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Visual Learning and Literacy Standards

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What happens when you take visual learning and apply it to literacy standards to make instructional and assessment tools? Check out this interview about Sargy Letuchy’s book, The Visual Edge: Graphic Organizers for Standards Based Learning! He has designed one instructional and assessment tool for each English, History, and Science standard in grades 6-12. Using The Visual Edge, teachers are able to: ensure that lessons/assessments are tied to standards; engage students visually, precisely, and clearly; and save time grading.

Sargy Letuchy is a teacher in suburban Chicago and he has created a book that will hook you up with excellent graphic organizers to help you get the kids to a greater level of understanding.

I like to find tools that are easy for teachers and administrators to use.

This is one of those resources.

It is not necessary to read it cover to cover…instead start at the beginning to understand where he is coming from and then check out the different chapters to figure which one you would like to try first.

Worth your time.

Thanks for listening.

Voice and Choice Is Important—but Sometimes It’s Not Enough

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Guest blogger, Sargy Letuchy, shares a powerful strategy to help students organize their writing. 

During my first year of teaching in 2002, I walked into my government class on the first day of school to a group of comedic, socially confident seniors. A flashback from the 80’s movie “Summer School” with Mark Harmon ensued. Most of the students acknowledged my entrance by reluctantly quieting down and taking their seats, but one boy, Jack, remained standing, even as I started to introduce myself. I asked him to take his seat, “Where should I take it?” he asked, with a mischievous grin. The class roared with laughter and I knew it would be along semester.

Over the first few weeks, Jack turned in below grade level work while tirelessly promoting himself socially. The assignments he cared to turn in demonstrated his clear lack of interest in the class subject matter as well as a real gap in his writing ability. For a clever wordsmith, Jack had a really hard time expressing his ideas in written form.

I wanted to get him interested in my class and to support him in applying the strength of his verbal voice to his writing. Through my efforts with Jack, I realized that while giving studentsopportunities to pursue their interests can improve engagement, it’s not always enough. Without a structural element as a backbone, students won’t always keep up with grade level skills andstandards. In the case of writing, students can love their topic but have no idea how to structure a thoughtful essay around it.

This realization has guided my work over the past 16 years, and in my most recent role as a high school ESL teacher, I continue to balance the need for building flexibility in voice and choice with developing structural supports to help my students meet the reading and writing standards for their age level. In some ways, my current approach still owes a lot to that challenging semester with Jack.

From Unfocused Rant to Coherent Essay

When I was working with Jack, all of my coursework and raw instincts at the time told me that I must get to know him and creatively base assignments on what I learned about his learning style and interests. Through class discussions, individual conversations with him and close dissection of the work he submitted, I gained insight into his personal background, academic strengths andareas for growth. Jack reminded me of Matthew Broderick’s character from “Ferris Bueller’sDay Off”—he had always gotten by on popularity and was barely an average student, yet he possessed above average intelligence and worldliness.

One day, after sulking in the hallway, Jack shared with me that his parents were trying to enforce what he thought was an early weekend curfew, which was getting in the way of his burgeoning social life. With the unit essay on the Declaration of Independence coming up, I seized an opportunity to make this assignment more personal for Jack. The assignment was to closely read the document, identify one purpose or theme and explore it through writing a personal, persuasive essay rooted in text evidence. I suggested that Jack write a persuasive essay to his parents explaining why he wanted to be more independent, so that he could fuel his writing with the passion he had for his personal issue. He got into it, and what he turned in was very emotional and compelling. The problem was that it was a completely unstructured, unfocused rant.

It was clear that Jack lacked the persuasive writing literacy skills to make his essay a coherent argument and that I had to do something to bridge this gap. Furthermore, as I began reviewingother students’ essays, I realized many of them were having the same issue—disorganized, unclear writing.

I tried giving my students a rubric to encourage an improvement, but that didn’t help. Being inexperienced, I was not immediately sure why the rubric wasn’t working and what to do toremedy the problem. After reflecting on this for some time, I finally got to the heart of the issue: the rubric told them where I wanted them to be, but not how to get there. I made someassumptions about the skills my students had and as a result, I hadn’t equipped them to besuccessful with the level of planning and organizing this assignment required. Although my students were engaged because they found topics that mattered to them, the essays I received from a mostly college-bound, senior class were unacceptable.

I wanted to develop a tool to help my students logically connect their personally chosen themes and purposes to text evidence from the Declaration of Independence, and wanted to modify it for Jack to help him plan and express his argument to his parents through a basic structure of claim, reasons and evidence.

My solution was to create a graphic organizer to help students structure their thoughts more clearly. Essentially I developed a chart aligned to the particular practice we were trying todevelop and worked with students to rewrite their essays. Jack’s was focused on the skill set that would eventually become the first College and Career Readiness Anchor Standard for Writing:“Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using validreasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.” His graphic organizer looked like this:

Using this graphic organizer, Jack could connect the dots on his thoughts before writing his essay. He was able to focus his essay on the claim he wanted to make to his parents about his curfew, come up with logical reasons for that claim and drive home his points with related evidence.

When I looked at Jack’s first and second essays next to each other, there were stark differences.In addition to the meatier body, which was now fleshed out with stronger reasons and substantial evidence, the essay had a much more coherent flow. Having his reasons and evidence already in the organizer when he started drafting helped him leverage the skills he already had like building in transitional sentences and painting a picture through descriptive details. Not to mention, his essay had expanded by about 300 words.

It wasn’t just Jack, I saw improvements in my other students’ essays too. Most of the essays in the first round included reasons that didn’t support the claim or lacked evidence. Most essays in the second round had a stronger connection between claim, reasons and evidence because students were pausing to consider these links before drafting.

Flash Forward

My experience with Jack and his peers taught me that it is critical to build effective standards- aligned tools to scaffold instruction and guide students toward a particular outcome. The strategy that has worked best for me is to develop flexible graphic organizers that I can modify for each student depending on the central skill or standard they’re working on.

As my role has changed to working with English language learners and state-mandated literacy standards have become more prevalent, I have continued to use this strategy, developing a graphic organizer for each skill I teach and encouraging my students to modify it as they wish to make it work better for them.

I’m grateful for my experience with Jack and the senior government class because it helped mefigure out early in my career that simultaneously increasing voice and choice and using standards-based graphic organizers can be powerful for learners. The former gets students engaged, and the latter develops and strengthens literacy skills.

Over the years, I’ve taught a number of students that share some of Jack’s characteristics, andcountless others with a diverse range of needs and strengths. I’ve learned that designinginstruction that meets the idiosyncrasies of learners and building flexibility in voice and choice is important, but alone, those strategies are insufficient.

This piece originally appeared on EdSurge on 6/5/18. (https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-06- 05-voice-and-choice-is-important-but-sometimes-it-s-not-enough)

Sargy Letuchy is a Bilingual-ESL teacher near Chicago, Illinois. Over the past 16 years, Letuchy has taught ESL, Social Science and has coached tennis in suburban Chicago. He has experience presenting, consulting and writing about standards-based curriculum design and is the author ofThe Visual Edge: Graphic Organizers for Standards Based Learning. The book is available onAmazon, Barnes n Noble, or at a 20% discount through Teacher Planning Partner (click on Our Products and Features). Also, connect with Sargy on Linkedin.

Is There Really a Visual Approach to the Common Core?

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The following is a guest post of a guest post  😉  from Sargy Letuchy, a secondary ELA teacher, blogger, and author of ‘The Visual Edge: Graphic Organizers for Standards Based Learning.’  This book can also be purchased from our website.

Today’s guest post is written by suburban Chicago high school teacher Sargy Letuchy.

Yes, there is a visual approach to the Common Core.

And, if used properly, visual learning offers teachers and students a simplified path to meeting the challenges associated with ELA Common Core, including quantity, rigor, and a lack of precise resources. In terms of quantity, teachers are asked to teach and students to learn over 60 standards in 180 school days.

In terms of rigor, many standards are cognitively-demanding and require higher-level thinking skills, such as multi-variable analysis and evaluation. Finally, there aren’t many comprehensive resources available for the middle and high school standards. Even the most skillful teacher would be challenged. However, when teachers and students use visual instructional tools that are carefully crafted for each standard, the learning process becomes easier and more precise for everyone involved.

Standards Based Visual Instructional Tools
Standards based visual instructional tools can take on many forms, depending on the standard.  They can be a multi column/row table, an example guide, a flow chart, or Venn diagram. The power of visual learning is unleashed if the tool intricately fits the standard. For example, if a teacher is teaching a reading analysis standard, such as “compare and contrast,” a Venn diagram would be the best tool to use because it naturally points the mind to the task of comparison.

But, for some of the process writing standards, such as “use a formal style,” or the application language standards, like “use a particular grammar topic,” an example guide is probably the best option because it sets the stage for demonstration.

Furthermore, for the writing style standards, such as “persuade using claims, reasons, and evidence,” a flow chart or table would make sense because it ensures that each component is being captured in a logical order (See the example provided). My experience teaching a grade level quantity of standards using this approach has convinced me that when a consistent, tailor made visual instructional tool is used throughout a sequence of skill based lessons, teachers and students reap many benefits.

Benefits of Using Visual Instructional Tools for Common Core


Engagement Clarity A learning standard becomes more academically comprehensible when students can see what it entails. Visual instructional tools take the guesswork out of instruction and put both students and teachers on the same page, creating a more powerful connection between lessons and outcomes.

Student Centered Students can choose a developmentally appropriate topic of interest to read, write about, speak to, or listen to and use the visual instructional tool as the vehicle to show their skill based learning that has taken place.

Lesson Precision Because many of the standards involve accounting for multiple variables in one exercise, it becomes difficult to keep track of all of the moving parts. Visual instructional tools help organize all of the variables in a logical sequence to ensure that all components are accounted for in a single, pointed lesson.

Efficiency As the instructional pace has picked up with so many standards to teach and learn, maximization of time has become of the essence. Visual instructional tools maintain classroom attention on the standard(s) and ensure lessons are productive for

students in an environment where every minute counts.

Example Visual Instructional Tools This writing standard below asks students to utilize the elements of introduction, organization/broader categories, formatting, and graphics/multi-media for informative/explanatory writing. With this graphic organizer, students are able to write the topic at the top and brainstorm an introduction in the first table, an organization strategy/categorization in the second table, formatting in the third table, and graphics/multi-media in the fourth table.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.8.2.a
Introduce a topic clearly, previewing what is to follow; organize ideas, concepts, and information into broader categories; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., charts, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.

CCSS ELA W 8.2.JPG

This reading standard below asks students to outline and assess an informational author’s argument or claim in terms of reasons and evidence and recognize what is untrue and illogical. With this graphic organizer, students are able to write the author’s argument or claim in the top box, delineate reasons and evidence in the first column, evaluate validity of reasons and relevancy/sufficiency of evidence in the second column, and identify fallacious reasons and false statements in the third column.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.8
Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning.

CCSS ELA RI 9-10.8.JPG

Learn more about Letuchy’s book The Visual Edge: Graphic Organizers for Standards Based Learning, Common Core 6-12 (Letuchy, 2015).

Must Be Nice…

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Ugh! Teachers are subjected to the words,”It must be nice,” each time summer vacation arrives.  I could reply with the list of all the work teachers do during their summer “break,” but we teachers are well aware of the planning, classes, and meetings that fill our two months away from students. Non-teachers just think we soBlackboard with School's out text on the beachund whiny and defensive.

Believe me, I’ve done my share of defensive whining, but I must admit I love that we have this time to recharge, reflect, and reboot.  The beauty of this job is that we have multiple opportunities for closure and fresh starts.  We get fresh starts each quarter and semester as well as at the end of each school year, and summer break is the mother of all closures and fresh starts.

I just cleaned out my work emails of parent contacts, training requirements, meetings, evaluation updates, and all the other job requirements that have clogged up my in box. No wonder our teacher brains are fried.  Taking time to recharge is not a luxury, it’s essential. My brilliant coach, Reggie, has said it’s all about choices.  I choose to spend the beginning of summer relaxing.  I address the heavy reflection and rebooting later.

(So I don’t forget important points, I do take a few reflection notes at the end of the school year).  For example, one of my coworkers taped her students when giving their practice speeches.  This gave students an opportunity to evaluate themselves.  I would like to try this approach next year.  Verbal feedback is more effective than written feedback.  I would also shorten the time spent on my narrative unit next year to allow more time for their learning organizing writing and research.

As the end of the school year approaches, this summer can’t come soon enough.  I just completed my evaluation year – Whoa! – I’m glad this happens only once every three years – There were new curriculum, new procedures, and new teammates – you get the idea.  I want to reflect on the year to gain clarity on what worked and what I could do better.  Then I need to pack up my stressed out brain along with my classroom.  I’ve set a date in July to revisit my planning.  Until then I am going to nurture creativity.  I’ve created a summer bucket list of things I want to try, such as:  finding a new bike trail, bowling again for the first time since forever, planning a friends’ night out and trying an art class.  Nurturing personal creativity helps me foster my classroom creativity.    Lake

My teacher husband and I always plan an escape on the last day of school. The moment we walk out of the school doors, we jump in our pre-packed car and head to Eagle River, a pine-scented haven.  Before sunset we are on the pier with a favorite beverage in hand.   For the next few days we hike, swim, read brain candy, and shed stress like a Husky sheds its fur each spring.Lake-2

Money experts will tell you to pay yourself first, so why not pay your mind, body, and soul first.  Take time to recharge.  If you can’t get out of town, then play cards with friends, visit a farmers’ market, do something that makes you happy. These happy deposits (another Reggie bite of wisdom) that you pay yourself will make it easier for you to give your students your best.

When the next person aims the jealousy fueled words, “Must be nice,” resist the urge to punch them in the throat, and respond, “Yes, yes it is,” and hand them a brochure for a teacher certification program.

What do you have on your “Summer Bucket List”?  What would it take for you to give yourself the time to truly enjoy yourself over the summer?  What do you anticipate getting in the way of your “Summer Bucket List”?  What steps can you take to make this happen for you?

How would you respond to these questions?  We would love to hear from you.  Reply via Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn

Getting Your Mojo Back

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Getting Your Mojo Back

Is your creativity lacking?  Are you feeling less than inspired?  This happened to me recently, and it stinks. How do you get that mojo back?

One of the advantages of planning the materials and lessons for the quarter in advance is that you begin by plugging in those favorite lessons that can sometimes be forgotten when you get caught up in a myriad of job requirements minutia.

It can be too easy to fall back on worksheets and boring lectures. You begin to think, “I’ll just control the lesson by talking. Now, not only have I bored my class to death, I’m bored, too.”

One of the sure-fire ways to get inspired is to peruse some of your favorite teaching resources to remind yourself of some of the gems you have discovered and used in the past to inspire students as well as yourself.

The following are a few of my favorite resources:

Hollas, Betty.  Differentiating Instruction in a Whole-Group Setting:  Taking the Easy First Steps Into Differentiation.  Peterborough, NH: Crystal Springs, 2005. Print.

The activities in this book get students moving, talking, and thinking. I love the step-by-step instructions and the way the author describes each activity, accompanied by an explanation of how the activity is differentiated.

Burgess, Dave.  Teach Like a Pirate:  Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator. San Diego, CA:  Dave Burgess Consulting, 2012.  Print.

The title says it all.  Gathering ideas from this book is a shot in the arm.  I have reread parts of this book when I want to re-energize my teaching.

Gallagher, Kelly.  Write Like This:  Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling & Mentor Texts.  Portland, ME:  Stonehouse, 2011.  Print.

This contains great writing lessons that engage students and get them excited about writing for a variety of purposes.

Medo, Mary Anne and Marko, Jane Elizabeth.  Classroom Strategies for Dynamic Teachers.  Milwaukee, WI:  Stone Cottage, 2007.  Print.

This is a great reference guide when you’re looking for practical strategies to teach a variety of skills for a variety of contents.

Serravallo, Jennifer.  The Reading Strategies Book:  Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Readers.  Portsmouth, NH:  Heinemann, 2015.  Print.

This is what the author calls “…a book of ‘reading recipes’… a clear, concise cookbook is a great model for what on-the-go teachers might need to pick and choose strategies, to target what each reader needs, and to support their differentiated instruction”

Letuchy, Sargy.  The Visual Edge:  Graphic Organizers for Standards-Based Learning.  Print.

This resource contains comprehensive graphic organizers that are great visual tools for teaching the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).  Sometimes the descriptions of the CCSS can be difficult to understand.  Letuchy’s descriptions that accompany each graphic organizer are very helpful.  Personally, I have found these graphic organizers to be useful formative assessment tools.  You can obtain a copy of this book through our website: www.TeachersPlanningPartner.com

Actions That Sabotage Teaching

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Actions That Sabotage Teaching

While waiting in line for a tasty gyros sandwich, I watched a mother and a little girl in front of me.  The girl was about three years old, and she was desperate to climb to the top of the counter.  I watched as the girl reached while grunting and groaning to get to her destination.  Her mom told her that she should not sit on the counter; the girl continued to struggle.  Mom repeated that the girl should not be on the counter – more grunts and groans.  Dumbfounded, I stared at Mom as she reached down and picked her daughter up and placed her on the counter.  Speechless…simply speechless…

How many times do we place the kid on the counter? We tell our students one thing while our actions enable our students to continue the undesirable behavior.  The following is a list of moments that reflect my own struggle with the temptation to place the kid on the counter:

  • Wanting students to listen to directions, but giving directions without waiting for their attention.
  • Telling students to not interrupt the lesson, but allowing the interruption.  For example, when students forget supplies, how often do we disrupt the whole class to address the missing pencil?
  • Expecting students to be ready for class on time, but not following through on consequences when students are tardy.
  • Requiring students to participate in group work, but allowing them to coast by rewarding them with the same grade that the rest of the group receives.
  • Allowing students to bully us for an answer the moment the work becomes challenging for them.

Why do we do this? It’s easier than teaching appropriate behavior and following through on expectations.  We want the annoying mosquito buzzing in our ear to immediately go away.

Are we more concerned with reaching the finish line than we are with stopping to take precautions like a review of classroom expectations?    Bottom line – stop rewarding unacceptable behavior; stop giving in so that the buzzing will stop.   Be mindful, and for heaven’s sake, don’t put the kid on the counter!

Three Ideas to Teach More by Talking Less

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Teach More Talking Less

Why do I sometimes have the impression that my students are baby birds with their mouths open waiting for me to fill them with wormy pearls of wisdom?  Oh yeah, because sometimes I just talk too much, spewing out maggoty messages to fill my students’ heads with knowledge.  It could be, once again, I’ve been tangled in helping my students create the perfect product and have made the rookie mistake of focusing on the endgame instead of focusing on the process of investigation and inquiry.

After reflecting on this problem, I’ve come to the conclusion there are several factors in play: teacher assessments are often based on products, contests that are won based on products, school assessments are based on data gathered from final assessments, and let’s be honest; focusing on a product rather than a process is easier to control. We teachers are evaluated and assessed on outcome, which is easier to measure than the process.  How can we focus on the process?

We can allow our students to struggle.

While it is uncomfortable to not immediately answer when a student asks a question, it’s okay for students to wrestle with a problem…better than okay, this struggle is what grows the brain and allows students to become resilient and persist when the going isn’t smooth and easy.

My co-worker Bonny has a rule that her students are not allowed to ask for help until after they have tried to solve their question for about five or ten minutes.  At first students angrily complain,”Why aren’t you helping me? Isn’t it your job to tell me how to do this?” (Yikes, have we been teaching them it is our job to immediately provide any and all answers?) After students have unsuccessfully tried getting us teachers to do their work, they often dig in and try.  If students are still frustrated, ask students to make their questions specific.  This encourages them to think about what they need and where there is confusion. Support students with guiding questions.

We can ask our students to summarize their learning.

When students struggle, ask them to summarize what they think needs to be done.  This will give you insight as to where the confusion lies.  Address the confusion with a question instead of explaining everything.  For example, if a student does not know how to write a reflective, thoughtful conclusion to their essay, instead of rushing in like a star quarterback, explaining every detail, coach them by showing some examples, allowing them to examine good writing techniques.

We can require students to self-evaluate their work instead of addicting them to our praise.

Instead of telling students what they have just learned, ask them to reflect on what they gained from the process.  Too often students wait for the nod of approval and acceptance from the teacher.  We are turning our students into praise addicts.  We should be teaching our students how to evaluate their own success, building their self-confidence instead of making them dependent on external validation.

When we keep our mouths shut, we help our baby birds build intellectual, problem solving muscle, and soon these birds will mature and fly on their own.