE, Washington—
Principal Eric Benson ducks his
head into a ninth-grade English
class just as seven students are set-
tling themselves into a cluster of
chairs pushed to the center of the
room. From these “hot seats,” they
set out to lead a class discussion
about Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha.
‘Their teacher watches from the
sidelines, ready to add a question
or comment to keep things moving,
but giving students the lead.
Benson tells a visitor that this is
a typical classroom scene at Nathan
Hale High School in Seattle’s Lake
City, an older neighborhood north
of downtown lined with affordable
homes, apartments, and a smatter-
ing of small businesses. “Our model
is the teacher as coach,” explains
the soft-spoken principal who does-
n't have to whisper to keep from in-
terrupting the class. A few students
glance in his direction, but they're
not distracted. Kids are accustomed
to seeing their principal often; in-
deed, in this four-year high school
with an enrollment of about 1,000,
Benson knows virtually every? stil
dent by name. He continues: “You:
don’t see a lot of classrooms where
the chairs are lined up in rows-wit
kids listening to lectures. We try to
engage students to use their minds.
Basically, that's the goal.” :

NW EDUCATION / Fall 2002"). &}

It seems to be working. Nathan
Hale is widely praised for the success
of its diverse student population,
which is currently about 40 percent
minority (11 percent African Ameri-
can, 18 percent Asian, 6 percent His-
panic), with 22 percent of students
receiving free or reduced-price
lunch and 12 percent needing
special education, “~~ “.

But although improvements
have been dramatic—including a
steady closing of the achievement
gap between minority and white
students, a reduction in the dropout
rate, and a sea change in school
climate during the past 10 years—
every Success Seems to trigger new
questions, fresh challenges. So it's
fitting that the principal happens to
overhear this class of ninth-graders


Beginning nearly 80 years

ago, researchers and practi-
tioners have worked to devise
methods for teaching language
skills to dyslexic children and
adults. Among the most widely
known approaches are these:
* Orton-Gillingham. Devel-
oped by neuropsychiatrist
Samuel Orton and educator
Anna Gillingham. beginning
with Orton's studies of dyslexic
kids in the early 1900s, the
Orton-Gillingham approach

is a structured. multisensory.
language-based method that
allows students to experience
a high degree of success in
every lesson. “Teaching ses-
sions are action-oriented with
auditory. visual. and kinesthet-
ic elements reinforcing each
other for optimal learning.”
according to the Academy of
Orton-Gillingham Practitioners
and Educators based in New
York. The method. designed
for one-to-one tutoring. forms
the foundation for many other
approaches, including those
described below. For more
information, contact the
academy by phone at

(845) 373-8919. by e-mail at
info@ortonacademy.org

or on the Web at www.

SWITCHING ON THE LIGHT OF LITERACY

ortonacademy.org

* Slingerland. The Slingerland
Multisensory Approach is

an adaptation for classroom
use of the Orton-Gillingham
method developed by Beth
Slingerland, who first received
training in Orton-Gillingham in
Montana’s Glacier National
Park in 1935. She went on to
found the nonprofit Slinger-
land Institute for Literacy in
Bellevue, Washington, where
teachers are trained to “pro-
vide the specialized instruction
needed for children with dys-
lexia to unlock the rich world
of written and spoken lan-
guage.” For more information
contact the institute by phone
at (425) 453-1190, by e-mail
at mail@slingerland.org,

or on the Web at www.
slingerland.org

Alphabetic Phonics. Also
derived from Orton-Gillingham,
Alphabetic Phonics teaches
reading. handwriting, spelling,
verbal and written expression.
and comprehension by blend-
ing visual, auditory, and kines-
thetic learning. Designed for
individual or small-group use
by staff in the neurology divi-
sion of the Texas Scottish Rite
Hospital, it incorporates re-

search findings in a broad
array Of fields, including edu-
cation, neurology, psychology,
and sociology. The program's
goal—to develop rapid and
accurate word recognition
reading comprehension, and
spelling skills—"is achieved
through direct and systematic
instruction using language and
literature-rich lesson plans.
according to the Neuhaus
Education Center, a nonprofit
foundation in Texas that trains
teachers in Alphabetic Phon-
ics. For more information.
contact the center by phone at
(713) 664-7676, by e-mail at
info@neuhaus.org, or on the
Web at www.neuhaus.org.

BEST COPY AVAILABLE



Lewis and Clark as the foundation
for student reading and research.
Students, however, are held to much
tougher writing standards than were
the spelling-impaired journal writers
of the Corps of Discovery. Students’
reports must be on time, revised
often, and spelled correctly. In the
process, students soon leam to ap-
preciate how note taking, drafting,
and revising are easier with key-
boards than with quills.

Senior Tyler Blaisdell particu-
larly liked researching and writing
a children’s book for third-graders
at Stevenson Elementary School.
Knowing that real people would be
reading his book was a big motiva-
tor, says Tyler, and he put more time
and care into this project than any
other during his years at Stevenson
High.

“My book received many com-
pliments from the third-graders,” he
proudly notes. ‘he younger students
partnered with their high school
mentors in developing the books.
“Ttwas actually pretty cool to see
the children’s faces when their own
original ideas became a great work
of art,” says Blaisdell. “I think they
were also impressed that we older
kids took time to be with them.”

Tyler and fellow students went
through a three-stage production
cycle with their third-grade partners:
finding out what these youngsters
would like to know about the Lewis

NW EDUCATION / Summer 2003

and Clark party and the Indian
tribes they met; sharing a rough
draft with the kids to see which
words were difficult for them; and
reading their final creations aloud.

Each student is completing
a showcase project for display at
the Columbia Gorge Interpretive
Center, Skamania Lodge, or at the
Columbia Gorge Discovery Center
in The Dalles. Students wrote three
drafts of a 10-page research paper
that is the foundational piece of
their projects. This spring they are
wrapping up their products, includ-
ing such things as a ClaymationTM
of Lewis and Clark, a Columbia
Gorge topographical map, bullet
bags displayed in a shadow box, a
Lewis and Clark board game, arrows
and quiver, and a hand-finished
cedarstrip canoe.

Student Crystal Helkey, whose
heritage is Minnesota-Chippewa, is
creating a jingle dress, regalia wom.
by Native American dancers. The
designs of the jingle dresses convey
important knowledge froin tribal
elders to newer generations. One
challenge: getting the right tobacco
tin lids from adults in the commu-
nity. Brett Yeadon’s project required
building a custom-designed steam
chamber to soften a six-foot hickory
cutout he molded into a high-per-
formance hunting bow. Senior Josh
Maxwell, who works part time in the
woods as a timber feller, is building

Working with a professional playwright-in-residence, Ben Bliss and other seniors co-wrote a play about
‘Sacagawea,

a log entertainment center that
Lewis and Clark would have wanted
during their long, rainy winter at
Fort Clatsop.

PASSING MUSTER
LaCombe, the school’s technology
education teacher, is particularly
excited about an authentic dugout
canoe students are making in the
style of canoes made by Chinook
Indians two centuries ago. The first
major hurdle was securing a large-
énough Western red cedar log, now
rare and expensive. Thanks to the
U.S. Forest Service, a prime log was
delivered to the school parking lot in
late fall. Next was the challenge of
locating tribal experts to show stu-
dents how to proceed.

One of the first cultural protocols

18s

students and teachers leamed was
the tribal blessing of a fallen cedar
tree that must take place before
transforming the log into a canoe.
Students in this community that
depends so heavily on natural re-
sources are being reminded of the
“circle of life” philosophy of Native
American people—sustainable
resources are part of millennia-old
ways of life.

Students divided themselves into
groups with specific assignments.
The “legal team,” for example, has
been researching river safety issues
with the Coast Guard as well as lia-
bility insurance for the June river
trip. Other teams are responsible for
handling district policies, field trips,
safety, publicity, liaison with the
community and elementary school,


Education Dean Judy Mitchell.
“We need to be continually
mindful of our impact on future
generations as we prepare educa-
tion professionals to work with all
the world’s children. We must do
everything we can to honor the
differences among us, to recog-
nize and value our diverse cul-
tural perspectives and heritages,
and to help others do the same.”
Here, some of our faculty
members share a brief look at
their work in addressing these is-
sues through teaching, research,
and service to the community.
© Dr. Gisela Ernst-Slavit of WSU-
Vancouver’ Department of
Teaching and Learning docu-
ments strategies for improving
schooling for Limited English
Proficiency (LEP) students that
again stress the importance of
one’s unique culture in develop-
ing language skills, and advo-
cates for a comprehensive
approach in responding to the
diversity represented in Washing-
ton'’s classrooms.
© Dr. Michael Pavel of the Depart-
ment of Educational Leadership
and Counseling Psychology at
the WSU Pullman Campus, a
Skokomish tribal member, de-
scribes the efforts of a partnership
Sormed by faculty from WSU,
Northwest Indian Community
College (NWIC), and Lummi

Reservation community mem-
bers to train both Native and
non-Native teachers in the cul-
turally unique socialization pro-
cesses related to the learning
styles of Native American chil-
dren in order to improve their
outcomes in the classroom.

© Dr. Armando Laguardia, who
chairs the Task Force on Diversity
in the Teaching Force for the Asso-
ciation of Teacher Educators,
addresses the necessity for our
national teacher workforce to
mirror the changing demograph-
ics across the United States.
Laguardia, of WSU Vancouver,
describes his efforts to form a na-
tional partnership to address the
critical shortage of ethnic and
racial minority teachers in our
schools.

While the work of these
researchers and scholars reflects
only a sample of what our fac-
ulty and programs are engaged
in with diversity issues, they are
demonstrative of WSU’s strong,
ongoing commitment to address-
ing issues of cultural and indi-
vidual diversity throughout our
College of Education.

—Dr. Brian McNeill

“Students: construct meaning from reading:
writing text first, and then move on to focus:on correct
language structures or genres.”

SO KIDS CAN
LIVE THEIR
DREAMS

How schools can

help English language
learners overcome
barriers to bright
futures

By Gisela Ernst-Slavit

In 1991, while I was working on
my doctorate in Florida, I asked
Pablo, a high school junior from
Venezuela, what he would do after
graduation. He responded right
away using perfect English: “I
want to play professional basket-
ball.” [ then asked him what
would happen if he didn’t grow
tall enough to make it. He re-
sponded, “I will play professional
soccer.” I pondered and asked
him what would happen if he
didn’t grow strong enough to be
a football player, to which he

33

CLOSING THE GAP

through

replied, “I will then be a baseball
player.” A bit frustrated, | inquired
some more by asking what would
happen if he had some kind of
minor disability that would im-
pede him from being a profes-
sional athlete. This time, this tall
young man thought about his
answer and replied: “Well, I guess
there is always McDonald's.”

Many students like Pablo enter
schools in the United States with
big dreams but little formal
schooling. The challenges for
these students are colossal. They
must learn to read, write, under-
stand, and speak English. They
must develop academic literacy
in English in order to make the
transition to the labor force or
into other educational programs.
And they must become socialized
into American society during
adolescence, a time of major
emotional, physical, and psycho-
logical change.


cCoOURSE

QF DJS

C_O VER Y

learned how to use all the tools that
were then available to help them on
their way. President Jefferson ar-
ranged for the nation’s leading sci-
entists to conduct pre-expedition
tutorials in topics such as celestial
navigation and cartography. In
much the same way, Kearney and
his collaborators with the Lewis and
Clark Rediscovery Project are tutor-
ing educators in using new tools
that will help them reach their desti-
nation—classrooms where all stu-
dents are engaged in active leaming.
Herewith, a couple dispatches from
the field.

REVISITING HISTORY
Teacher Amy Woods is a product of
Kamiah, Idaho, a town of about
1,000 that grew up alongside the
Clearwater River and built its local
economy on timber. Both her par-
ents were teachers, and she remem-
bers “‘a wonderful education” here,
surrounded by talll trees and open
spaces. The closest “big” city is
Lewiston, about 65 miles down-
stream and with a population today
of about 30,000.

Of course she knew the Lewis
and Clark party had once passed
this way, but admits, “I was not
aware of the significance of their
visit to this area. There was not even
a page in our history books about
them.” And although Kamiah's
public schools sit on land owned by
the Nez Perce tribe, until recently
Woods knew nothing about the role
of Native Americans in the Lewis

NW EDUCATION / Summer 2003,

and Clark story. “Native Americans
saved the lives of the men in the ex-
pedition—more than once,” Woods
understands today. “But | had never
heard that. We grew up here know-
ing nothing about the Nez Perce
people.”

In 1998, Woods had the brain-
storm of launching an outdoor
workshop to provide her students
with a hands-on leaming experi-
ence. She was inspired by attending
a conference for middle-level educa-
tors. Listening to another teacher
extol the benefits of getting students
out of the traditional classroom, she
began to ponder how she could do
the same with her eighth-graders.

“The classroom gets stagnant,
for students and teachers alike,”
says Woods, who splits her teaching
duties between Kamiah Middle
School and Kamiah High School.
“The appeal of an outdoor work-
shop is obvious. If students have an
opportunity to experience firsthand
what they are reading about,” she
says, “learning doesn’t get much
more real than that.”

Woods selected Lewis and Clark
asa theme because it’s part of her
community's legacy. It's also a
whopper of an adventure story, cer-
tain to grab the imagination of
middle school students. “This is the
best survival story out there,” she
says, her bright blue eyes flashing
enthusiasm. “You can watch a ver-
sion of ‘Survivor’ on TY, but this is
it.” As she dug into history herself,
Woods found a wealth of written

materials to use in her language
arts classes. She also saw the poten-
tial to weave in science, social stud-
ies, and other disciplines, and to
enlist parents and other community
members. “By now, the whole com-
munity gets involved,” she says. But
Woods's colleagues credit her for the
project's success. This year, the
Idaho Humanities Council honored
her as an outstanding teacher.

From the start, Woods has
brought a Native American perspec-
tive to her project, inviting local Nez
Perce leaders and artists to conduct
workshop sessions. In Kamiah
schools, about 15 percent of students
are Nez Perce. Relations between
Native students and non-Natives
“have not always been good,” Woods
admits. “One of our goals of the out-
door workshop was to improve that.”

As a veteran teacher, Woods
could see the benefits of a more
multicultural education. “Our Na-
tive students would have a better ap-
preciation for Lewis and Clark’s role
in history. Our non-Native students
would develop an appreciation for
Nez Perce culture.” And all students,
she hoped, would remember their
three days of outdoor leaming as a
capstone of their middle school
career.

For the past six years, the Lewis
and Clark Nez Perce Outdoor Work-
shop has been weaving together
these two strands of American his-
tory. For three days in late May, timed
to coincide with the blooming of the
camas flowers, eighth-graders move

170

their classroom to an encampment
on Musselshell Meadow. They sleep
in tepees, identify flora documented
by the Corps of Discovery and gath-
ered by the Nez Perces, and record
their experiences in journals they
make by hand. Since 2001, when
Woods and two colleagues from
Kamiah joined the Lewis and Clark
Rediscovery Project, a third strand
has been intertwined with the first
two. “Technology has been infused
into the curriculum, allowing stu-
dents to capture and record the ex-
perience digitally,” she explains.
Although the three days spent
under open skies are the highlight
of the students’ experience, their
leaming begins long before the ac-
tual encampment. Among the many
activities of the semester-long unit:
© Mapmaking: Students become
adept enough as cartographers that
they can cooperatively create a map
of the Lewis and Clark trail. Woods
explains: “Each student begins with
ablank sheet of paper and adds as
many features of the journey as they
can in five minutes. The maps are
then passed to the next student who
has 30 seconds to add more features.
‘The maps are passed in turn until
every student has a chance to add
features to every map.”
© Natural history studies: Students
create an electronic portfolio about
flora and fauna that were new to
Western science when Lewis and
Clark documented them. They in-
clude scanned sketches, scientific
description, information on habitat,


owen

A Confluence
of Stories

A Canadian teacher

and his multicultural
students learn about
Lewis and Clark's river
passage across the
continent, where people
of many nations were
shaping history.

STORY BY LARRY MCCLURE
PHOTOS BY DENISE JARRETT WEEKS.

WOODBURN, Oregon—When
David Ellingson teaches his Lewis
and Clark class at Woodbum High
School, students encounter the in-
trigue of international politics, the
down and dirty of reality TV, and
images of Superman.

Canadian by birth, Ellingson
never heard of the Corps of Discov-
ery until becoming certified as a
history and science teacher in the
United States seven years ago. And it
is the same story for most of his stu-
dents. Half are Latino and another
15 percent are Russian, young ho-

NW EDUCATION / Summer 2003

ple who have never heard of these

early American heroes.

‘The semester-long elective
course begins with the primordial
Pacific Northwest, then the Native
people of the region, and moves on
to explore the question: Why did the
rest of the world become so inter-
ested in the geography between the
Mississippi River and the Pacific
Ocean? Class discussions range from
making comparisons between the
history of the Lewis and Clark expe-

190

dition and history that is being made
today in the Middle East, to studying
the scientific basis for contemporary
issues, such as water rights, energy
conservation, and salmon.

Before the semester is finished,
students will have experienced some
of the same demands and discover-
ies documented by the Corps 200
years ago. For instance, they found
the plant, shooting star, still growing
along the Columbia River at the
very spot where Meriwether Lewis
first described it for botanists.


you're doing already and makes you
More effective as a teacher.

© “This gives teachers concrete things
to do with their students. Many teachers
say they've never taken a class on how
to teach writing. As a result, many
avoided it or have been frustrated in
figuring out how they can help kids

be better writers.”

‘One of the most useful aspects of
the assessment model, Blasingame
‘says, “is that it provides teachers with a
method for teaching revision that's not
just about conventions. Students tend
to think that rewriting is about correct-
ing spelling or fixing grammar. With the
traits, you can walk through the revision
process with a model that students can
understand. When they're polishing a
piece, they can go down the list,” look-
ing for ways to improve on each of the
traits. As a result, he adds, “You get
meaningful revision instead of just
proofreading.”

Both struggling writers and students
who are producing more polished work
stand to gain from such informed feed-
back, Blasingame adds. “If reluctant
writers can be more successful, these
students become less reluctant to write.
An activity that focuses on using a trait
or two can help them enjoy that success.
And for students who turn in work that’s
wonderful, the teacher might focus only
on the misspelled word and not reward
the student for other aspects that are
good.” The six-trait model “gives leach-
ers a way to recognize what's good in a
piece of writing and what needs more

work.”

URSULA WHITE:
SHARING ‘AHA!’
MOMENTS

Ursula White had been teaching elemen-
tary school for about three years when
she first encountered the 6+1 TraitTM
model. At the time, she was leaching

in the Clover Park School District in
Washington. A class on the traits was
offered as part of a summer profes-
sional development institute. That intro-
duction left her eager to start putting the
traits to work in her own classroom. “It
just made sense to me,” she recalls, “It
was an ‘Aha!’ When | went back into my
classroom, | started dabbling.”

White's enthusiasm spread to the
Next classroom, where a colleague also
began experimenting with the assess-
ment model. Their district gave them
both time to observe teachers in the
Kent School District where the traits
had been implemented districtwide.
Says White, “I could see the value of
using the same vocabulary to talk about
writing across grade levels.” She and
her colleague needed no more convinc-
ing of the model's value. “We just
grabbed on and made it our own.”

When a family move took White to
the other side of the country a few years.
later, she took her enthusiasm for the

ww epucation Winer 2000 =

traits along with her. At Hartly Elemen-
tary near Dover, Delaware, where she
was hired in the fall of 1998, “no one
had ever heard cf the traits." White's new
principal stopped in her classroom to
observe and found a roomiul of third-
graders deeply engaged in the revision
process. “My principal was amazed at
my kids’ ability to take a piece of writing
that was weak and move it to something
stronger, using the strategies and vo-
cabulary of the traits.” The principal
called White in for a follow-up confer-
ence. “She could see the benefits this
offered to the whole staff.”

With her principal's blessing, White
wrole a grant to cover the cost of 6+1
TraitTM training materials and books for
the entire faculty, and led her new col-
leagues in an introduction to the traits.
Teachers began meeting after school to
talk in more depth about the assessment
model. At staff meetings, the principal
encouraged teachers to share examples
of how they were using the traits across
grade levels. “Il became a team effort,”
White says, “not just me on a pulpit
And then it really took off.” Teachers
began inviting her into their classrooms
to model a lesson or coach them in the
use of rubrics. “That's when I realized
they were on board.”

It didn't take long for word to spread
beyond the school. When statewide
writing assessments were tallied that
year, Hartly Elementary third-graders
had the highest scores in the slate. And
when the scores were broken down to
the classroom level, White's students
emerged as the highest-ranking young
writers in Delaware.

402

Despite her success, White was
eager to continue learning more about
the traits. She and a Delaware colleague
attended an intensive three-day training
taught by Ruth Culham. They drew on
their deeper understanding as they
began to deliver 6+1 TraitTM training
throughout their school district. White
also was serving on her district's En-
glish and Language Arts Committee,
and found herself sharing examples of
how the model had helped in her teach-
ing and in her persona! development as
a writer.

After another family move this year,
White decided to give up her own class-
room and devote her time to training
fellow teachers. Through the Delaware
Professional Development Center, she
has delivered 6+1 TraitTM training to
teachers from across the state. She's
often in their classrooms, too, coaching
and modeling for other teachers as they
gain experience using the traits with
their students. “Teachers need repeti-
tion and classroom examples. You can't
get it all from a workshop,” White says.
She has credibility with other teachers
“because they know I've been in the
thick of it, in the classroom. | know how
busy teachers are. It took a lot of work
and development for me to learn about
the traits, and other teachers appreciate
that.”

Although it’s been years since her
first introduction to the traits, White still
gels excited when she sees another
teacher experience the same “Aha!”
that ignited her own passion. And she’s
thrilled when she sees a student take on
more independence and confidence as,


24

training in college about deal-
ing with learning disabilities?
KAPLAN: When | was in school for
my education degree, I was specifi-
cally told there is no such thing as a
learning disability. They called ita
“wastebasket” term.

NW: Once you got into the
tutoring program, however,
things started to turn around
for you.

KAPLAN: Dorothy Whitehead had

_ adapted the Orton-Gillingham

method—this great system for
teaching LD kids—for use by volun-
teers. She was training people to use
it at Barnes Elementary School in
Beaverton. I drove out to Barnes for
ayear and worked with a little boy
named Danny. It worked. He learned
to read. It was sucli a wonderful
thing finally to have a technique
that would actually help these kids
instead of just keeping them busy.
NW: Advocates point out that
learning disabilities are neu-
rologically based, yet the so-
lution is educationally based.
Does this put unreasonable
expectations on teachers?
KAPLAN: Education changes the
neurology of the brain for all kids,
so teachers are doing that all the
time. It’s just that these kids have
asomewhat different neurological
imakeup than others. I’m convinced
that all of us have at least one leam-
ing disability, These kids just seem

to have the anomaly that stands out
the most. There may come a time
when we can treat it by manipulat-
ing genes, but right now all we can
do is help them learn things in a
different way.

NW: But the teachers you ran
into in New York, at least,
didn’t believe that these kids
could learn.

KAPLAN: Very often, teachers don’t
have a good working definition of
what dyslexia means. Often, they
think the kids just aren’t very bright
—even though dyslexia is absolutely
irrelevant to IQ. I've worked with
dyslexic kids who have an IQ of 135,
and I’ve worked with dyslexic kids
who have an IQ of 80, There's no
connection. Yet, many teachers see
these kids as just being “low,” period.
NW: And the kids tend to buy
into this perception of them-
selves, right?

KAPLAN: What they think is that
they're dumb. They tend to general-
ize their problem. It’s often a huge
leap for them if you can actually put
aname on it and say: “These are the
things that will probably cause you
problems—for example, reading,
writing, spelling. But in the other
things—creativity, problem solving,
thinking—you' re probably better at
it than most of the rest of us.” You
can honestly say that to them.

NW: What should schools

be doing to catch these kids

NW EDUCATION / Spring 2003

before they fail?

KAPLAN: In the ideal world, schools
test kids for phonemic awareness in
kindergarten, and then get a highly
phonemic reading program that is
tiered. If kids have problems, they
get special help, up to and including
private tutoring in a method like
Orton-Gillingham or Alphabetic
Phonics or Slingerland (see sidebar),
one-to-one, if necessary. If we did
this, we would save huge amounts
of money. I look at the money the
school district has spent on special
education for students 1 tutor—
thousands and thousands of dollars
a year—and in many cases, if the
school had done the appropriate
thing in first grade, they wouldn't
even qualify for special ed.

NW: Is there a body of
research findings to back

up this approach?

KAPLAN: What the National Insti-
tutes of Health studies on reading
have found is that kids who struggle
in reading need to be taught phonics
directly int a systematic way. (For
more details on these findings, see
the 2000 report from the National
Reading Panel titled aching Chil-
dren To Read: An Evidence-Based
Assessment of the Scientific Research
Literature on Reading and Is Im-
plications for Reading Instruction.)
This is the exact opposite of what
most teachers have been taught to
do, The whole-language movement

144

that came in like a tidal wave several
decades ago argues that because all
normal children learn to talk by
being in a rich environment of lan-
guage, all children will learn to read
and write in exactly the same way.
You just surround them with won-
derful literature. Because of this
wonderful brain that these children
have, this wonderful capacity for
language, they will automatically
learn to read and write. Wonderful
things came out of this belief: “lan-
guage experience,” for example,
where kids in kindergarten would
tell you stories and you would write
it down. Instead of these boring, dull
phonics pages, there was a rocking
chair and pillows and the carpet and
the Big Books. And you had “guess
and go” spelling. All of that is ter-
rific. Kids with good visual memory
for words and kids on the top end of
the scale for grasping the phonemic
code took off. But the other kids who
were often just as bright—or even
way brighter-—who had weak visual
memory for symbols and could not
attach letters to the code were dead
in the water. Still, people kept saying,
“They'll get it—it’s developmental,
just like speech.” I probably would
have bought the whole-language
thing had [ not met the eight/nines.
Because of those kids, I absolutely
new it wasn’t true. 0


tered my program with what I can
only describe as having wild behav-
iors. I have been bitten, kicked, hit,
spit at, and threatened, However, I
never lower my expectations for aca-
demic and behavioral excellence. I
will never, ever give up on any stu-
dent, I know all too well that their
behavior is language. They speak
loud and clear about the injustices
that they have had to endure during
their brief lives. These young men
and women should be celebrating
the joys of life, but many just try to
survive the ravages of verbal and
sexual abuse, dysfunctional fami-
lies, substance abuse, and absent
parents.

This program is different. When
astudent steps into the classroom,
the first thing he notices is how this
environment is drastically different
from any other BD classroom he
may have been in. It has been my
experience that most BD classrooms
are filled with broken tables and
chairs. The curriculum consists of
cast-offs from out-of-date district
surplus items. And in many in-
stances, there is no regular Special
Education teacher, only a revolving
door of substitutes. All of these situa-
tions give the students the message
that they are not worth the invest-
ment. It is my heartfelt belief that
the needs of these students have
been put off for way too long.

I refuse to wait any longer for
funding to meet the needs of my
students, even if that means spend-
ing my personal funds. During the
past three years, I have purchased
computers with my own money to
supplement the two that the school

provides. However, each student in
aclass of 15 now has a computer to
facilitate his or her learning. That
means they don’t have to wait their
turn at the computer to capture an
idea in words or revise their writing
until it’s in polished form. They
don’t have to go to the computer lab
where, in a less structured environ-
ment, behaviors can escalate. In our
classroom, they learn history from a
variety of primary sources. They are
able to read, understand, and write
about the plays of Shakespeare by
using technology to support their
learning. And through grant writ-
ing, we have assembled the equip-
ment they can use to build and
program robots.

Children are guided by the adults
in their lives, and these young peo-
ple need to have hope that there are
adults who understand and care—
adults who have a plan for success
in their lives, adults they can trust.
Children live up to the standards
that are set before them. In a caring,
secure environment these students
can once again reach for the sky, de-
spite their backgrounds, disability,
and previous learning experience.

To learn more about North-
wood’s JAG Program, visit the pro-
gram Web site at www.seanet.com/
~kmeneil/JAG. To read more
about how McNeil bas used tech-
nology to belp her students under-
stand and write about the plays of
William Shakespeare, check out
wuw.intel.education/odyssey
(Day 209.0

2
MIAGICA,
Continued from Page 29
and address the nits in revisions.

A parallel can be drawn to helping
these students learn to express
themselves in their native language
first and then weave in English,
rather than force them to commu-
nicate in English at the outset where
they will likely find the new lan-
guage to be a barrier to expression.
“The writing process seems long
at times,” Lovato says, “but it is well
worth it. My students leam so much,”
At the end of the Tree of Life
project, Lovato hangs the student
wheels from a large construction
paper tree in the breezeway outside
the classroom during the school’s
“Celebration of Leaming” so that
other students and visiting parents
can enjoy and appreciate her stu-
dents’ hard work. “One of the beau-
ties of this project,” she surmises, “is
that it fully embraced my students
—their language, culture, and
family traditions. They loved it be-
cause it was about them, and they
all took great pride in their projects.”
Of the year’s work, Lovato says,
“TLwas a huge success in that nearly
half of my students were either not
reading or writing—or were at the
beginning stages—in any language
at the beginning of the year.” By the
end of the year, she reports, all were
reading and writing in their native
language of Spanish, and most were

FOCUS ON WRITING

reading and writing in English as

well. Of course, reaching grade-level
proficiency is a long process for ELL
students, taking several years, Lovato
notes. But she adds, “First language
literacy is what opened the door, and
truly makes all the difference.” (1

35


TOOUCATIONS

NWREL BOARD OF DIRECTORS

John Pugh
(Chairperson)

Chancellor

University of Alaska Southeast

Sharon D. Parry
(Vice Chairperson)
School Board Member
Idaho Falls School District

NORTHWEST EDUCATION

Quarterly magazine of the
Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory

Chief Executive Officer:
Dr. Carol EF Thomas

Issue Editor:
Denise Jarrett Weeks

Associate Editors:
Rhonda Barton, Denise Jarrett Weeks,
Lee Sherman

Contributing Editors:
Suzie Boss, Larry McClure

Contributing Writers:
Suzie Boss, Larry McClure, Pat Nida,
Bracken Reed

Graphic Production and Design:
Denise Crabtree

Lead Graphic Design:
Dan Stephens

Technical Editing:
Eugenia Cooper Potter

NORTHWEST EDUCATION
can be accessed on NWREL's Web site:
wwwnwrel.org/nwedu/

‘This pblicauonis based on work sporsore wholly orn patby the US. Deparnent of
[uation under contract nunberED-01-C0003. The content of this publication does

ot mrs elect he views of de department or any othe agen ofthe U.S. govert-

‘ent This publication ws nat printed with government funds Ailes and information
{in hs publication ae in he public omain al may b repedued and dissented
‘thout pension, Plas acknowledge NREL asthe sours,

EB mmpenemossnen

Henry Beauchamp

Executive Director/CEO

Yakiuna Valley Opportunities
Industealization Center (WA)

of Public Instruction

Susan Castillo
Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction

Jerry Colonna
Superintendent
Redmond School District (OR)

Dr. John Davis
Superintendent
Bering Strait School District (AK)

Rubén Degollado
Teacher
Hillsboro School District (OR)

Dennis Haverlandt
(Secretary-Treasurer)
Teacher

Great Falls School District (M7)

Dr. Marilyn Howard
Idaho State Superintendent of Public
Instruction

Steven Jacquier
‘Teacher
Southwest Region School District (AK)

Dr. Michael Jaeger

(immediate Past Chairperson)
Dean, School of Education and Business
Fastem Oregon University

Nancy Larsen
Elementary Teacher
Coeur D'Alene Schoo! District (ID)

Richard Mauer
School Board Member
Delta-Greely Schoo! District (AK)

Linda MeCulloch
‘Montana State Superintendent
of Public Instruction

Richard McCullough
Superintendent
‘Snoqualmie School District (WA)

Dr. Bill McDiarmid
Higher Education Institutes Researcher
Vashon (WA)

Dr. Elmer Myers
Superintendent
Lolo Elementary School Disirict (MT)

David J. Parker
Elementary Principal
Kalispell School District (MT)

‘Ted Popplewell

Principal

Oregon Trail Elementary School
‘Twin Falls (ID)

Kay Purcell
Principal

‘St. Rose Parish School
Longview (WA)

Janice Rauth
Teacher
Longriew School District (Wa)

Karen Rehfeld
‘Acting Alaska Commissioner of Education
and Early Development

Lawrence Rigby
Superintendent
Soda Springs School District (1D)

Barbara J.

Project Director

Women’s Opportunity and Resource
Development, Inc.

Missoula (WA)

ley

Roger G. Wheeler
Businessman
Pocatelle (ID)

Estella Zamora
District Court Interpreter/Coordinator
Caldwell (1D)



discussing a thomy philosophical
question: What is contentment? In
the context of high school reform,
it's a question with no easy answers.
‘THE TREK BEGINS

Old-timers remember the day in
1992 when Benson arrived as princi-
pal. Sandy-haired and wiry of build,
he had a dozen years in teaching
and school administration under his
belt, but Hale was his first principal-
ship. “Before showing up, he had

checked out a school yearbook and,
\

\
aS

studied all the faculty photos. He
knew us all from Day One,” recalls

language arts teacher Elaine Wetter- ~

auer, a 25-year veteran of teaching
at Hale. It was a small thing, but it
counted. In his typically low-key
way, Benson let teachers know that
he cared about them. “He's an ex-
ceptional leader,” says Wetteraueer,
praising the principal for both his
depth of knowledge about education
and his ability to lead through

\f in

Principal Eric Benson|
slresses the “teacher
as coach’ model at
‘Seattle's Nathan Hale

| High School.



aligned with the writing process.”

One of the highlights of the annual
conference is the chance for Vanguards
to share examples of how they are see-
ing the traits used effectively in the real
world of the classroom. David Pelto,
who recently retired after a career of
teaching high school in Alaska, summed
up his experience of using the assess-
ment model over the long term: “I can
look back ai student writing samples
{'ve been collecting since | started using
this model and see how my students’
work has improved. The level of excel-
lence has steadily gone up in their work.
‘Asa teacher, | have changed along with
my students.”

As the following examples illustrate,
there's no shortage of good ideas for
using the traits to complement a well-
designed writing program. “Once teach-
ers know the traits well,” Culham points
out, “the link to instruction becomes.
clear. This is where the real fun begins.”

JIM BLASINGAME:
TEACHING FUTURE
TEACHERS TO LOVE
THE TRAITS

Jim Blasingame first pumped into the
6+1 TraitsTM of writing assessment a
decade ago. “It was’a coincidence,”
admits the Arizona Siate University
English professor, but a fortuitous one.
He went on to write his doctoral disser-
tation about the traits and now helps
future teachers understand the role of
effective assessment in developing the
skills of young writers. A former high
school English teacher, Blasingame also
consults with school districts and pro-
vides indepth training sessions to teach-
ers interested in learning how to use the
traits to improve their instruction

{n an ASU course called Methods of
Teaching Writing, Blasingame devotes
about half the term to teaching about
the 6+1 TraitTM model. ASU students—
most of them preparing for teaching
careers—are enthusiastic when they
begin to see how the traits support
sound writing instruction. “They tel!
me: This is the first class I've taken that
uh
641 TRAITS

has given me concrete things | can do
in-the classroom,” he says.

To give preservice teachers more op-
portunities to put theory into practice,
Biasingame helped launch an after-
school writing club at Fees Middle
School in Tempe. Here, his college stu-
dents tutor middle-schoolers who vol-
untarily come to the club to work on
writing projects. The club is part of
the school's 21st Century Community
Learning Center and also has been sup-
ported by a seed grant from Motorola.
“It's a laboratory for new teachers to
see what works,” Blasingame explains.
“They come up with ideas for writing
activities, then go over their plans with
Mme or my graduate assistant. We look
for potential hazards or obstacles. Then
they try it, with real-live kids. Any rough
‘spots present themselves quickly.”

Young writers benefit, Blasingame
says, when they are coached to use “a
nice, smooth sequence of steps” to im-
Prove their writing. “First, they need
something interesting to grab their at-
tention at 2:30 in the afternoon. Usually
it's a product from the real world, some-
thing for them to sink their teeth into—
a travel brochure, poem, menu, creative
story.” Calling themselves the Fees Fire
Writers, they have even launched a
school newspaper, which provides the
added motivation of writing for a real
audience.

Typically, the ASU tutor presents
a writing activity that highlights some
facet of the trails, such as voice or word
choice. Instead of just making an as-
signment and turning the student loose
to write, however, the tutor takes time to

105

model how she did a similar project.
That shows the middle-school student
that “any finished piece has been
through a long process, including re-
vising and editing,” notes Blasingame.
“It's important for kids to see that tutors
do the same steps, and sometimes even
struggle a little.”

For the college students, the hands-
on experience is a confidence booster.
As one ASU student shared in an evalu-
ation of the program: “My limited
preparations to be a teacher had never
before involved actual students, So a
large parl of what | have learned from
this project is what real students are ca-
pable of. They are creative, and funny,
and have a unique perspective on the
world.” Added another: “It was exciting
to watch students who were uninter-
ested and apprehensive about writing
blossom into eager writers as the
semester came to an end.”

Veteran teachers often make similar
observations when they take a training
session to learn about the six traits.
Blasingame summarizes teachers’
most-common reactions:

‘© “When they hear about the traits, they
agree: This is what makes good writing,
Vivid details, a lead that grabs the
reader's attention, voice thal takes a
tisk—these are descriptions they al-
ready use, or know intuitively. What
they see is that this is an organized sys-
tem for using those concepts about
good writing.

© “The traits don’t replace or usurp
anything. Teachers realize that they can
use this model with what's already in
their curriculum. It adapts to what

3


Word has spread about this elec-
tive course that juniors and seniors
can take either for history or science
credit, whichever they need to grad-
uate. One parent quizzically called
the school to ask if his student could
enroll in the “Superman class,”
thinking the course theme was built
around Lois and Clark.

Student Stacey May agrees that
members of the Corps of Discovery
were superheroes who took “one
small step for man; one giant leap
for mankind.” Though, she says,
their task was even more daunting
than NASAS first moonwalk 30 years
ago. Schoolmate Michael Hemshom
says, “People like Lewis and Clark
lay their life on the line for the good
of their country, and without them
the world would certainly be a dif-
ferent place.”

This view is shared by Senator
Robert Byrd, a Democrat from West
Virginia who sponsored the Teaching
American History Grant Program.
The “sage of the Senate” believes
American history should be taught
as a separate course of study. Stu-
dents in Woodbum say they appreci-
ate the chance to spend more time
on just one historical event rather
than skimming rapidly across cen-
turies and decades of people and
events that shaped our world and
nation,

TAKING PERSPECTIVE
For Ellingson, Canadian history
books covering this period focused
on Alexander Mackenzie, the Hud-
son's Bay explorer who made the
first transcontinental land voyage
more than 10 years before Lewis and
Clark. Coming west along the Fraser
River instead of the Columbia, it was
Mackenzie's report that prompted
Jefferson to try once again to find
the mythical Northwest Passage
after three prior attempts failed to
get paddles into the Missouri.
About the same time, Ellingson
tells students, Russians were push-
ing south into present-day Alaska
and British Columbia. Spaniards
were making gains from the south,
and indeed tried to intercept the
Corps of Discovery three different
times to stop American incursions
west from the Mississippi River. It
was also Spanish-heritage horses
that enabled the expedition to cross
the Rockies and Bitteroots, another
connection today’s Hispanic stu-
dents have to early U.S. history.
“What surprised me the most
about the story,” says Eleazar
Puente, himself Latino, “was how
they were able to accomplish what

they wanted with people whose lan-
guage they did not know.” For him,
it was an early example of how
bridges between cultures are suc-
cessfully built.

Seeing how their ancestors
helped shape early American history,
many of Ellingson’s multicultural
students discover this is a class that
speaks directly to them. Ellingson
regularly draws parallels to current
events, such as how today’s Euro-
pean American encounters with
Middle East tribes and ethnic groups
are similar to, yet different from, the
50-plus tribes Lewis and Clark met.
Observing that international trade
in pelts and furs was the motivation
for seeking the Northwest Passage
centuries ago, Ellingson points to
exports of wheat, fruit, Nike sneak-
ers, and Boeing airplanes as today's
examples of how international com-
merce is still a driving force in the
Northwest economy.

GOING DEEP AND WIDE
Ellingson exemplifies the energy
and enthusiasm that teachers often
show after they see how deep and
wide the Lewis and Clark story really
is, Already a busy dad with three ele-
mentary-age kids and a full load of
high school biology classes, creating,
an entirely new course without a
readymade curriculum would scare

191

DISCOVERIES IN LEARNING

COOLS) IN

Like many of today’s hobby astrono-
mers, botanists, and microbiolo-
gists, Lewis and Clark were the first
to document important species new
to Western science. Professional
scientists still use them as bench-
Marks and marker species today. The
Corps of Discovery documented.300
plants and animals that experts on
the East Coast or Europe had never
seen. Corps members kept.daily
weather descriptions even after the
thermometers broke and tempera-
tures couldn't be monitored. While
fecording latitude was relatively easy,
measuring longitude was more
problematic since the captains often
forgot to wind up the clock in the
chronometer. Moreover, never-end-
ing clouds in the Northwest blocked
ut the noonday sun and evening
star readings.
The expedition came equipped with
the best scientific instruments of the
time, however. Thanks to military
experience, Clark had learned sur-
veying skills and Lewis spent sev-
eral weeks in Philadelphia taking
crash courses in science from a
leading botanist, navigation expert,
and medical doctor, among others
Both Lewis and Clark were experi-
enced outdoorsmen and Lewis's
mother was a skilled herbalist. The
captains’ first-aid box was filled with
potions and powders that would
be banned today; the two accepted
treatments for serious illnesses were
purgatives laced with mercury and
bloodletting—both used liberally.
High school health, PE, and nutrition
coursework today address issues
that were also serious problems for
the expedition: how diet affects per-
formance, how to safeiy lift and carry
heavy loads, how bacteria cause food
to spoil, how infectious disease
spreads.

—Larry McClure


ISTIC

ONTA
SIAR

MANY ARE
HOMELESS. A THIRD
ARE LEARNING
ENGLISH AS A
SECOND LANGUAGE.
MOST ARE GROWING
UP AMID POVERTY.
AT AN ANCHORAGE
ELEMENTARY
SCHOOL WHERE
STUDENTS FACE
EXTRAORDINARY
CHALLENGES,
TEACHERS FOCUS
ON WRITING AS A
SKILL THAT CAN
TRANSFORM LIVES.
Story and photos by

DENISE JARRETT WEEKS

Writing opens a two-way portal between culture, says bilingual teacher Enrique Quinlero,

ANCHORAGE, Alaska—t had the
taste of melted toothpaste. He spat it
out as he looked again at the label on
the botile. It read “beer,” an English
word he readily recognized, but it was a
bottle of root beer he'd chosen from the
college cafeteria, not the cerveza he'd
grown up drinking with his family at the
dinner table. A proud young man, he
nevertheless felt the hot discomfort of
embarrassment as he sal, alone, in the
crowded cafeleria

Itwas the 1970s, and Enrique Quin-
tero had just arrived in the United States
from Ecuador. Back home in Quito,
(he capitat of that country, the young

106

NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002

Quintero and other students had re-
belled noisily against the military dicta-
torship. His parents had sent him here,
to the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill—out of harm's way—
where, an impassioned idealist, he was
going to study political science. Yet
here he sat, his first day at college,
withdrawn and uncertain of his place.
He hadn't even been sure where to sit,
ail the black kids were sitting on one
side of the room and al! the white kids
on the other. He'd taken an emply seat
in the middle.

Quintero, now 51 and a bilingual
teacher for some o! Anchorage's poor-


REDISCOVERED
PORTFOLIOS: A PASSAGE
THROUGH TIME

A hundred years ago, the girls
of St. Mary's Academy col-
lected their best works and
bound them together in hand-
some books commemorating
the centennial of the Corps of
Discovery.

By Patricia Nida

PORTLAND, Oregon—"Remem-
ber, Patricia, this is always your
home."

Spring day, 1962. The old
stone-walled garden of St. Mary's
Academy for girls. I'd just told
Sister Francella Mary that | was
leaving St. Mary's to go to a co-
educational high school across
town. Before sending me off to
the world outside these walls, she
gave me her blessings and this
promise: No matter what the world
beyond held for me, I'd always
belong at my “home” school at
St. Mary's.

Forty years later, Sister Fran-
cella’s words rang in my memory
like a bell when, at a meeting of
the Oregon Lewis and Clark Bi-
centennial Committee, | heard
someone mention that there were
100-year-old books stored away
that had been written by St. Mary's
students for the Lewis and Clark
Centennial Exposition and World's
Fair. | listened with growing ex-
citement. They were hard-bound
portfolios of third- through eighth-
Qrade students’ work, done a cen-
tury after Meriwether Lewis and
William Clark's Corps of Discov-
ery explored the continent. In
a friendly rivalry commemorating
the centennial of the expedition,
St. Mary's and other schools col-
lected their students’ best work in
portfolios and submitted them to
a statewide competition

FIRST PERSON

Wooded Wode

As the committee wondered
what the books looked like and if
we could possibly see them, | al-
most ran to the phone. Of course
we could see them! After all, St.
Mary's is my home, Sister Fran-
cella told me. So, on another
spring day, | took my 18-year-old
son and two of his friends to meet
Sister Rosemarie Kasper at the
archives of the Sisters of the Holy
Names of Jesus and Mary, Oregon
Province. Sister unlocked the
door, moved treasured chronicles,
relics, and antiques, and directed
us to several boxes. In them stood
the bound books of student work
from 1903, displaying the quality

NW Education / Summer 2003

of education offered at St. Mary's
at the turn of the last century.

When the boys and | lifted them
out of the box, using white gloves
to protect the aged pages, we were
in awe! The books’ green library
bindings, marbled endpapers, and
pages of the finest watermarked
paper were perfect. The student
handwriting was elegant, the lan-
Quage poetic, and the pen-and-ink
drawings and walercolor illustra-
tions exquisite. We were holding
history!

196

I've turned the pages of these
books several times since then,
and they {ill me with pride. I'm
proud of the girls in long white
dresses who sat in the convent
school garden and took such care
to show their work. Proud of the
school that has produced scholars
and artists for more than a century.
Proud of the girls in blue jeans
who attend St. Mary's today, con-
linuing the tradition of academic
excellence. And the old books
make me proud ol myself.

These essays and drawings,
set down in another era by the dis-
ciplined and inspired hands of
young author-artists, are testament
to what students can accomplish
when they strive for personal ex-
cellence. This is, of course, what
they were honoring in the men and
‘one woman of the Corps of Dis-
covery, many of whom were not
much older than themselves.

POSTSCRIPT: Patricia Nida
works for NWREL’s Compre-
hensive Center and, as a
member of the Oregon Lewis
and Clark Bicentennial Com-
mittee, is helping schools
across the country to create
rich learning experiences
based on the history of the
expedition. She can be
reached at (503) 275-9480
or nidap@nwrel.org.
Illustrations used by per-
mission. “Hooded Warbler” by
Edina Venator and “Tree Swal-
low” by Dorothy Bercovich
(appearing with page num-
bers) in the chapter “Birds of
Oregon” in 15 Nature Study,
St. Mary’s Portland, Grades
3-6. Lewis and Clark Exposi-
tion—1905. Portland, OR:
Archives of the Sisters of the
Holy Names of Jesus and
Mary, Oregon Province.

BEST COPY AVAILABLE



“WHY CAN'T I READ?”

CURRENT RESEARCH OFFERS NEW HOPE
TO DISABLED LEARNERS

“Little kids are tender individuals,
easily frustrated and ashamed
of deficient reading skills
once they notice that many of their classmates
read so effortlessly.”

— RESEARCHER G. REID IYON,
THE WASHINGTON POST, 1996

BY LEE SHERMAN
ILLUSTRATION BY KENNY HIGDON

i2z

NW ifn Spring 205


WRITING FOR A PURPOSE
I discovered the beauty of writing—when one can pour
oneself onto a great white emptiness and fill it with
emotions and thoughts and leave them there forever.
—Zlata Filopovic, author of
Zlata’s Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo
Capturing ideas on paper is hard work. Dr. Mel Levine,
author of All Kinds of Minds, suggests that the process
can break down for a host of reasons: memory challenges
that interfere with the recall of vocabulary, content, or con-
ventions; fine-motor challenges that make it hard for the
fingers to keep up with the flow of ideas; attention deficits
that can get in the way of concentration, planning, and
organization of ideas.

What makes writing worth the effort? For many students,
having a real audience provides motivation to overcome
challenges and invest the time to shape, revise, and im-
prove their writing. Teachers report using everything
from e-mail exchanges to book publishing to connect
student writers with audiences outside the classroom.

Writing To Make a Difference: Classroom Projects for
Community Change (Teachers College Press, 2002)
outlines the benefits of projects that connect student
writers with their communities. Editor Chris Benson ex-
plains that the topics students take on through such proj-
ects vary widely from one place to another. But while topics
vary, he adds, “the process doesn’t. Once students select
a topic that is relevant for them or for their community,
they set to researching it, compiling information, and or-
ganizing data. When they have a thorough knowledge of
the issues, they analyze the needs of their audience and
their purposes for the writing. Then they draft and revise
a document for the community.”

An important step, Benson reports, “is field-testing
the document on a real audience of readers. In field-test-
ing, students gather more information about how read-
ers actually use—and misuse—their document, and the
students then use this information to:improve the usability
of the document through more revision.”

FOCUS ON WRITING

Dixie Goswami, director of the Write to Change program
at Clemson University and a faculty member of the Bread
Loaf School of English, outlines key principles of projects
that take students—and their writing—into local com-
munities, In Writing To Make a Difference, she explains
that such projects motivate students to:
© Become researchers: The writing process requires
students to become active researchers, introducing them
to the methods and purposes of inquiry.

Become writers: Students learn to write and publish for
different audiences and purposes as well as understand
relationships among critical reading, clear thinking, and
effective communicating.

* Collaborate: Community-based writing projects en-
gage students in cross-generational and cross-cultural
work.

Master basic skills, and go beyond the basics so that they
achieve cultural literacy,

Something else happens, as well, when students com-
municate their ideas, Sharing writing with an audience puts
the writer to a test that may be more genuine than any
other form of assessment. As Hillocks explains: “The
test of it is the extent to which it stimulates the reader's
thinking. [To be successful] it must re-create some of the
thinking that went into it, not the twists and turns lead-
ing to dead ends, but the sets of related thinking that must
underlie main ideas and messages.”

When student writers—indeed, writers of any age—
are successful, their words resonate with readers. “We
have all encountered that kind of writing,” observes
Hillocks, “the kind that writes on the soul, that changes

forever the way we think about issues and people.”
ONLINE RESOURCES: Donald Graves, author of The Energy
to Teach, offers advice about teaching writing (www.donald
graves.org). Dr. Mel Levine shares insights on how young writ-
ers can get stuck—and unstuck (www.allkindsofminds.org/
library/articles/IgnitingTheirWriting. htm). National Council of
Teachers of English provides a wealth of online resources
(www.ncte.org). Information about the Nation’s Report Card
on Writing is available from National Center for Education Statis-
tics (nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/writing/).


ers her nieces and nephews to her
knee for a centuries-old story from
the Old Country.

Such scenes play out each eve-
ning in every village, every city, the
world around. Storytelling is as uni-
versal as bread, as human as love.

At Whitman Elementary School,
ateacher is mining the rich potential
of the most enduring of story forms
—airy tales—in her classroom of
English language leamers. Starting
with such classics as Remmplestiliskin
and Cinderella, ESL teacher Lilia
Doni leads her diverse first-graders
on a worldwide literary adventure
that not only meets benchmarks in
literacy (reading, writing, and pub-
lic speaking), but integrates geogra-
phy, social studies, drama, and
foreign languages, as well.

The project's impact, however,
doesn’t stop there. Reaching even
beyond these critical academic sub-
jects and standards, this end-of-year
culminating unit taps the familial
ties by which stories are transmitted,
generation to generation. Doni in-

vites the students’ parents to write
and read aloud a story they've car-
tied with them from their homeland
of Mexico, Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam,
Romania, or the Philippines. The
goals of bringing family members
into the classroom are to:
* Actively involve parents in their
children’s education
© Give parents a chance to publicly
demonstrate their knowledge of
culture, language, and literature
Show students that speaking a
second language is not a deficit
but an asset

“[’m always looking to connect
the parents to their children and give
them ways to support their children’s
education,” Doni says. “I send letters
home in their language, asking
them to share their favorite stories.
By bringing the parents here and
valuing them as experts, we cause
the children to value them more
and to see their importance. They
feel pride in their cultural heritage.”

Lam Nguyen Le sits at the front
of the classroom, her daughter Amy

Ngoc Le standing at her side. The
first-graders listen attentively, taking
notes as Mrs. Le reads a traditional
Vietnamese tale from a handmade
“book” she has written in her native
Vietnamese. As the mother recites A
Bunch of Chopsticks, about a dying
father passing on a priceless lesson
to his children, Amy translates each
sentence, reading from the English
version she has written in a hand-
made book of her own. From the
story, the students leam that family
members, like chopsticks, are
stronger when they stick together

in a “bunch” than when they stand
alone.

As part of their presentation,
mother and daughter show a two-
foot-tall paper “heritage doll” that
they have dressed in traditional garb,
explaining the usefulness of the
conical hat for warding off hot sun
and the frequent tropical rains that
pelt the jungles and rice paddies of
the Southeast Asian nation. Point-
ing to Vietnam on a big world map,
Mrs. Le teaches the students the

Ze

words for “hello,” “goodbye,” and
“thank you.”

In preparation for the parent
presentations, the Whitman first-
graders have been studying the con- ’
struction and conventions of stories.
First, they read the whimsical tales
of beloved children’s author Leo
Lioni to leam not only about plot,
setting, and character—first-grade
literacy benchmarks in Oregon’s
statewide standards—but also to
infer themes and conflicts. Next, they
read “trickster” stories from Mexico,
where most of the students’ roots are.
Finally, the students delve into the
riveting narratives of struggle and
triumph that we call fairy tales. In
the book Siow White, Blood Red,
writer Terri Windling explains the
psychological grip of this timeless
genre: “The fairy tale joumey may
look like an outward trek across
plains and mountains, through
castles and forests, but the actual
movement is inward, into the lands
of the soul. The dark path of the
fairy tale forest lies in the shadows

FOCUS ON WRITING


TID

ama! Towa Lowe

AT INNER-CITY APPLEGATE ELEMENTARY,
THERE ARE HIGH EXPECTATIONS
AND NO EXCUSES

By MAYA MUIR

ASBY MYERS, CBO OF APPLEGATE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL,

Con
NW EDUCATION / Fall 2002


rather ‘an act that engages the heart,” says researcher Sam
Wineberg in “Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural
Acts” (Phi Delta Kappan, March 1999).

To teach history well—to help kids see the “fun” and
the meaningfulness in it—you have to know history well,
says Diane Ravitch, former U.S. assistant secretary of ed-
ucation who was a key player in the development of the
national history standards.

“Ttseems.a truism that students will not learn much his-
tory unless their teachers know it,” Ravitch writes in
Who Prepares Our History Teachers? Who Should Pre-
pare Our History Teachers?, a 1997 paper published by
the National Council for History Education (http://
63.70.163.70/nche/RavitchSpeech.html). “It should be
self-evident that those who teach history should themselves
have studied history.”

But Ravitch points to a 1996 report by the National Cen-
ter for Education Statistics that showed “over half of all
public school students enrolled in history or world civi-
lization classes in grades 7~12 ... were taught by teach-
ers who did not have at least a minor in history.”

With so many teachers teaching history without even a
minor in the subject, it's no wonder, says Ravitch, they tend
to lean heavily on the textbook and are “unlikely to raise
questions or pose issues or develop activities that give the
spark of life to the words in the textbook.”

A WORLD OF DRAMA
As far back as the Bradley Commission, historians and his-
tory educators have been saying that “students should enter
‘into a world of drama—suspending [their] knowledge
of the ending in order to gain a sense of another era—
asense of empathy that allows the student to see through
the eyes of the people who were there,”” says Wineberg.
Wineberg has worked with Suzanne M. Wilson to study
the link between teachers’ content knowledge of history
and students’ achievement in history. Their findings agree

NW Education / Summer 2003

with the results of other studies that indicate that teach-
ers with greater historical knowledge are better teachers
of history. Yet, Wilson cautions in “Research on History
Teaching,” a chapter in Handbook of Research on
Teaching (2001), that the link between “good” teaching
and student achievement is yet to be firmly established.

If Ravitch, Wilson, and Wineberg are right, however, as
teachers’ knowledge of history grows, their overreliance
on textbooks should diminish.

“They are peculiar things, textbooks,” says Janet Bixby,
assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education at
Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. She and others
from the college are organizing a series of institutes and many
other professional development opportunities for teachers
on teaching the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

“Historians don’t read textbooks. Most of us read pri-
mary historical accounts and weigh and analyze them our-
selves.” Students should have plenty of opportunities to
study history in the same way, she says, because “textbooks
don’t invite the student to create questions.”

Textbooks effectively shut down historical inquiry, says
Wineberg. While historians cite documentary evidence rel-
evant to their findings; disclose opposing views; and re-
veal their own judgment, emphases, and uncertainties,
textbooks do none of this, he says. Rather, they present
history as a singular and incontrovertible story. And this
discourages students from questioning and challenging
the content, posing and testing their own theories, and ex-
tending their learning beyond the textbook.

Questions “are the tools of creation,” he says. Ques-
tions “dwell in the gap between [one’s] present knowl-
edge and the circumstances of the past.” Wineberg uses
awonderful phrase to describe those who are adept at his-
torical inquiry; they are “expert at cultivating puzzle-
ment,” he says.

But there’s another obstacle to creating “puzzlement” in

nce dh 164


a writer. Parents share their enthusiasm
for the traits when they hear their chil-
Gren pointing out the excellent word
choice in a storybook oF focus on im-
proving the sentence fluency in the sto-
ries they write at home. “Parents can
see their children becoming more con-
fident writers."

Ina recent training session, White
happened to meet a seventh-grade
teacher who had been hearing about the
traits from his own students. It turns out
that several of them had been in White's
class in elementary school. They were
eager to talk about word choice, voice,
organization, and other elements of
good writing as they tackled assign-
ments in middle school. “This will carry
with them,” While says. “It's a lifelong
skill.”

641 TRAITS.

Organization

+ beginning, micdte,
and end

+ sequencing

logical order

+ pizazz! t
~ntviduality / Choice
* suits aud: + lively verbs
and topic + specific and
* variety

Sentence
Fluency.

+ well-buil
+ varied bi
+ rhythm and flow

Conventions
(editing)
+ spelling



Schools program, an architect do-
nated time over six weeks to work

with students on projects relating

to his field

Several local doctors have
“adopted” particular classes, buying
them materials, assemblies, and the
use of buses for field trips.

‘The 1950's-era school building
also reflects the resources and effort
that staff, parents, and children
have put into the school. Halls and
rooms are bright and clean, walls
covered with class projects, explana-
tions, and reminders. Posters show
what it was like on “Vehicle Career
Day” and advertise Chess for Success
and the after-school girls’ club.

But the primary way the children
are supported is by the intense atten-
tion they receive daily from staff, in
class and out. “We all want to make
this a positive experience for the
kids,” says Janice Davis. “Everything
fits together in our program. We col-
laborate a lot. We're hearing each
other I’m always asking, ‘How can
| better prepare my kids for that end
of the hallway?” She gestures to-
ward the upper grades.

Kindergarten teacher Jill Iverson,
who has been at Applegate for 22
years, agrees. “The emphasis here
is on staff working together, and the
administration supports that.”

As you walk the halls, it’s clear
that at Applegate no child is anony-
mous. Not only do the principal and

the teachers know each student, but
so do Colvin, Pittman, and the office
staff. The small size of the school
helps make this possible, and the
administration works to preserve
that atmosphere. Within it, children
prosper. “Students here are not just
meeting expectations, they're ex-
cited about possibilities,” says
Colvin. “I see openness, eagerness,
and confidence.”

Iverson believes that changes at
the district level have also been im-

portant in supporting improvement.
“The institution of student report
cards that are the same across the
district makes a huge difference,”
she says, “not to mention the in-
creased focus on standards and
benchmarks. These help us know
what's going on with the children
and help us to keep them focused.”
Iverson also appreciates the new dis-
trictwide math curriculum—Inves-
tigations in Numbers, Data, and
Space published by Dale Seymour
Publications—and the professional
development that prepared teachers
to use it. In general, staff develop-
ment has been crucial in encourag-
ing improvement. At staff meetings,
‘Myers keeps routine business at a
minimum so the staff can remain
riveted on educational concems.
Although parents are supportive
of the changes in the school, Myers
admits that they have been slow to
get involved. “We have many single

and working parents, many grand-
parents raising their grandchildren,”
she says. “Plus, many parents never
experienced school as a positive
place when they were students.
We're working on creating a culture
and climate that is friendly. It seems
to be happening. We have about 60
percent coming now to our family
nights.”

Although improvement at Apple-
gate has been significant, even stun-
ning, Myers and her staff hope for
still more. When the principal ar-
rived, she sent out a needs assess-
ment to discover what kind of
school the community wanted. The
answer came back loud and clear:
acenter for arts and technology.
Today, several architectural draw-
ings of a proposed two-story techni-
cal center drawn by volunteers from
the firm of SERA Architects hang at
the end of the hall—a vision of
what the school could become. But
the vision looks more and more like
achimera in the brutal, ever-tight-
ening budget squeeze that has been
wringing programs and dollars
out of the district for more than a
decade. The total allocation for run-
ning the building this year is a scant
$15,000; a third of that is eaten up
by rental and service on a copy ma-
chine! Last year, Myers wrote a grant
proposal to the Portland Public
Schools Foundation for money to
plan an infusion of arts into the

as
ee
CLOSING THE GAP

curriculum. That proposal was 20
tumed down. So at the moment,

the community's vision remains a

dream. But Myers—ever the opti-
mist—hasn’t given up. “We are

currently looking at any and all

grant opportunities for funding,”

she says.

As the morning's motivational
breakfast draws to an end, Myers
leads a rousing pledge of allegiance
and one verse of My Country ‘Tis of
Thee. She then looks over the crowd,
waiting for quiet. Into the momen-
tary hush she says, “Third-graders,
future leaders of America, exit,
walking.”

The kids move out with confi-
dence. Maybe they don’t have a
brand-new building or access to all
the arts and technology possible. But
they know they're getting a good ed-
ucation—as good an education as
anybody.)


gone through a couple of principals,
and it has a drastic effect on how we
communicated to the students as a
whole. This year, Jim Carlile was our
interim principal, and he did a mar-
velous job. I know teachers felt a lot
more comfortable knowing there
was this solidity in the building, 1
think it helps the teachers commu-
nicate better with kids. It’s happen-
ing on a subconscious level, but it’s
very much there. As far as the stu-
dents go, last year | noticed in my
classes more students choosing to
go into alternative ed or Job Corps
or something else. This year, that's
down significantly. What I person-
ally am doing differently is keeping
my students aware of what's hap-
pening in the press and how the
media are portraying our school in
terms of test scores. And | tell them
how numbers don’t really reflect the
kind of learning and the strength
and integrity of students in the
building, And I think that has

an effect, as well.

NW: Will the interim principal
return next year?
KULAK: No. He only came in for

‘one year. A new principal was hired,

Larry Dashiell. He has worked in
this building before, lives in the
community, African American man,
and has years as an administrator,

not as a principal but as a VP.

body who was able to provide
“solidity” in the school. How
important is it to have the
right principal as the leader
in the school?
KULAK: Earlier in my career I
never thought it was that important,
something I took for granted. I
didn’t see the disarray that can be
caused when a principal doesn’t
have it happening on all the levels,
or the administrative duties aren’t
spread out evenly enough so that it
is an overload. | think that the solid-
ity is one of those things that when
it’s working, you know it’s working
because everything else is running
smoothly. But when it’s not working,
it’s pandemonium, it’s chaos. There
are too many people who are feeling
their needs are not being met within
the building, It’s strange, because I
could not outline for you the things
that the principal does, but I do
know when it’s working.

NW: Have you met the new

principal yet, Bayo?
BAYO: No. I still have to set up a
meeting with him about the bell
schedule. I don't want it to change,
and I came up with a third-party
idea to present to him. It’s good, too.
I was speaking to the teachers, and
they seemed like their strongest ar-
gument is they want to see the stu-
dents for, like, the whole year. So I
was thinking how they can do that
—see the students through for the

54

whole year—and us still have the
85-minute block.

KULAK (explains to the inter-
viewer): The plan is to do a modified
block of 55 and 90 minutes. So you
would have 90-minute classes on
two days of the week and then 55-
minute classes the other three days.
BAYO: | didn’t like that. I like the
85 minutes because, like, some of
the time you pick up the assignment
real quick and you can just start
doing it. And then some of the time,
you don’t pick up the assignment
quick. And it takes longer for the
teacher to explain to the student
how to do it the right way. That
takes time, and if you got only 95
minutes some. of the time, you are
going to be rushed and not know
what to do. You are going to leave
without a full understanding, and
that’s going to be bad. That is just
one of the arguments. I don’t want
to give away my political secrets. We
got to set up a meeting.

NW: Do you have a group of

kids who want to meet with
him?
BAYO: It’s a group on the student
council

NW: You all seem really

hopeful about the future. Do

you have other friends who

think, “Well, it's not going to

do me any good to work hard

in school, because ther

nothing out there for me"?

NW EDUCATION / Fall 2002

LAMAR: | had a friend who went
here last year with us and he was
real smart, you know. He was real
good in reading and in math, every-
thing. For some reason, this year he
stopped coming to school and when
we asked him why, he was, like, “I
just don’t think it’s worth it,” or
something. So now he's at home
and he just sits there, but he reads
alot. I visit his house, and there are
stacks of books, but then I was, like,
“You can do that at school and
learn more stuff, you know.” But it
is just weird to see him. It’s a shame.

NW: So he hasn't said any

thing specilic about why he
felt school wasn't worth his
time?
LAMAR: He had told me that his
brother didn’t graduate from high
school, but now he got a good job.
So maybe he figures that, you know,
he can drop out of high school and
get a real good job. But | thought it
was better to get your education.
SHAWNTENA: Well, | have a lot
of friends that are really smart. One
friend went here last year, too, and
she doesn’t go here anymore. She
always got good grades. But now,
it’s, like, a money thing to her. She
has to have money all the time. She
is one of them, “In school, I’m not
making no money; so I'm gonna
not go (to school) and make some
money.” So then you got the girls
that’s getting pregnant. Some of the


6+1 TraitTM Writing Assess-

elcome to this special [Since those early days, the
section of Northwest

Education, focusing
on the 6+1 TraitTM Writing
Assessment and Instruction
Model.

Mijhe model began to take
shape nearly 20 years ago,
sparked by the collaborative
effort of dedicated teachers.
These pioneers in writing
assessment knew that there
was more to teaching writing
than simply grading grammar
and other mechanics. They
also knew that giving a stu-
dent’s paper a single score—
a holistic grade—didn't
provide much in the way
of specific feedback that a
young writer could use to
revise and improve her work.
Teachers wanted an analytic
model that would assess spe-
cific aspects of student writ-
ing. But what might such a
model look like?
fihese determined educators
began by tackling a basic
question: What is good writ-
ing? One group of teachers
met regularly in Beaverton,
Oregon. Another got together
to brainstorm in Montana.
They compared reams of
student work and discussed
the qualities or traits that
all “good” writing samples
shared. Six traits emerged as
the cornerstones of quality
writing: ideas, organization,
voice, word choice, sentence
fluency, and conventions.
Later, presentation was added
to the list. Eventually, scoring
guides, or rubrics, were de-
veloped to assess the level
of proficiency in each of the
traits.

ment and Instruction Model
has gained popularity around
the globe. Teachers in every
state and in many nations use
the traits to help their stu-
dents become better writers,
confident about their ability
to improve their own writing
through careful revision. Sev-
eral states also draw on the
model for statewide writing
assessments.

Lhe Northwest Regional Edu-
cational Laboratory has played
acentral role in supporting
the effective use of the 6+1
TraitTM Writing Assessment
and Instruction Model.
NWREL publishes a growing
collection of materials to sup-
port the effective use of the
traits in the classroom. In ad-
dition, NWREL experts pro-
vide training institutes around
the country, and sometimes
far beyond our borders, to
explain how to use 6+1 TraitTM
rubrics and scoring criteria,
integrate writing assessment
into everyday instruction, and
use teaching strategies that
connect the model to the
world of the developing
writer.

uth Culham, NWREL's lead-
ing 6+1 TraitTM expert and
author, has been helping to
shape and refine the model
since those early days, and
has seen interest skyrocket in
recent months. To meet rising
demand, NWREL has entered
into new partnerships to pub-
lish and distribute 6+1 TraitTM
materials. Culham has written
a comprehensive teacher's
guide to the traits, released
this fall by Scholastic Inc.
(See Page 2 for more details.)

As the line of products contin-
ues to grow to meet demand,
one thing hasn't changed.
Promises Culham: “Teachers
remain our inspiration.”

Lihis special section provides

a behind-the-scenes look

at the 6+1 TraitTM Writing
Assessment and Instruction
Model. We introduce you to
the Vanguards, a group of
veteran teachers who are
invited to meet annually to
share ideas, keep their mes-
sage consistent, and maintain
the grassroots spirit that has
been part of this model since
the beginning. We accom-
pany Culham to a school in
Alaska that is using the model
as part of schoolwide im-
provement efforts. We de-
scribe a brand-new effort to
modify the model for use at
the Indiana Schoo! for the
Deaf, an example of how the
traits can be adapted to serve
specific populations. And we
highlight the newest products,
all designed to help teachers,
students, and parents share a
common vocabulary to talk
about the writing process



are clamoring for “highly qualified
teachers,” while many principals
and personnel directors can’t even
find “warm bodies” to fill class-
rooms. Last year, state legislatures
passed more than 70 new laws im-
pacting teacher quality: from new
tests for licensure to signing
bonuses for new teachers. In the
midst of this widespread teacher
shortage, the critical need to recruit
more teachers of color and to bring
cultural competence to the teach-
ing profession is being largely
overlooked.

Each year for the past decade,
the public school student popula-
tion has grown and become more
diverse. According to U.S. Depart-
ment of Commerce data, about
one-third of public school students
are members of racial and ethnic
minority groups; by the year 2035,
that number will climb above 50
percent, Unfortunately, we can’t say
the same for our teacher workforce.
The teaching profession is losing
ground in terms of the parity be-
tween students of color and teach-
ers of color. Fewer than 14 percent
of teachers are minorities, and pro-
jections anticipate a significant de-
cline. Astoundingly, fully 40 percent
of America’s schools have no
minority teachers at all.

A number of promising steps
have been taken in recent years to
begin closing this glaring gap. Be-
fore coming to WSU, I helped cre-
ate the Portland Teachers Program,
a very successful minority teacher
preparation program operated as a
partnership between Portland State
University, Portland Community
College, and the Portland Public
Schools. (For more on the North-
west Teachers Program, see Vorth-
west Education magazine, “New
Teachers: From Surviving to Thriv-
ing,” Winter 2001). More recently, I
worked with several national orga-
nizations—including the Associa-
tion of Teacher Educators, the
American Association of Colleges
for Teacher Education, the Ameri-
can Association of School Person-
nel Administrators, the American
Council on Education, the National
Education Association and Recruit-
ing New Teachers—in a partner-
ship to sponsor a national summit
on the issue, Convened in Novem-
ber 2001, the summit, Losing
Ground: The Crisis of Diversity
in America’s ‘leaching Force, ad-
dressed the critical shortage of eth-
nically and racially diverse teachers
in America’s schools and the lack of
cultural competence in the teach-
ing profession. The summit initi-
ated the process for formulating
anational movement designed to

successfully reverse the lack of ra-
LES

CLOSING THE GAP

cial and ethnic diversity in our
public school teacher workforce. A
plan for action and an implemen-
tation strategy are being developed
to sponsor local, state, and national
initiatives.

The need to bring the resources
that minority group members bring
to the teaching profession makes
the need to institute teacher prepa-
ration programs that recruit and
support them a must for the future
of the American teaching force.

37

33


COURSE

Q_F

DISCOVER Y

Clark entrusted their horses to the
care of a Nez Perce named Twisted
Hair. Today, members of the Nez
Perce tribe continue to be involved
in breeding Appaloosa stock.

Other tribal members teach stu-
dents how to do beadwork or make
moccasins. Native women known as
“the gatherers” explain how medi-
cines are made from plants that still
grow in the region. During Lewis
and Clark's trek west, many of the
expedition members were exhausted
and ill by the time they reached
what's now Idaho. The Nez Perces
could easily have overtaken them.
Instead, they offered the weary trav-
elers food and herbal remedies to
nurse them back to health.

It may take students years to
appreciate all that they experienced
during their three days of outdoor
learning. Predicts Todd Nygaard, a
counselor at Kamiah High and also
a member of the Lewis and Clark
Rediscovery Project: “Their appreci-
ation for the experience will grow as
they get older and have a chance to
reflect.”

Students now attending Kamiah
High already wax nostalgic about
their eighth-grade camp out. One
boy says he remembers the fun of
doing an orienteering activity that
required students to use GPS units.
Another shivers and describes a
spring downpour that left him
drenched to the bone. “But dinner
was great—I can still smell the
salmon cooking,” he adds. A girl
smiles and says she liked sitting in a

NW EDUCATION / Summer 2003

meadow, writing haiku in her jour-
nal. “Itwas unforgettable,” adds a
classmate.

As for Woods, her favorite part of
the experience “is getting to see these
kids in a different environment.” She
began her career teaching in the
elementary grades, when so much
is still new and fresh in the lives of
young children, “That doesn’t hap-
pen so much in the middle grades.
Most of the time, you're reinforcing
and expanding on what students al-
ready know, You're not introducing
so many brand-new experiences.”
During the outdoor workshop,
though, Woods can see her adoles-
cent students recapture their sense
of wonder. “They share three days
of ‘ahias!”” Out on Musselshell
Meadow, they might find a wild-
flower that they've never seen before.
When they learn it’s a plant that was
also new to Lewis and Clark, they
appreciate what it means to make a
discovery. “They're seeing things for
the first time—discovering new in-
formation. As a teacher,” Woods
adds, “I love to be part of those first
learning experiences.”

200 YEARS OF CHANGE
Whether he's strolling among the
headstones in the oldest section of
the Lewiston cemetery or admiring
the Queen Anne architecture of
homes built here a century ago,
Steven Branting is alert for signs of
change. “In every community,” says
the veteran teacher, “you can find
data that will help you trace changes

over time.”

For the past two school years,
Branting has been helping a group
of motivated students use a variety
of technologies to track the evolution
of their hometown. At Jenifer Junior
High, where he is a consultant for
gifted education, Branting cuts a
distinctive figure in bow tie and sus-
penders, His students, who take his
course as ani elective, describe him
as the kind of teacher who “doesn’t
let anything hold you back,” as one
eighth-grader puts it. “He asks us a
question, then helps us along while
we try to find a way to answer it.”

It's.a formula that seems to be
working. Students in the elective
class won a national award last year
for creating a digital community
atlas, which traces 200 years of
change in their hometown. The
award was given by the Environ-
mental Systems Research Institute
(ESRI), makers of the high-powered
ArcView mapping software that the
students learned to use to create
computer-generated maps. As part of
the recognition, students presented
their project to an audience of more
than 11,000 last summer in San
Diego. Confides one of the boys with
pride, “We've had college students
tell us we do more interesting stuff
than they get to do.”

Branting learned to use the
mapping software himself through
the Lewis and Clark Rediscovery
Project. He serves as the project's
cartographer, among other roles. “I
have a lot of background in making

472

maps,” he says, “but it’s all been by
hand. I’ve used the traditional
methods.” Those methods haven't
changed much since William Clark
used them to chart the first maps of
the West. Branting could see that the
mapping software opened some ex-
citing possibilities, especially when
coupled with GPS units that record
coordinates in the field, data sets
provided by the U.S. Census and
other sources, and satellite photos
that can capture the smallest details
in an aerial view.

‘The students at Jenifer Junior
High have learned to use all these
tools to create their comprehensive
community atlas. In a series of elec-
tronic slides that include maps, pho-
tographs, and text, their atlas shows
how Lewiston has evolved since
Lewis and Clark's first visit in 1805.
Discussions and visuals focus on
land use, industry, housing, educa-
tion, and other topics. (The project
is online at wwwesri.com/industries/
k-12/atlas/lewiston/index.html.)

Once they completed the atlas,
students were ready to tackle more
specific challenges that bring to-
gether history and technology. Their
teacher pointed them in the direc-
tion of an intriguing local mystery:
What happened a century ago, when
Lewiston outgrew its first cemetery
and moved the old graves to a new
setting? Who lies buried in the sec-
tion of unmarked graves?

‘The junior high students had no
qualms about investigating the rest-
ing place of their city’s earliest citi-


ners. You will over-identify a few
kids, but it’s really worth it to find
those kids who have those weak-
nesses before they start learning to
read. Then you can give intervention
as they're learning to read. The
Bethel School District in Eugene
has applied this principle, and 95
percent of their kids are reading at
a third-grade level by third grade.
They're working on the other 5 per-
cent right now. (See the article on
Bethel’s approach on Page 30.)
NW: You and your husband
were able to afford to pay for
tutors and other help for Jon.
But what about families with-
out resources?

RAMSEY: I'm involved right now
with a group that's doing tutoring
at Humboldt Elementary, Jefferson
High School, and a couple of other
schools in low-income neighbor-
hoods. it’s an outreach project of the
Oregon Branch of the International
Dyslexia Association called One-on-
One Works. We got an $8,000 grant
from the Collins Foundation to pay
highly trained tutors to work with
those kids. But it's sort of a drop in
the puddle.

137

THE HIDDEN DISABILITY

My, buddy Trevor yells at me
from the kitchen. “Jon, read
me the label of the bottle
you're halding

|, in a not-quite-confident
voice, begin to read out loud,
stumbling over every other
word. “Man-ufa-ctu-red in
Colombia with co-mpon-en
from...

Trevor laughs. “Jon, still can’t
read.”

I laugh back. “Nope, still can't
read.”

This occurrence at age 20 with
two-thirds of my college de
gree done is funny, because
of course | can read. | gota
3.5 GPA last semester and am
fluent in Spanish. But when |
was in elementary school and
truly could not read, some-
thing like that was not so
funny. School at that time

in my life was not interesting
and challenging, like | find it
now, but rather something that
made me cry. | remember sit-
ting through SSR (silent sus-
tained reading) for 30 minutes,
bored out of my mind because
all! could do
words; | had no concept of
what they meant. | also re-

is look at the

member the embarrassment
of getting called out of class

to go to the resource room for
“special” help. The kids were
jealous that | got to get out

of class until they found out
where | went and what | did.
Then they just laughed. It
wasn't laughter like me and
my buddy Trevor share when
we discover my little oddities,
but a hurtful laugh because it
was at me.

But kids are cruel. right? Deal-
ing with my learning disability
was hard for me when | was
younger, not because | was
doing horrible in school and
still couldn't read but because
| was different from the rest
It's funny now looking ba

on it because | could have
turned out to be a cry-y eyed,
depressed young man. But |
didn't. If you were to ask any
of my friends or protessors
now, | don’t think they would
describe me like that at all.

I wish | could put my finger
on the one thing the helped
me appreciate myself and
allowed me to be successful
but | can’t. It was a combina-
tion of many factors. Of
course, I'd have to give most
of the
who never gave up on me and

dit to my parents.

supported me through thick

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

and thin. To this day, they still
give me as much support as
they can. But it was also the
help of teachers, counselors,
and friends that ultimately got
me through.

—By Jonathan Ruff

University of Oregon

17


PORTLAND, Oregon—2

Myers calls herself CEO of Applegate
Elementary School. But at 8:15 on a
gray May morning, microphone in
hand, the principal greets the stu-
dents streaming into the cafeteria
with the pizzazz of a Las Vegas per-
former. As the 50 percent of Apple-
gate students who are entitled to free
breakfast pile cinnamon rolls and
French toast onto their plates, Myers
sings over a taped accompaniment:

Good moming, good morning,

Good moming to you.

Our day is just beginning,

There's so much todo.

As the food vanishes into hungry
mouths, kids begin to sing along.
Between verses, Myers works the
crowd. “What's your purpose here
today, boys and girls?” she asks.

“To leam!” pipe up a few voices
from the K-3 audience.

“That's right!” Myers says. “* To
learn and take responsibility for
your education,” then lapses once
more into song:

The world is a rainbow

With many kinds of people

“And what are our three school
rules?”

This is a little harder, but hands
shoot up, and all over the room
voices rise in a ragged but enthusi-
astic answer,

“Very good,” says Myers. “Safety,

CLOSING THE GAP

respect, and responsibility.” She fol-
lows with a quick chorus of multi-
plication tables as a third-grader
points to equations projected on a
screen in the corner. The volume
evel in the room climbs. By the
time the first bell rings at 8:45, the
group that entered as a sleepy, dis-
parate rainbow of faces has been
transfonned. They leave for their
classrooms alert, cohesive, and, to
use Myers's word, “jazzed” to learn.
The learning at Applegate today
is impressive. But it was not always
so. This elementary school, located
on the edge of industrial north Port-
land, was identified as one of 14
“crisis’schools in 1999 by the com-
munity-based Education Crisis
Team, which challenged the Port-
land School Board to close the
achievement gap between affluent,
mostly white schools and low-in-
come, largely minority schools.
Applegate possesses the kind of de-
mographics frequently associated
with poor academic performance:
nearly 80 percent of students hail
from low-income families, a rising
number speak English as a second
language, and only about 25 per-
cent start and finish their elernen-
tary education at Applegate. In
1999, fully 40 percent of the school’s
African American third-graders
tested low or very low in math, with
another 40 percent meeting or ex-
ceeding standards. In reading,

almost 20 percent tested low, while
about 60 percent met or exceeded
standards.

Ascant three years later, Apple-
gate’s test scores bear no resem-
blance to those discouraging
numbers. In both math and read-
ing, not one child at Applegate
tested low in 2002. In reading,
nearly 88 percent of African Ameri-
can students met or exceeded stan-
dards, while in math, 100 percent
did so. Given a decade of budget cuts
in Portland that have only intensi-
fied in the last few years, how was
this possible?

Under Applegate's previous prin-
cipal, LaVerne Davis, test scores had
begun to climb upward. Myers, who
took the reins in 2001, solidified
those gains with her own distinctive
approach, a combination of the re-
sults-oriented acumen of a busi-
nesswoman, an ability to focus on
everything from the big picture 10
the smallest detail, and a tough-love
approach.

‘The latter two qualities are evi-
dent as Myers walks the halls, regis-
tering every desk out of place, every
child straggling in after the bell.
“You're late, Jonathan,” she says,
greeting a sleepy-eyed second-grader
by name, as she does every child.
“Can't be late!”

“We have high expectations of
every student,” Myers comments as

she walks past a sign on the wall

4

ws

that reads, There's no such thing 17
as no homework at Applegate. “We
have a no-fault, no-blame environ-
ment. The children know that they
may even have to keep an eye on the
clock and wake their parents up, if
that’s what it takes to get here on
time. They have to take responsibil-
ity for their education.”

The overall framework of Myers’s
educational approach derives, sur-
prisingly, from business. It's Total
Quality Management (TQM), a
strategy developed by statistician
and management consultant
W. Edwards Deming, who used it
most notably to retool the Japanese
automobile industry. Since 1981,
many U.S. enterprises have also
adopted it. Myers first encountered
TQM while she was a Title | coordi-
nator at another struggling north
Portland school, Portsmouth Middle
School. There, where Myers was an
integral member of a faculty group
that instituted TQM, she became
abeliever. She finds the business
model an excellent fit for the educa-
tional mission. “As a teacher, you're
working toward a product, which is
student learning,” she says. “TQM
allows you continually to make re-
search-based modifications and
adaptations to produce a better
product.”

Among other things, a research-
based approach requires the con-
stant collection of numbers about


A TIMELINE: FROM PRODUCT
TO PROCESS

/ love getting up every morning and mucking around
in sentences, playing with stories, trying to build my
city of words.

—Ralph Fletcher
Forty years ago, a landmark report commissioned by
the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) lam-
basted the state of writing instruction. Authors of the
1963 Braddock Report found “... the field as a whole
is laced with dreams, prejudices, and makeshift
operations.”

Hillocks, who conducted a meta-analysis of research
on writing instruction in 1983, suggests that most teach-
ers never learned how to teach writing. “Teachers of En-
glish in the secondary schools have little or no training
in the teaching of writing. They are, alter all, graduates
of English departments concentrating on literature,” he
points out in 7he Zesting Trap. “Elementary and middle
school language arts teachers tend to have even less
background in writing. They have tended to concentrate
on reading.”

The field of writing instruction has evolved during the
decades since the Braddock Report. The 1970s and
1980s saw teachers taking a cue from how writers ap-
proach their craft. The writing process began to take
hold as an effective way to teach writing. The process ap-
proach encourages students to shape their writing through
a series of stages, typically including brainstorming or
prewriting, drafting, revising (often with benefit of feed-
back from teacher or peers), editing, and publishing.

By 1988, when Kathleen Cotton of the Northwest Re-
gional Educational Laboratory took another look at re-
search on writing instruction, she found student
achievement to be higher when teachers emphasized
writing as a process rather than written work as a prod-
uct. In what she called “product-oriented teaching,”
teachers had focused on form and correctness, and “the
student has to get it right the first time because the paper

‘i 85

turned in will be the only version.” In contrast, the stages
of the writing process are “more in keeping with the
true nature of the act of writing,” Cotton concluded.

By the early 1990s, writing teachers were creating an-
other tool to improve instruction. Giving students a sin-
gle score to assess their writing reflected the old product
approach to teaching. An “A” grade might make a young
writer proud, but it wouldn’t point out what was good
about the work and what could be better. Similarly, a low
grade would tell the student his work wasn’t up to par, but
would offer no guidance for improvement on the next
draft. Working collahoratively, writing teachers began to
develop analytical scoring tools for evaluating different as-
pects of student writing. (A special section about the
+1 TraitTM Writing Model begins after Page 36).

NEW ROLE FOR TEACHER

Write only from experience, but you must be one on
whom nothing is lost.

—Henry James
Classrooms that generate good writing tend to be active
places. Students may talk in pairs or small groups, offering
peer critiques about works in progress. The teacher
might be off in a corner, meeting with students for indi-
vidual story conferences or offering a mini-lesson to an-
swer a question that has just come up. And students who
are actually putting words on paper might be working with
pencil and paper, diagramming their ideas in story webs,
or writing and editing on computers. When it's time to
share writing samples, the teacher may volunteer himself
as a model, reading his own work aloud and inviting
students to offer feedback to guide revision.

Creating this atmosphere of a writers’ workshop re-
quires skill and flexibility on the teacher's part. It’s a
new role for many teachers: being a writing coach (and
fellow writer), rather than the resident expert.

Cotton's research synthesis, although now more than
a decade old, pointed to several practical suggestions that
have stood the test of time. Among her key lessons for

FOCUS ON WRITING


14

From Personal Advocacy
to Public Activism

In her quest to help her dyslexic son, Betsy Ramsey found a calling for all LD kids

MEETING Vie ChIAWUENGle

Twenty years ago,
as Betsy Ramsey's firstborn child lay
cradled in her arms at Portland's
Kaiser Hospital, she wondered about

the world of possibilities within that

wamn little bundle. What she could

never have imagined was that her
bright-eyed baby boy would lead her
to become a major Oregon voice for
kids with learning disabilities,

At first, all seemed well in the
family’s solid, inner-city home.

sok

NW EDUCATION / Spring 2003

Ramsey, a half-time cancer re-
searcher at the Oregon Health Sci-
ences University, and her engineer
husband Don Ruff, had no reason to
suspect a problem with their smart,
funny, active son Jon, who relished
the storybooks his parents read to
him daily. But the couple started

to worry when, despite an all-day,
enriched preschool program, four-
yeat-old Jon's prereading skills were
nil. A teacher's reassurances quelled

£34

their concerns as he entered kinder-
garten. But by the end of his first-
grade year in a dual-language
Spanish immersion program, the
little boy still couldn’t decipher the
symbols and sounds of the printed
word. When reading continued to
elude him well into second grade,
the school placed him in a resource
room for one hour, twice a week, for
help overcoming what they termed
a “specific leaming disability.”


EDUC

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Watch for coming issues

Spring issue
Back From the Brink: Saving Kids With Learning Disabilities From Failure

Summer issue
Discovery Learning: Lessons From Lewis and Clark

Fall issue
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‘VOLUME 8 NUMBER 3
SPRING 2003

‘OW THE COVER:
Alexandra “Ali” Johnston, a fita-grader at Portland's
Alameda Elementary School, works on language skills,
weekly with her tulor, Kay Kaplan of Language Skills
Therapy (see the story about Kaplan on Page 22)
The daughter of Ronda Williamson and David Johnston
of Northeast Portland, Ali brings her beautlul
singing voice and emerging acting ils to
pesformances withthe Nortwest Children's Theater
and other local dramatic groups.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JUDY BLANKENSHIP

30

36

The Hidden Disability

When Bright Children Struggle To Learn

ARTICLES

“Why Can’t | Read?”

An overview of the latest research on learning disabilities sheds
new light on the neurological clues that help explain dyslexia and
other learning problems, and suggests promising strategies for
parents and teachers.

Meeting the Challenge

A collection of profiles on individuals immersed in the field of
learning disabilities reveals the human side of this complex—
and often-painful—educational Mt. Everest

O Evoking Some Hope
Student Bryan Lewis

O From Personal Advocacy to Public Activism
Parent Activist Betsy Ramsey

O Seeing Yourself Sitting There
‘Teacher Dan Tibbetts .

© Letting Kids’ Gifts Shine Through
Tutor Kay Kaplan

OC Revealing the Secrets of the Brain
Researcher Virginia Berninger

Double Dose

When skyrocketing special ed referrals began to alarm teachers and
administrators in Oregon's Bethel Schoo! District, they set out to
nip learning disabilities in the bud.

DEPARTMENT
Principal's Notebook

120


A GAPING SEPARATION

Calling the problem a “gap” understates its depth and
severity in U.S. schools. Secretary of Education Rod Paige
characterizes it more graphically as a “gaping separation”
in student achievement. Robert Slavin of Johns Hopkins
University asserts that Americans face nothing less than
a “crisis of equity” in their educational system.

‘The facts bear out these charges to a staggering degree.
Consider this litany of statistics from various sources,
including the National Center for Education Statistics,
the National Task Force on Minority High Achievement,
the Education Trust, the National Educational Goals Panel,
and the National Assessment of Educational Progress:
© Out of every 100 white kindergartners, 88 will gradu-
ate from high school or obtain a GED, 59 will complete
some college, 26 will obtain at least a bachelor's de-
gree. For African American kids, the numbers are 82, 45,
and 11; for Hispanics, 63, 35, and eight; and among Na-
tive Americans, 58 will graduate from high school and
seven will obtain at least a bachelor’s degree.

* Only one in 100 17-year-old African American kids and
one in 50 Hispanics can read and understand the science
section of a newspaper, compared to one in 12 white kids.
© Only one in 100 17-year-old African American kids com-
pared to one in 10 white kids can solve a multistep math
problem.

© When African American and Hispanic youths graduate
from high school, they have attained the same level of per-
formance in reading and math on average as white kids
attain at eighth grade.

© Only three in 10 African American and four in 10 His-
panic 17-year-olds have mastered the usage and com-
pulation of fractions, commonly used percents, and
averages, compared with seven in 10 white students.

© While African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Amer-
icans together make up 30 percent of the US. school-age
population, in 1995 they accounted for only about 13 per-
cent of bachelor’s degrees, 11 percent of professional

NW Education / Fall 2002

degrees, and 6 percent of doctoral degrees.

© In the eighth grade, just 3 percent of African American and
8 percent of Hispanic students met the National Educational
Goals Panel's “proficient” or “advanced” performance
standards in math, compared with 44 percent of Asian/
Pacific Islanders and 32 percent of white students.

© The latest results from the nation’s “report card” found
that among white students, 27 percent were below basic,
while 63 percent of black youngsters and 58 percent of
Hispanics were unable to demonstrate basic skills.

© Just 10 percent of black and 13 percent of Hispanic
fourth-graders were considered proficient in reading on
the last “nation’s report card,” compared with 29 percent
of white students.

© While 42 percent of Asian American and 34 percent of
white 10th-graders take college-prep courses, only 26 per-
cent of black and 23 percent of Hispanic 10th-graders do so.

Slavin is blunt in his indictment of this dire picture and
insistent on immediate action. “As educators, we cannot
wait for U.S. society to solve its problems of racism and
economic inequity,” says the researcher, who earned his
undergraduate degree at Portland's Reed College. “We can
and inust take action now to prepare all children to
achieve their full potential.”

The reasons for the lagging performance of minority
students are complex. But a recent study commissioned
by the College Board was able to tease out “at least five
factors” that help account for the gap, Education Daily
reported in 1999. They are: (1) poverty, (2) schools
with inadequate resources, (3) racial and ethnic preju-
dice resulting in low expectations for minority children,
(4) limited educational resources of minority families, and
(5) cultural differences of certain ethnic and racial
groups toward learning.

Clearly, some of these factors are woven into the social
fabric beyond the reach of schools. This leads many peo-
ple to “assume that there is an inextricable relationship
between poverty, ethnicity, and academic achievement,”
notes Douglas Reeves of the Center for Performance

t

The dream is
not yet realized ...
For some children
to have [a good]
education while
others do not is an
injustice. If they
are not learning,
then something
is wrong with the
school system,
not the kid.
—C.J. Prentiss,
Ohio state senato
December 2001



;

(Micdirant

Northwest Educational

EOUVEATION


38

change and academic revitalization
were to:

Eliminate the fragmentation of
federal and state services that pulled
targeted children (Title 1, bilingual,
migrant, Indian, gifted, and special
ed) out of their classrooms, some-
times several times a day, and inte-
grate academic services to children
through the creation of instruc-
tional and tutoring teams

© Provide high-quality, ongoing
professional development for all
certified staff, paraprofessionals,
and parents

Promote academic achievement
focusing on literacy and mathematics
© Foster bilingualism and bicultur-
alism in all students

© Support parents as partners in the
education of their children

With the new grant in place,
Stephens turned her attention to the
critical needs of the school: restruc-
turing the classroom culture, devel-
oping creative and challenging
curriculum that would meet district,
standards, recruiting staff, and pro-
viding ongoing professional devel-
opment.

The creation of the international
tutor position for each teaching
team was central to the school’s
turnaround, according to Stephens,
because it eliminated the practice
of pulling students out of the class-
room for special services. “Students
need to be in the classroom and get-

ting all the information that other
children get, without missing out on
anything,” Stephens says emphati-
cally. “If a child needs lower-level
reading material, or a higher-level
math lesson, we differentiate what
we do within the classroom by mod-
ifying the regular curriculum.” To
pay for the new tutors (most speak
Spanish, but one speaks Korean and
another Tagalog), Stephens pooled
state and federal money that would
normally be used to hire separate
specialists.

Curriculum development was
another critical need. “In the begin-
ning, we put in everything the dis-
trict expected us to teach,” says
Stephens, “and then we decided
what's important, and what's meet-

ing standards. We don’t have time,
especially in the immersion pro-
gram with two language arts blocks,
to do that lesson on chocolate, for
example, if it doesn’t apply to any-
thing else. Rather, we focus on
making sure that what we teach is
relevant, and hooking the kids in.”
Teaching teams meet regularly to
craft and refine an immersion cur-
riculum that is infused with the cul-
tures of Spanish-speaking countries,
and teachers in the neighborhood
program develop curriculum that
reflects the ethnic background of
the student population.

“We've been doing a curriculum

project for six years now,” says

42

NW EDUCATION / Fall 2002

fandergatiers tn Shr Lavghitton's Glass cits to gai Uo ciisare amd carat fie einen atl aves.


“History educates in the deep-
est sense ... teaching us those
virtues once reserved for the-
ology—the virtue of humility
in the face of limits to our
knowledge and the virtue of
awe in the face of the expanse
of human history.”

—Sam Wineberg, “Historical Thinking
and Other Unnatural Acts,” Phi Della
Kappan, March 1999

By Denise Jarrett Weeks

From the Columbia River, Clark glimpsed the Pacif
view! 0! the joy,” he later wrote. Photo courtesy of
National Historic Trail Interpretive Center, Great Falls,

“4.



MEETING THE CHALLENGE

LD kids have an ever-widening network of support and expertise in the Northwest

By LEE SHERMAN
Photos by JUJY BLANKENSHIP

The Student

The Researcher

ven for kids with no special problems, school can be

pretty rough going. But add a learning disability to the
mix. Suddenly, attending school can feel like climbing
Mt. Everest without crampons or oxygen. It’s not just a
matter of mastering math and reading, or taking high-

stakes tests, or vying for college admission when your brain isn't wired
for literacy. It’s also about confronting the cliques and the bullies

when you get pegged as a “dummy.”

Qortunately for today’s LD child, the network of support is expanding.
Growing numbers of parents and professionals throughout the
Northwest are committing their time and expertise to making sure
these students not only survive the academic and emotional rigors
of K-12 education, but also reach the pinnacle of their potential.

Oh this section, Northwest Education shows you the human face of
learning disabilities—the individuals who have dedicated themselves
to changing outcomes for kids who might otherwise fail to find success.
We profile a learning disabled student who has channeled his enor-
mous energy into art and community activism. A parent who took on
the mantle of advocacy as she strove to help her own dyslexic son. A
teacher whose personal struggles with dyslexia have given him com-
passion for his LD students. A tutor who has made LD students her
lifelong mission. And a researcher who has devoted decades to
solving the cerebral mysteries of learning problems.

‘THE HIDDEN DISABILITY 4 9



DMERSE
AUIDTENCES

WHEN THE INDIANA
SCHOOL FOR THE
DEAF SEEKS HELP 10
IMPROVE STUDENTS’
WRITING SKILLS, IT
DISCOVERS THE 6+1
TRAITTM MODEL. THE
REST IS HISTORY.

By SUZIE BOSS

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana—As a vel-
eran trainer with the Northwest Regional
Educational Laboratory's assessment
program, Janice Wright has traveled the
country to teach teachers how to use
the 6+1 TraitTM Writing Assessment and
Instruction Model. She's explained the
model in big cities, small towns, class-
rooms, conference centers, just about
everywhere—or so she thought.

This fall, Wright received an invitation
to present a 6+1 TraitTM training session
for teachers at the Indiana School for
the Deaf (ISD). Wright recognized the
Opporiunity to help make history. “This
would be the first time we've introduced
the model for use with deaf students,”
she explains, By coincidence, Wright
also has experience in Deaf Ecucation.
‘She was a student teacher years ago at
the Oregon School for the Deaf, and
later was an itinerant teacher for deat
students in Central Oregon. She was
excited by the chance to help adapt the
model to meet the learning needs of
this special population of students. “It
seemed like a wonderful opportunity.”

The Indiana School for the Deaf, a
320-student residential school, serves
students from preschool through 12th
grade. Teachers and students use
American Sign Language.

Gary Mowl, chairperson for school
improvement planning, explains that
the school has been seeking to improve
student performance in the area of lan-
guage arts. When members of the lan-
guage arts committee began exploring
how other public schools in Indiana
have made strides in improving student
writing, they kept seeing references to

NW EDUCATION / Winter 2002 i

something called the six traits. Thal made
them curious. Through further investi-
galion, they learned how the 6+4 TraitTM
assessment model enables teachers to
give students specific feedback about
their writing. Guided by the traits, stu-
dents become more confident writers,
better equipped to reach for excellence.
Mow!'s research led him to NWREL,
which provides a wide variety of materi-
als and training to support the use of
the 6+1 TraitTM model. And he also found
Wright. “It was by mere coincidence
that Janice had background in Deaf
Education,” he explains. Together, they
began mapping out a two-day work-
shop for ISD’s language arts teachers.
ADAPTING THE MODEL
Going into the workshop, Wright knew
that she would have to rethink some
aspects of the 6+1 TraitTM model. Deaf
students, she explains, tend to be quite
literal. “Things that play to the ear—
word play—may not make sense to
them.” Children who are deaf or hard of
hearing may not have large vocabular-
ies. “Otten, they didn’t get read to as
young children,” she explains, which
means they may have missed opportu-
nities to build their vocabulary and other
literacy skills. From experience, Wright
also appreciaied the importance of
using visual models rather than audi-
tory examples in the workshops.
Perhaps most important, she under-
stood that deal students share many of
the characteristics of English language
learners. Al the Indiana School for the
Deaf, “they teach the students using
their first language, American Sign Lan-
guage,” Wright explains. Rather than

404

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* SERVING

being a signed version of English, ASL
has its own constructs and patterns,
“It's grammatically different from En-
glish. Deafness is a culture, not a dis-
ability. Deaf kids are ELL kids. That's
really important.”

NWREL has a track record of adapt-
ing the 6+4 TraitTM model to fit the needs
of English language learners. Native
Spanish speakers, in particular, have
been served by an adaptation of the
traits for effective Spanish writing
Wright borrowed from this research
base, which supports teaching students
to write well in their native language
first, then take those skills into writing
in English.

Because the workshop would be a
pilot project, Wright asked Mow! and
his colleagues to be patient. “This in-
volved a lot of learning for me,” Wright
admits, “and they were willing to work
with me to help me change and adapt
the model so that it will work for them
and their students.”

POSITIVE RESPONSE

When it was time for the two-day work-
shop, Wright found herself in front of
an audience of about 20 teachers, plus
two interprelers. “They had to remind
me to talk more slowly, and to really
‘slow down when reading aloud,” she
says. There was plenty of give-and-
take, as well, with Wright asking the
teachers for input about how the model
could be modified to better suit their
students’ needs. Overall, she adds, “it
was a wonderful experience.”

Mowl says teacher response was
“superb.” Teachers were enthusiastic
about the concepts, the materials, the