Sunday, December 5, 2010

CAFE Chapter 2: The CAFE Notebook & Record-Keeping Forms

Amen on the love/hate relationship with sticky notes!  I remember my first year teaching 5th grade in Houston.  I had a blue 3-ring binder.  Each grading quarter had a divider between.  Each student had a black piece of white paper in each quarter.  Each student needed to have 3 anecdotal records every 9 weeks in this binder.  Boy, what started out great in August was not pretty when my principal looked at it at the end of 1st quarter! The notes were subjective.  The notes were random.  The notes did not guide instruction.

In case you weren't sure, here is the definition and a picture of pensieve:
Pensieve
The Pensieve as seen in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
A Pensieve is a stone basin used to store and review memories. Covered in mystic runes, it contains memories that take physical form as a type of matter that is described as neither gas nor liquid. A witch or wizard can extract their own or another person’s memories, store them in the Pensieve, and review them later. It also relieves the mind when it becomes cluttered with information. Anyone can examine the memories in the Pensieve, which also allows viewers to fully immerse themselves in the memories stored within, much like a magical form of real world virtual reality.
Users of these devices view the memories from a third-person-point-of-view, providing a near-omniscient perspective of the events preserved. Rowling confirmed that memories in the Pensieve allow one to view details of things that happened even if they did not notice or remember them, and stated that "that's the magic of the Pensieve, what brings it alive".[16]

I think it is an AWESOME idea to use staff development time to create this data collection notebook and personalize it.  We can do this in the future, maybe?  Any scrapbookers out there at TJ?  I am NOT!

Section 1: Teacher Notes
  • Love, love the calendar.  It sounds simple, but keeps us (both the kids and teacher) accountable
  • Keeping track form will show, again, that fair is not equal. This needs to happen to close the gap....
  • Strategy Groups form is a new way of grouping for guided reading!  I mentioned this in a previous blog.  We need to group by CAFE principles, not DRA levels.  Thoughts?
  • What are touch points?
Section 2: Dividers/tabs for each child
  • Do you already have a laminated version of the "Literacy CAFE Menu"?  What an awesome reference....
  • Reading conference form and writing conference could be a "job-embedded" way to track progress for a BAT student with a skill that is being evaluated?
Happy reading....I am popping in the CD now!
Posted by at

7 comments:

  1. nallersDecember 6, 2010 at 12:37 PM

    I was really excited about grouping by strategy and not reading level, however I'm no where near that point. I'm struggling with getting to everyone (all of my students) in a timely manner.
    Having my binder divided by students is good for what I'm currently doing. I'm to the point where I'm just writing the date of when I conferenced with each student, as opposed to any additonal information.

    ReplyDelete
  2. lwebbDecember 7, 2010 at 7:41 AM

    I happen to love to scrapbook. I also have a love of office supplies and organization. Therefore, this chapter was my idea of a good time. : )

    Like I said in an earlier post, the idea of grouping based on need (rather then level) sounds like a great plan.

    I appreciate that the CD rom in the back of the book has all the strategy sheets. I ran a "master copy set" if anyone needs it. It was a bit of a pain to open each document individually and print it.

    I created my own laminated CAFE menu. The students have written sticky notes with strategy "choices" on each menu option.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJanuary 2, 2011 at 3:28 PM

    I like the binder idea. The calendar is a great way to organize student conferencing. I love the idea of students helping set goals. Gives students ownership with learning. I like the strategy groups and instruction form. I don't understand touch points either. I am thinking explaination is ahead. Conferencing is always an issue. Don't seem to have the time. I would be interested in creating a binder by the end of the school. Nice to be ready to go for fall.

    ReplyDelete
  4. abitterJanuary 9, 2011 at 2:05 PM

    I liked the form for Strategy Groups. It would be a great way to see which students are working on similar strategies and show when they are ready for a new goal. I also liked the form for the reading conference. It looks like a good way to have a complete picture of each student.
    I would like to incorporate "The Literacy CAFE Menu" into my reading instruction. It looks like a very complete list of strategies that we could all use in our daily instruction.

    ReplyDelete
  5. rfluhrcaJanuary 10, 2011 at 6:12 AM

    I am all about organization and what would make my job easier. However, I also am nowhere near grouping my students by strategy. I am still grouping my students by reading level.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Joanna TiemeierJanuary 10, 2011 at 11:50 AM

    I take a lot of anecdotal notes for all of my students and I have tried a lot of different ways to organize them. I liked the notebook idea and hope to start the binder idea next fall with a new group of students. I would like to start a calendar with my special needs student to remind myself to work one on one with them at least twice a week.

    ReplyDelete
  7. amarshallJanuary 10, 2011 at 1:16 PM

    I can envision myself using the word collector as a tool to post my word wall words on. When I talk with Lisa Webb and she tells me of the reading conferences she has experienced with kindergarten teachers using this, I am sure that I would benefit from that experience also.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)