Balanced Literacy
“Teach the writer, not the writing.” - Lucy Calkins
Micheltorena aims to prepare students for any reading and writing task they will face and to turn kids into life-long, confident readers and writers who display agency and independence.
Micheltorena Elementary School implements a K-5 Workshop Curriculum guided by the work of Lucy Calkins and the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Nancie Atwell, Ralph Fletcher, Irene Fountas, Gay Su Pinnell, and other educators dedicated to empowering young people through literacy.
Micheltorena’s approach to instruction recognizes that “one size fits all” does not match the realities of the classrooms. When you walk into a workshop classroom at any given moment, you’ll see instruction that is designed to:
- help teachers address each child’s individual learning,
- explicitly teach strategies students will use not only the day they are taught, but whenever they need them,
- support small-group work and conferring, with multiple opportunities for personalizing instruction,
- tap into the power of a learning community as a way to bring all learners along,
- build choice and assessment-based learning into the very design of the curriculum,
- help students work with engagement so that teachers are able to coach individuals and lead small groups.
To participate fully in today's world, students must become independent thinkers, learners, and workers. These qualities are developed when teachers play the role of expert-mentors: sharing how reading, writing, thinking, and talking have enhanced their own lives; demonstrating how they engage in these activities themselves; and guiding students through opportunities to practice, reflect, incorporate feedback, share, and celebrate.
The routines and structures of reading and writing workshop are kept simple and predictable so that the teacher can focus on the complex work of teaching in a responsive manner to accelerate achievement for all learners.
- Each session begins with a mini lesson. Kids sit with a long-term partner while in the mini lesson.
- The mini lesson ends with the kids being sent off to their own independent work.
- As students work, the teacher confers with them and leads small groups.
- Partway through independent work time, the teacher stands and delivers a mid-workshop teaching point.
- The workshop ends with a share.