One question I get asked a lot is: How does your school make it work at the middle school level? How are you able to have time for Reading Workshop, Writing Workshop, AND Guided Reading? Well, my answer to that is we are EXTREMELY lucky with our schedule. Teachers at my school have fought to have a “middle school” schedule over a “junior high” schedule in a modified block format. This also means being able to concentrate on three classes throughout the day versus five. We set up our schedule so that two teachers form a “house” where one teacher teaches the Language Arts and Social Studies while the other teaches Math and Science. Between the two teachers, they share approximately 50 students which sure beats the junior high schedule we can one year when I had 125. With guided reading and using data to drive instruction, it’s quite obvious that a teacher has a much better chance at successful instruction when they have less students and more time. Math and Language Arts blocks are 90 minutes long and Science/Social Studies blocks are 50-60 minutes depending on the grade level. Teachers teach Science for half the year and Social Studies for the other half. We definitely had to get creative and the math-minded people of our school spent hours putting together the puzzle pieces to come up with a schedule that would work for us. Here it is:
As a literacy coach at the middle school level, I have to get very creative with how I schedule myself as well. Last school year I saw each of the 12 Language Arts teachers in my school for a literacy block once every two weeks. It worked well for the first year, but now we are ready for something more. I want to be as helpful as I possibly can, and in order to do that, we are going to try to create more fluidity between my visits. I set my schedule up for the upcoming school year so that I block out team time for one grade level one week and coach the teachers within that grade level the following week. This way, I can be part of common team time while teachers are planning instruction and distribute my time for the following week between teachers in that grade level. As a coach, it gives me a much larger and clearer picture with what’s going on in this grade level so that I can then in turn be the most helpful to teachers with coaching. My schedule rotates on a four week basis. Here it is:
I am also going to be teaching a section of 8th grade Language Arts next school year. I know that I will have 80 minutes of instruction daily with my students. Here is my tentative plan for how to use my time next school year:
Monday-Thursday:
- Word Study/Other: Spelling, Vocabulary, Interactive Read Aloud, Self-Reflection, Etc. (10)
- Writing Minilesson (10)
- Independent Writing/Writing Conferences/Guided Writing (20)
- Reading Minilesson (10)
- Independent Reading/Reading Conferences/Guided Reading (30)
- Word Study/Other: Spelling, Vocabulary, Interactive Read Aloud, Self-Reflection, Etc. (10)
- Poetry Workshop (30)
- Reading Minilesson (10)
- Independent Reading/Reading Conferences/Guided Reading (30)
When creating school-wide schedules, coaching schedules, and teaching schedules, I think the main thing that it comes down to is continuously asking yourself and your co-workers: Are we setting these schedules up in a way that will most positively impact student learning? After all, that is our number one goal in taking the time to diligently set up a schedule that will best serve its purpose. Another important part of making schedules is to constantly be reflecting and asking how a schedule could become more efficient. Even if your middle school has a schedule that you’re not thrilled with, it doesn’t mean that you should give up hope. Get creative and ask yourself how you can take the time that you do have with students to make a plan of how you will use whole group, small group, and individual instructional time. Evaluate the schedule for points in the day where intervention time could be created for different groups of students. Most importantly, have professional conversations with administration, board members, colleagues, and parents to advocate for what is best for the students in your school to see if positive change is possible in the future to get more instructional and intervention time for reading and writing with students.
I hope that this post was helpful to all you middle school people out there who are thinking about the best way to schedule your instructional time for next school year!
Kasey
