Dialogue Journals Deepen Student-Teacher Relationships

In August, I challenged myself with finding more and more ways to encourage my students to find their voices as they develop and share their passions. I came across a Cult of Pedagogy podcast titled, "How Dialogue Journals Build Teacher-Student Relationships." You can read the article and listen to Jennifer Gonzalez's podcast here. Gonzalez interviews Liz Galarza who uses dialogue journals in her classroom.

We spend 5 days per week with our students, but how well do we know them and how well do they know us?

What are dialogue journals according to Liz Galarza?

• Dialogue journals are ongoing written conversations between a teacher and a student in the form of a letter
• a written conversation as opposed to an oral conversation
• usually finds complaints and questions in dialogue journals which are missing in normal classroom discourse and conversation
• students choose the topics of conversations which allows them to share their passions or questions
• teacher writes the first entry in every journal that is personalized to each student and then asks them to respond
• teacher models the length, tone, format...

What happens if the conversation falls flat or students haven't bought in to the journals?

• she usually responds with, "This is a place where you can talk about anything. What do you want to talk about? Teach me something." 
• tends to empower students
• goes back to original "all about me" sheet and starts to ask questions about information on all about me sheet
• accepts one sentence and she responds in a small amount; realized through research that if she responds with too many sentences, student feels overwhelmed and thinks either, "I can't write that much or I don't want to"
• realized not to ask too many questions because it puts teacher in authoritative role so tries to get them to ask the questions 
• by disclosing information about her own life (not in question form) she realizes that it opens the door for them to feel comfortable and share
• the more real the kids see her, the better the relationship will be and the more they see themselves as important people

Where do you store the journals?

• trays in classroom labeled with periods
• turn in on rotating basis so she doesn't get all in one day

What happens if they write about something that needs to be discussed with an administrator or counselor?

• she explains at beginning of process that she will come to student first before going to admin
• explains that many students are writing it for that reason - a cry for help

How do you grade the journals?

• no grade for content, grammatical errors...
• journal is for relationship purposes
• if they spell a word wrong/write something grammatically incorrect, she will respond with the same word or grammar to model how to use it correctly and hope they see her usage
• only grade = them handing it in (completion grade)
• the more you put a grade on something, the less empowered the student feels (very interesting comment and point she makes here)
• the more a teacher requires something, the less empowered a student feels so next year she is thinking of not grading at all and not making it mandatory 

What benefits/affects/impacts has Mrs. Galarza experienced due to dialogue journals? Why should teachers try this?

• become better writers overtime by writing in these journals
• students are looking for an authentic adult to hear them and converse with them
• mentor text 
• closer to speech than other writing styles which is easier for lower leveled students
• teach a skill within journal (Example- highlighting a sentence and saying, "You could use a semi colon here instead of a period.) as long as they are going to be receptive
• leads to a class grammar mini lesson if notices many students are misspelling or misusing same thing over and over
• a way to collect data from students 
• gain insight into their thinking and feelings (for example- a grandmother just passed away)
• journal is all about dialogue and differentiation 

What if I am a non-English teacher? Are journals worth incorporating?

• math teacher- base on math questions; a little more prompted
• example) write in journal something you liked, understood, didn't understand, want to review with you
• believes it could work in any classroom/discipline

Who remembers the movie, "Dangerous Minds?" After listening to the podcast and reflecting upon what Mrs. Galarza discussed, I immediately thought of the movie "Dangerous Minds" in which the teacher asks the students to write in journals. At first, the students are incredibly apprehensive and have not bought in to the idea of the journals. However, their mood and mindset quickly shifts and her unsuccessful classroom quickly becomes a learner-centered classroom with student buy in. I attribute much of her success as a teacher on the investment she made to get to know her students. 

Upon reflecting, what did I take away from this podcast?

• Do I spend my time checking in with my students? Do I need to invest more time on the relationship aspect? More time on giving them an empowered voice? 
• kids move from elementary to middle school and philosophy changes; middle school teachers are teachers of content, of transmission
• elementary teacher's philosophy is that you are teaching a child over teaching content
• could these lead to connections? (If a student shows interest in geography, could you connect them with an expert to deepen learning?)
• Galarza explained, the way in which we empower our students or give up our own control, is by giving them the power to have valuable things to say 

The Value of Focusing on the Process Rather than the Product

"Is this for a grade?" Does that question make anyone else's skin crawl like it does mine? I tend to respond with, "Well, does it matter? Shouldn't we put the same amount of effort and time into everything we do no matter if it is for a grade or not?" I realized why our student's ask that question CONSTANTLY. To put it simply, we, as a society, focus on product over process. We focus on the grade and how to earn that grade as opposed to focusing on the learning that occurs throughout the process. We should be focusing on things like, "Did we allow room for failure and resolution to occur? Did we allow time to test out their presentation in order to allow room for editing and growth? Did we provide time for teaching the soft skills?" We should be asking ourselves, "Did my students realize the importance of being a part of a team and sharing roles equally?" Now, don't get me wrong, the product is an important piece of the puzzle and usually what the rest of the world sees. But, sometimes I focus so much on the product, that I miss the small learning moments that are occurring right in front of my eyes.

I was asked by one of our amazing 5th grade English teachers at our school to partner with her and create a cross-divisional project between our lower school and 5th grade students. Last week, our 6th-8th grade students were gone most of the week on overnight class trips which left our 5th graders at school, all alone. Womp womp! The 5th grade teacher wanted to expose her students to a project that would not only help tie two of our divisions together, but also put the 5th graders in the driver seat of their learning and truly hit on a lot of those soft skills that are sometimes, unfortunately, missed. Her idea was to ask the lower school teacher's for a topic that our 5th graders could teach to their 1st-4th grade students. The 5th graders would spend 2 days creating the lesson and the 3rd day presenting the lesson to the lower school students. Man were we exhausted after those 3 days! What most people saw was the end product - the 5th graders' messy presentations that were delivered to the lower school students. What they missed was seeing the learning and failure that took place in the classrooms over those 2 days as they prepared to be the teachers. The presentations were truly just that - messy. There were many hiccups during the actual presentations themselves- technology wasn't working in some cases, teammates weren't getting along during the presentation, the facts were missing, grammatical errors... After having the students reflect on the process daily, the other teacher and I quickly started to see the huge benefits of the project. Students were having to deal with conflict resolution, choosing roles, finding a way to successfully collaborate, create and execute.

One of my favorite outcomes of this process was the growth that I saw from a former student, let's call him Joe, whom I taught the previous year in 4th grade. Joe was diagnosed with ADHD, has a very difficult time collaborating with others, and even has some anger challenges. As Joe and I entered the 2nd grade art classroom in preparation for him and his group to present, I was not expecting to see and experience what occurred. Joe, a normally hyperactive, challenging student, was exceptional. Joe was helping a 2nd grader draw a sketch of a horse.
Joe: "Now, what color are the horse's legs towards the top?"
Student: "Umm looks like a dark brown."
Joe: "Great! Now pick up the color brown and lightly shade the horse's leg. Now, what color do the horse's legs become as they get closer to the hooves?"
Student: "Kinda a light brown color?"
Joe: "Yes, and how are we going to make his legs lighter brown if we only have one color brown?"
Student: "Hmm maybe we could lightly shade with the brown and then lightly color over the brown with the white?"
Joe: "Yes! You're doing a great job. I can tell that your horse is going to be great because you are putting a lot of effort into it!"

A normally unfocused, challenging student acted as the perfect, encouraging mentor to a younger student all because of this project.

Other outcomes of this project:

• failure (Student's realized by testing out their original plans that certain plans were not going to work and failure was okay. They had to figure out a plan b since plan a didn't work. For example, one group created a quizlet that they planned to use with the lower school students and when they were teaching, the quizlet live feature, which is what they wanted to use, would not work. They realized quizlet live is only a feature that teachers can use and spur of the moment had to create a plan.) Too often we don't see the value in allowing our students to fail and want to save them every chance we get.
• the power of reflection (I learned by observing the 5th grade teacher guide the student's through a series of reflection that I must pencil in time throughout a project, not just at the end, for my students to reflect. Reflection allows for growth.)
• collaboration (The 5th grade teacher did an amazing job of not simply telling them the outcome of the project. She started out explaining the project as a whole, but then placed mini lessons every hour or so to teach specific skills. For example, they had to take part in brain teasers and riddles in order to learn how to work together as a group. Too often teachers say, "I want you to create a presentation to teach your audience about Veteran's Day. Go!" But they don't take the time to explicitly teach creativity, teamwork, leadership, listening, reflection, affective communication skills...) 

The reason this project was so successful, even though the products were messy, was because of the organization, time, and reflection that the 5th grade teacher implemented. She took the time to explicitly teach the soft skills, allow room for failure, problem solving and reflection time.  The students have already begged for another project similar to this one. 

Canva in a Writing Class

A colleague of mine came to me seeking ideas. She teaches our 5th graders Fundamental Writing and in the past had her students come up with a list of life lessons that they have learned thus far, create a presentation, and present their life lessons to their classmates. However, this year she didn't see time in her schedule to complete this entire project, but still wanted the students to create something on a smaller scale. When she came to me, our original plan was to use Adobe Spark Post, but the age restrictions would not allow our students to use the app. Instead, we chose to use an app called Canva.

Step 1: Students chose a topic that taught them multiple life lessons. For example, "Life Lessons Learned from Dance."

Step 2: Students wrote down 7-8 life lessons that they learned from the chosen topic.

Step 3: Students chose at least 4 of the life lessons to illustrate using Canva.

Step 4: Students were asked to create a title poster and then at least 4 other posters. Each poster had to have a sentence that describes the life lesson that was learned along with a picture to illustrate the lesson learned.

Step 5: Students were asked to save the design to their google drive folder.

Step 6: The teacher created a google doc with each student's name listed. Students were asked to get the link from their google drive folder that would take you directly to their canva design and paste it in the cell next to their name.

Step 7: Students were asked to open and view other classmates' designs. 

Other ideas on how to use Canva in a classroom setting?

• Social Studies/History: pretend to be a marketer and design a flyer on Canva persuading people to travel to your colony/state
• click here for a historical infographic idea
• Back to school: create a design for "all about me"
• Language Arts: click here to read about a visual poetry idea