Adjusting the Recipe

I spent a great deal of time baking over the past week.  As I was mixing a cheesecake, I was thinking about how baking is a lot like teaching.  Each recipe, like each student, calls for a different set of ingredients to be mixed in different ways, each one added at just the right time in just the right measurement.  When we don't do those things in just the right way, we do not get the desired outcome.  But, a baker does not give up.  He analyzes the cake's consistency, flavor and level of moisture in order to determine where the recipe went wrong.  The next step is to start again and make necessary adjustments to the ingredients or process to get the desired outcome.  Bakers, professional as well as amateur, often consult others to gain insights to improve their goods.  For them it may mean looking in a cookbook, phoning a knowledgeable friend or researching on the internet.  It may take several attempts at the same recipe, but if a baker perseveres, the end result is a moist, delectable cake.  

Teachers, like bakers, do not give up either.  We look at student work and data.  We analyze closely and determine patterns that indicate where our students need more time, experience, or intense instruction. We plan for engaging opportunities for our students to learn collaboratively or guide them ourselves in 1:1 and small group settings.  We open the oven and check again to see if we've made that perfect cake.  When we have not, we often turn to one another for suggestions and advice on what's working. 

When I'm in need of ideas and motivation and my trusted colleagues are not available, I turn to a few women I know I can also count on, Penny Kittle and Donalyn Miller.  Penny Kittle's, Book Love and Donalyn Miller's, The Book Whisperer, have been inspirational for me in helping students get excited about reading for real and building their "reading lives".  Kittle helps us understand the importance fluency, stamina, conferring with students and increasing text complexity over time.  Most of that means that I'm sharing my love of reading with them.  Book talks and trailers are a powerful way to hook students into new texts.  I saw this in action two years ago after Mr. Doerges had done a book talk on Neal Shusterman's book, Unwind.  It resulted in a torrent of students in the library looking to check it out!  

If we want our students to read for life we have to teach and show them why they should, help them form the habit. That begins every morning. It is up to us to share our passion for reading and the stories we love.  Through our own personal narratives, our students can see how reading has made a difference in our lives, how we have learned from it, escaped into it and connected to other people, places and times through it.  We need to be the examples of how powerful the experience of reading can be.  

If you feel your recipe isn't working as we move into trimester two, remember there are a lot of bakers in the Wilson kitchen ready and willing to share trade secrets. 

I'd like to give Carly Gates an S for her cape for taking the lead on the recipe for success for one of my students!