Talk, Read, Talk, Write- A Literacy Routine by Nancy Motley

    I attended a one hour webinar with Nancy Motley, author of Talk, Read, Talk, Write also known as “TRTW”. TRTW is an alternative approach to lecture in the classroom. It gives students the opportunity to build academic language while still learning the content. In summary, it is a way for students to deepen their understanding of the content through reading academic text and conversing on it. Part of this webinar was also learning how to do TRTW virtually with students which is extremely relevant right now. Motley shares how educators can do this in the classroom as well as online. It was important for me to understand each step of TRTW so I will summarize each layer below.

Talk→ A way to engage everyone in the activity. Brief conversations between students and the teacher to activate prior knowledge and to become familiar with the content. 

Read→ Students read an academic text. The key here that Motley stresses is that it is active reading. This means that the students should also be writing in the form of a graphic organizer or asking questions. There are many ways to do this, those are just two examples. 

Talk→ Students converse with each other to discuss what they have read. This is to help them process the reading as well as to prepare them for the next and last step. 

Write→ This is the last step where students write about the reading, sharing their thoughts and understanding. 

    This literacy routine is very flexible according to Motley. Teachers can use this method and change specific parts of it to fit their students and the lesson they are using TRTW for. Motley discussed in the webinar how to differentiate TRTW and I think this was one of the most important takeaways because differentiation in the classroom is crucial for student success. So, how can we differentiate TRTW? Motley tells us that the reading choice can be differentiated to cater to the needs of each student. Some students may have grade level articles and others may have a simplified version of the text. A few other ways to differentiate in bullet points (adopted from Nancy Motley):

• The purpose for reading the text (some students may have different tasks depending on what they need to be successful.

• The writing layer does not need to be the same for each student. The teacher can differentiate that assignment.

    Motley also states that, “Lastly, the structure of this approach ‘frees up’ the teachers time. While students are talking, reading, and writing, the teacher can determine who needs individualized support and provide it” (Motley). Since this is not a way of lecturing, the teacher will not be standing at the front of the class the entire time. They will be able to help students and spend time with those who need the support.

    I think it is also important to discuss how this can be used virtually because of the times we are currently in. The first layer (talk) can be done over facetime between two students or any video platform available. The teacher could also host a group zoom meeting and use the breakout room feature to allow students to have conversations. The second layer (read) can be done by the teacher sending the students a link to the reading for the assignment. The third layer (talk) can be done over a video platform as well. The last layer (write) would mean that the students submit their work via email or an online platform such as google classroom. This way may be a bit more difficult than the classroom but it can still be implemented with minor changes. 

    There are many ways to use TRTW in the classroom and not just an ELA classroom, it can be used for other subject areas as well. TRTW could be used for a mini lesson as well as for a novel that is being read in the class. Since it is flexible, teachers can adapt it to an array of lessons they are teaching. Nancy Motley gave a brief example of using TRTW in a mini lesson and I will share that. She starts off with the talk layer by engaging everyone in conversation on a certain topic. The students then read an article on the chosen topic and find one sentence that they find interesting to bring to a discussion. The third layer (talk #2) is when the students will provide their response to the mentimeter group and have a brief discussion with a peer. The final layer will be a writing task where the students will write a short paragraph discussing the importance of their chosen sentence. An alternative way to carry out a lesson while avoiding direct instruction that will lose the attention of students.

    The webinar was beneficial to me and I will definitely be implementing TRTW in my classroom. There are many ways to do it and it does not have to be for a certain activity, it can be used for whatever the teacher thinks is best in their classroom and that is something I really like about this literacy routine. 

"I Am Not Your Negro" -A Documentary

“Black people in this country have been the victims of violence at the hands of the white man for 400 years” (I Am Not Your Negro)

“White people don’t think I’m human based on their conduct, they’ve become moral monsters” (I Am Not Your Negro)

    The quotes above stood out to me and were the ones I felt I needed to write down and think about. The quotes above are sickening, they are a result of the mistreatment of blacks in America. What I mean by sickening is that people of color should not feel that they aren't humans and black people in this country should not be "the victims of violence at the hands of the white men". Viewing this video made me really think about what people of color go through on a daily basis for years now. It leads me to the question of how I can help when I have not had to endure what they go through just because of the difference in skin color. This is what I work on and continue to work on as a future ELA educator who needs to educate children on this.

    As I watched the documentary, I told myself to view it as an ELA educator. I wanted to view the situations occurring as if I were to take them back to my classroom and teach my students how to stand up to racism, to use their voice and feel comfortable doing so. While I stopped the video multiple times to take in what I was hearing, I am choosing to speak on the woman going to pick up her child at school (44:41 in the video). The teacher is certain that the mother has the wrong room because in her own words, “I have no little colored children in my class”. The mother then sees her daughter who is white and the rest of the students immediately start to speak about Peola saying they did not know that “she was colored”. The girl is mortified that she is being seen with her mother and runs out of the room. My heart hurts that this is how Peola felt because of the fact that she is white and her mother is not.

    So what does this mean as a future educator? EVERYONE in my classroom will be treated equally and will treat others with respect. We will celebrate our different identities and my students will know that just because someone is white, that does not mean the parent needs to be white. People of color can also have children who are white and students should know this. Peola clearly does not feel safe in the classroom and that is a problem. Watching this scene made my heart hurt and opened my eyes to what I do not want to see happening in my classroom, especially something like this where the students are judging their peer based on skin color. How can we do better? In the classroom, we need to make it know that black lives matter. How do we do this? Well, some ways are the ones we as a class came up with and put into the chat in a previous class meeting. The curriculum plays a large role, identity work, classroom environment (the classroom walls for example), the list goes on. We have a lot of work to do and as future ELA educators and we must make our classrooms a space for everyone by tackling the above areas of curriculum, identity, and classroom environment.