The phrase that I have heard so many times in meetings and throughout professional developments is: “We have to stop going a mile wide and an inch deep.” I will often keep track of how many times I hear this in meetings on a sticky note. Not kidding. The alternative to this is of course that we need to be focusing on an inch-wide worth material while going a mile deep in the quest to find mastery. As this idiom relates to teaching, secondary English Language Arts teachers have the particular problem of being tasked with teaching both reading and writing in small blocks of class time. Here are some particular questions I often get on the blog, in my classroom, and the questions I ask myself on days when I am pulling my own hair out:
How do I fit it all in?
What gets left out if I can’t do it all?
How am I building readers AND writers?
Is reading more important than writing?
Does my curriculum guide provide that balance of reading and writing for me?
These are just a few questions that cause any ELA teacher to pause and reflect and perhaps think, “how is this job even possible.” My brain often looks like a tangled Pinterest feed with ideas about strategies and resources. I don’t have any hard answers here. I just want to provide how I attempt to “fit it all” into my blocks of class time each day, week, and year. I have many things I love and will continue to do, and I have things that I try out all the time. This goes back to my non-negotiables because I have things that I will always continue to do because I can visually see learning taking place in front of me, and I have things I try to improve on all the time. My goal with this post is NOT to try to say what the correct strategies are for “fitting it all in,” but simply offer a way one teacher is doing it in the spirit of collaboration and sanity.
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