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AdLIT In Perspective > 2008 > September
Classroom Vignette

A Fresh Perspective on In Perspective: How a Professional Learning Community Used In Perspective to Drive Change at One Middle School in Northeast Ohio

by Lori G. Wilfong

Over the past four years, I have served first as a literacy specialist and then as a literacy consultant in a school district located in Northeast Ohio.  Although not typically labeled as an urban district, the school district deals with urban problems, including a transient student and teacher population and struggling test scores. 

I was first hired to work with early elementary school teachers, but I was always asking the curriculum office to switch me to my strength and first love—the middle school.  This opportunity was presented to me at the end of the 2006–2007 school year when a group of middle school teachers approached me about teaching a workshop at the school to help them create a new reading curriculum.  I jumped at the chance.

Together, we developed a professional learning community (PLC).  Our focus was developing engaging lessons that addressed our students' needs, while learning about new strategies and innovative practice.

This is where we ran into a problem.  Like most school districts, the budget was tight.  There was no money set aside for materials for our workshop. Many of the participating teachers were taking graduate courses in the evenings, and the idea of buying more books was not a welcome one. Administration stretched to provide us with a book on balanced literacy.  While this text was appreciated, we still craved something on the cutting edge. 

The development of this professional learning community took place during the summer of 2007.  I contemplated the budget issue on a trip to Columbus, where I was to attend a workshop for the training of Urban Ambassadors* for the Ohio Resource Center.  I left the workshop with a solution: We would access the ORC website to help drive our PLC, focusing on the AdLit resources.  And each month, we would use In Perspective (the official title is Adolescent Literacy In Perspective) as the core of our discussions on literacy in the middle school classroom.

In this article, I will describe the PLC that took place at this middle school.  I will reference the issue and article used to steer our conversations each month.  Finally, I will include actual quotes from the PLC participants as they relate to the PLC, ORC, AdLit, and In Perspective.


Month One: Getting Started

Before our initial meeting in August, I sent all participants a link to the very first issue of In Perspective.  In this issue, Janet Allen writes an inspiring article about choosing good materials for middle school students (2004).  I felt that this was the ideal way to start our PLC: an introduction to the journal, personal time to navigate the website, and an article that was appropriate for the beginning of the school year.

As we sat down for our first face-to-face meeting, I noted that most people had printed out a copy, while others had brought their laptops to access the issue online.  After taking care of workshop particulars, I invited everyone to take out the article and explained that each month we would explore a different issue of the journal.  A participant remarked how amazed she was that ORC was free; she had already signed up for an account. 

As we briefly discussed the Allen article, I noted the needs the teachers brought up: They wanted an in-depth introduction to the website.  Several remarked on how much they liked Allen's voice and wanted to know if I could bring in other articles or books by her.  This naturally led to a grade-level discussion on choosing materials for the first two weeks of school.  As we moved into our groups, the principal, who had been listening quietly, gave me a grin over the teachers' heads—we felt like were onto something!

After the first four meetings of our PLC, I asked the participants to write reflections on the PLC process.  Here are a few that stood out:

  • I was shocked that I hadn't been introduced to the ORC website earlier. It might take me months to sift through all of this!
  • At first, I was uneasy about accessing an online journal. But after realizing that I didn't have to enter any codes or usernames to read the articles, I felt more comfortable.
  • It is so neat that there is something like this just for Ohio!

 

The PLC Continues . . .

As our meetings progressed, I took notes to assist in selecting articles and issues that pertained to the school and its students.  One matter of concern was incorporating content areas beyond language arts into the literacy conversation, and I found that the April 2007 issue of In Perspective was a way to invite more faculty to the table.  I sent out the link for this issue both to the PLC participants (all of whom but one were language arts teachers) and to all of the department heads, inviting them to join us.  We had a few takers!  Laura Robb's article, "Model Reading Strategies to Improve Comprehension for all Students" (Robb, 2007), directed the way to a cross-content area conversation about choosing before-, during-, and after-reading activities that all content areas could use.  This innovation cropped up in the reflections that month:
  • That one article made me talk to a science teacher about what I am doing in my language arts classroom.  This is probably the first time that has ever happened.
  • I used the Knowledge Rating resource from ORC to teach something new last week. The students seemed to enjoy it.

Another In Perspective issue that led to significant conversation was the September 2006 issue on fluency with older readers.  The middle school had recently adopted a fluency assessment that was administered periodically.  This was a controversial topic for several reasons, and Timothy Rasinki's lead article, "Reading Fluency for Adolescents: Should We Care?" (Rasinksi, 2006), helped answer some pressing questions as the teachers worked to build in fluency practice through reader's theater, repeated reading, and poetry.  Again, this was a topic of focus in the monthly reflections:

  • I fought the fluency tests, but I think I see it differently now.  And my students really liked some of the new activities we did!
  • I found myself working on fluency without really thinking about it.  

 

The PLC Comes to a Close

Our last PLC meeting took place in April 2008.  Rather than choose an issue of In Perspective, I requested that the participants look over the archives and choose an article or issue that particularly interested them.  We heard synopses about poetry (Baer, 2007), spelling (Fresch, 2007), and social studies (Marshall, 2008), among others.  Each article and issue was noted for further study in a future PLC meeting.

For the last reflection, I asked students to think about the entire PLC process.  Below are a few quotes that spoke to the strengths of including In Perspective in our workshop:

  • I never thought of myself as a person who read journals.  I think this has changed me because I now find myself looking in all kinds of journals for ideas, instead of just Googling for lessons.
  • I liked that there were teacher voices in a lot of the articles.  It wasn't just a researcher talking, it was someone like me. That made the ideas real.
  • I look forward to the new issue each month!

 

My Own Reflections

As the PLC came to a close, I thought about what I would do to change the process for next time and what I learned from participating in this unusual workshop.  Here are my thoughts:
  • You do not need a ton of money or time to put in place effective professional development.  The free materials we got from the Ohio Resource Center helped focus and drive our literacy study for the entire school year.
  • In Perspective is a great way to introduce new and veteran teachers to the broader arena of educational journals.  Many participants found themselves looking up references from In Perspective articles to learn more about a topic that interested them.
  • We tried to never get away from the fact that the purpose of the PLC was to create lessons.  I would lead a short discussion on the article that naturally would turn into a conversation of how this topic could be applied to our practice.  If the article discussion went too long, I would lose participant interest!

We will soon start our second year of PLC at this middle school building.  I hope to replicate the enthusiasm and focused conversations of the first PLC while continuing to strengthen instruction and staff cohesion.  Try using In Perspective in your own faculty discussion groups—you will enjoy the results, like we did!

 

References

Allen, Janet. (2004, September). Choosing what matters for adolescent learners.  Adolescent Literacy Perspective, http://www.ohiorc.org/adlit/inperspective/issue/2004-09/Article/feature.aspx.
Baer, Allison. (2007, January). Simple poems, powerful teaching: Experiencing poetry in content-area classrooms.  Adolescent Literacy In Perspective, http://www.ohiorc.org/adlit/inperspective/issue/2007-01/Article/feature.aspx.  

Fresch, Mary Jo. (2007, March). Word study: Ways to captivate reluctant learners.  Adolescent Literacy Perspective, http://www.ohiorc.org/adlit/inperspective/issue/2007-03/Article/vignette.aspx.

Marshall, Dwayne. (2008, February). The evolution of a social studies teacher—integrating literacy.  Adolescent Literacy In Perspective, http://www.ohiorc.org/adlit/inperspective/issue/2008-02/Article/vignette1.aspx.

Rasinski, Tim. (2006, September). Reading fluency for adolescents: Should we care? Adolescent Literacy In Perspective, http://www.ohiorc.org/adlit/inperspective/issue/2006-09/Article/feature.aspx.

Robb, Laura. (2007, April). Model reading strategies to improve comprehension for all students.  Adolescent Literacy In Perspective, http://www.ohiorc.org/adlit/inperspective/issue/2007-04/Article/feature.aspx.



*Learn more about the ORC Ambassadors Program.

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Lori G. Wilfong, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum Studies Department at Kent State University, Stark Campus. She teaches literacy courses in middle childhood education and curriculum and instruction. Her research interests include fluency, multicultural literature, motivating adolescent readers, and reading in the content areas. She can be reached at lgkrug@kent.edu.

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