Welcome back to Fuel Up — a space for conversations with and for educators using EL Education to support K–5 literacy learning. In this episode, we take listeners behind the curtain for a reflective debrief after attending an EL Institute in Massachusetts focused on High Quality Work. Together with classroom teachers, we unpack what we learned, what’s shifting in our thinking, and what this means for students.
Literacy Essentials – Best practices in literacy instruction
EL Education Curriculum (K–5):
https://curriculum.eleducation.org
EL Education — K–5 Literacy Resources
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Planning for and Supporting High-Quality Student Work
So it doesn't need to be a big performance task or poster or paper. It could just be writing your name really beautifully at the top of your paper. But you took your time and you formed your letters better than you've ever formed them before.
I like this part of it. It's really great. What if we tweak this just a little so that we can keep going back and forth and see what we can do better each time, and then when you send them off away, giving them that piece of encouragement, like, Okay, I can't wait to see your next version.
Yes. Welcome back to fuel up a place for conversations with and for those using el education as a resource to support k5 literacy learning, we are so excited to have you with us for this week's episode. Today we zoom in on the topic of high quality work. We hope today's talk serves as a pit stop, a chance to swing by for some fresh energy, insights, encouragement and celebration as we work together to do what's best for our learners, this is a chance to fuel up. So wherever this finds you today, we hope you are able to pull over, take a breath and crank it up and in that spirit, here we go.
It is good to be back at the table, and the sun is out today. There is nothing like some sunshine to put a smile on your face. And speaking of smiling, we are looking forward to our conversation today. We are looking at high quality work. Today might feel a bit different than our normal podcast. Here's a little background. So Katie, you and I were able to take a group of educators out to Massachusetts for an El Institute focusing on high quality work. Our goal was to grow our understanding of what it is and how to best create the environment for it to grow. Was a fun trip, wasn't it?
I was just gonna say that so much learning, but it was fun. Yeah, the learning was fun. The people were fun, and it was really neat to have our two teams together.
Yeah, yep, some good memories. The institute was held in a school where we were able to learn together and actually do some planning together as a team. And today, we have a number of our team members who took that trip with us at the table, and we are inviting our listeners into our debrief, in a way. I mean, we've done some debrief, but this is going to be a little bit of a deeper debrief. I mean, we thought it'd kind of be fun to invite our listeners into some of our reflections.
Yeah, they get to kind of have a little peek behind that curtain.
Yeah, and we hope our reflections stir some thoughts in you our listeners as well. High quality work relates to student achievement. We've talked about some of our podcast as being a peek behind the curtain, thinking about the Wizard of Oz and just looking at how el is structured, and some of their beliefs, and that connects to some of our learning today. El defines three dimensions of student achievement. One of them is the mastery of knowledge and skills, and that's probably the one we're most familiar with. This idea of we want kids to really master these content standards that we're teaching. In addition to that, as we think about student achievement, Yale defines not just mastery of skills and knowledge as one of those, but also number two, character and number three, high quality student work, which is the one we're going to talk about today. And someone may be wondering, what is high quality work and where exactly does it live in Ellen. So let's take a minute to get grounded. Katie, as we think about high quality work and where it exists, tell us more about it.
Yes, so high quality work is all over the El curriculum, but specifically, high quality work in El is defined by three core attributes, complexity, which is tasks require higher order thinking, craftsmanship, that final product is created with care, precision and beauty, and then authenticity, the work demonstrates original creative thinking, often connecting to those real world issues. So really, when we think about it, it represents rigorous, beautiful work created by students through multiple drafts, critiques and revisions, often for real world audiences, rather than just. Teacher. So there's a lot there high quality work is there's a lot. It's complex, and
when you define it like that, for those of us who have lived and used this resource, it's easy to connect to some of those. I think about all of the performance tasks and some of these bigger projects, but also lives in some of the smaller things too. And so I It will be fun as we invite our guests to the table today to kind of flesh some of that out and start to explore some of these ideas in deeper ways.
Absolutely and who knows, there might be more episodes.
Yeah, maybe we'll have to go a little bit deeper.
We sure could okay.
Now that we are grounded, we are so excited to invite our guests to the table. Katie and I have the privilege of working with these talented teachers on a daily basis. A big welcome to Courtney Cobb, who teaches kindergarten at Orchard view early elementary what's up?
Courtney? Hi. How's everybody doing? Doing
good. And also a welcome to Jenna Weiland, who serves as a fifth grade resource from a teacher. What's up? Jenna? Not that much. How are you good? And last, but not least, a welcome to Alyssa McGreevey, who teaches second grade at Central Elementary. Alyssa, welcome to the table. Thanks so much for having me today. So we always start with some fun questions. But you know what? Because there's so many of us at the table, I'm thinking this is gonna be like a rapid fire. I think that's a great idea. Okay, so here's the thing, it was so fun to travel with all of you, to get on an airplane, to fly out to Massachusetts, and on our flights there, I think we had two flights there and two flights back. We got to experience a number of different airplane snacks, some which are really good and some which could be improved. Yeah, so here is the rapid fire question, and that is, what would be your go to snack to fuel you up and get you moving on an airplane.
On an airplane, I like it.
I would love to have an iced matcha on the airplane, although they don't offer that. I would love to have that.
Okay, iced matcha. One vote for iced matcha. Number two.
Jenna, I think I'd say like a classic Chex Mix.
Oh, Chex Mix. That stuff's pretty addictive. I have two votes for that, okay, two votes for checks mix. All right, Lisa,
obviously, some beef jerky. Don't worry, I brought my own this time. Oh, beef jerky.
It's a good one. So we got some beef jerky, check mix and iced much kitty, what would you have picked?
Oh, that's a good question. Something chocolate? Oh, chocolate, yeah, maybe like a Kit Kat.
I think I think I would have gone with red licorice. Oh, that's a good one. So next time we travel together, we'll all bring our own snacks and just have like a snack bird we're gonna have to share. All right, okay, now that we are fueled up and ready to go, I think we're ready to dive into our topic for the day and just some quick background knowledge on this institute. It was a three day institute that we spent together where we had a chance to do some learning around high quality work, and then also some time to plan out some high quality work projects with our team. What would you add to that?
I think the only other thing to add is we had the privilege to hear and learn with students, yeah, which is really neat.
So we had some students come in too to share some of their high quality work
we did, and it was really fun to learn with them.
So we had this three day experience with learning and talking with students and working together with our teams. And the question to throw out the table that we're going to focus our talk on today is, as you reflect on the three days we were together, what was your big takeaway like? What is that one thing that since we've gotten back and settled back into the work that discontinues to swirl in your mind? So think for a minute, then somebody start us off. What's your big takeaway?
So for me, when I think of high quality work, I would always think of this big project or culminating task that a student would present. And sometimes it is that, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes it can just be something small or something simple. The idea of high quality work isn't necessarily like an end project, though it can be but it's a continual mindset, and like a shift in how you do your work, right? We shouldn't be striving for perfection, but excellence, and have an open mindset to trying things again and again and wanting to produce something that's great. So it doesn't need to be a big performance task or poster or paper. It could just be writing your name really beautifully at the top of your paper, but you took your time, and you formed your letters better than you've ever formed them before,
which goes to that craftsmanship, right? You are taking pride in the work that you're creating, even when you're writing your name.
Name. Yeah, those words from the definition care, precision and beauty and yes, that can show up in this performance task that does take time that you've been working on for the whole module. Yes, it can show up there. And it can also show up in something as simple as writing your name.
So I also took that away. It was one of the smaller things, not really my big takeaway, but being intentional about the high quality work that happens all the time, pointing out how their name is theirs. Take ownership for it, make that that beautiful and on any paper, any day, just for them to feel pride in what they do at school.
And I think those small steps we can model too by stopping and pointing out when, oh, when we're proud of our own work, but then when we're proud of their work, pointing it out or giving them the opportunity. Hey, what did you do today? That was high quality.
It just becomes what you do in your classroom, right? So it's a mind shift for the teachers, but also for your students. In our room, we do high quality work every day, and what was that for you today?
And when the kids expect that, then they're going to be more prone to make that high quality work part of their day to day practice.
I think about my personal experiences, I think we were asked at one point to think about something that we had done personally, that was high quality that we were proud of, and what did it take to get there. And I had shared this story about one of the things that I've been working to make high quality is pizzas, homemade pizzas. And I thought about that, and I reflected about what did it take for me to get to high quality pizza making? Part of it was, guess, doing some research and learning about what the good practice is, and how do you what are the effective routines and ingredients to make good pizza? Then the other one was practice, inviting friends over to the table, getting feedback, getting in and trying it again. And I think the pizza crust that I've been making is better than it's ever been. And this is, like, on version 10, so it takes some of those revisions to get to high quality work, lots of drafts, yes, lots of drafts. And then when you get there, like, I'm just thinking about something that Courtney said, like, I have this sense of pride in what I've done. Like, I'm like, yeah, come over for my pizza. Like, this is good stuff, right? Like, and so I think about our students, and when that does become a way of just doing things like we strive for high quality work that it does, in turn create this sense of pride in ourselves and in our students when we do that. So here's the question again, like as you think about the three days that we are away, what is that big takeaway from you? What's been swirling in your mind?
For me, the big takeaway was how you approach looking at children like a lot of teachers might find that they look at their deficits first, like there's a lot of conversation around my student can't read. Or reading is not their strength, or this kid struggles in math, where instead we should be looking at what the kid can do, and working in a special ed world, a lot of my kids are looked at in that way, where instead they should be looked at it. Oh, well, this is what they can do. Yeah. It's like, well, you might not be perfect at math, but this is what you can do in math. You might not read well, but you read some things better than others. And the idea of a kid will turn in something thinking, Okay, I did exactly what you asked. I checked all the boxes. Okay, I'm done. And then you look at it and you read it to me. You go, okay, but this is, is this the best thing that you can do? Like, I like this part of it. It's really great. But what if we tweak this just a little bit so that we can keep going back and forth and see what we can do better each time, and then when you send them off away, giving them that piece of encouragement, like, Okay, I can't wait to see your next version. Yes, so they they can walk away with that sense of like, empowerment that they can do better, so that they can use that energy to come back at you stronger the next time,
yeah, I can't wait to see what comes next. Like there is expectant behavior in that of something good. And I love how you started it with high quality work comes with a mindset. How do we view our learners? Do we start with their deficits, or we start with our strengths? I mean, listen, anybody could look at me, I have deficits and I have strengths, and people could look at me at all of us and start with our deficits, and they could also start with our strengths. And I sure love it when they look at me and start with my strengths. I think all of us would appreciate that. And what a gift it is to our kids. And you know what? Sometimes I think people start with deficits, and it's not like done in a negative or harmful way, not intentionally. But man, what, how powerful it will be if we look at kids and first start and celebrate their strengths because they are there.
I just wanted to add I really loved that piece that they kept saying over and over again, I can't wait to see what you do next, because that's not just telling the student, yeah, go do it again. That's saying I know that you can do great things, and I'm so excited to see what you bring to the table. And I've tried that a couple times this week with some friends in writing, and they're leaving excited to write a second draft. I don't know how many kids you see excited to write a second or a third draft, but when they think I want to read it, the
joy comes out. It goes to that engagement, right? Like, why am I doing this again? I've already done it, but you're giving them another purpose, and you're believing that they can do better, and then they're going to
Jenna, you and I talked about some of these practices, similar to what Alyssa said, and you tried some of these with some of your students that have come in for support. Can you share, like, what you've noticed?
Yeah, so I pulled six kids out of class to work on a writing piece, and this was part of like an assessment they were doing, and they wrote their summaries, and they were children to me, and I looked at them and I said, I really like this part, but what if we looked back and we reworked some of this right here, I had my kids read it out loud to me. We questioned whether or not we could change some things, and five out of six of my kids kept going back at it, and they kept trying. And I've never seen some of these kids show work like they did before. Wow. And I it's a lot of push and pull in a place like my room can be, and to see them walk out of here and feeling good about what they wrote and going, oh man, like I wrote something that a lot of my peers wrote, too, and sometimes that doesn't happen in a space like mine. So it was just a very powerful thing to see happen.
They can do it. They can do it. And you did a small tweak to unlock that in them. That's powerful. Wow.
I think that goes into what they said at the conference quite a bit. All students are capable of high quality work, and you're holding all the students to that standard, and that's fantastic.
Some of our reflections around high quality work have included, doesn't matter the size. It could be a big project. Could be a small thing. High quality work can is just a way we do things. Also, it's a mindset like, how do we approach it in the first place? By do we start with students strengths? What else? What's out there? What are some of those takeaways for you? What's been swirling since we've gotten back?
My biggest takeaway is, goes back to a story that one of the presenters had told us, and it's slowing the train down or just getting off the train. So his story was that his parents had gone to a European trip. They were going to 14 countries in two weeks, and they were on a train, and they said, come over and see all these pictures we took. And so he came over, looked at all the pictures, was trying to ask them questions about their trip, and they couldn't tell him where they were in certain pictures, it was completely a blur. So what stuck with me about that is that often as teachers, we find ourselves trying to quickly go through the curriculum, because we're supposed to, we're supposed to get through all the curriculum teach our kids that, but sometimes we just need to slow the train down, or hop off the train and spend some time really diving in deep to a certain topic or a certain project and making sure that The kids get a chance to learn with authenticity and take the time to make beautiful work by going through several drafts.
Yes, I think you're not going to slow the train down forever or get off the train forever, right? We're going to get off for a little bit and really look at their work and make sure kids are coming along in the past, if they get it they do, if they don't, well, right? We just kind of keep moving on that train. So I really like that idea of stepping off for a little bit making sure all kids are doing this beautiful work that they're capable
of, yeah, and it definitely is not that you're going to slow the train down for every project, but being intentional to make some of them really memorable, I think has is so important. I think back about projects that I have from elementary school, that I've kept, and this was also a point. Like they want, you want the child to have something that they keep forever and say, remember when we made this set in our class? And they still remember to that day, learning about those things, those topics, and making this project?
Yeah, it is a balance, right? Like Courtney said, sometimes you slow it down, but we're not going to do it. We can't do it all the time. Like there is this tension between we need to keep a pace with all the lessons and try to get through however your school has scheduled that out, but also noticing that there are times I might need to pause it. Like I think about my pizza like, you know, you got to pause and get that best pizza dough you can. And it wouldn't have happened if I would have just tried it one time. So being aware and being okay with that times taking a pause and offering like a chance to do a revision,
and your pizza wouldn't have been as good if you had rushed through it like quickly made the dough, yes, and just threw it together like you you intentionally took the time to make each piece even, even through each draft,
yeah, yeah, totally true. And the pizza is good now because of
it, I say you had a nice result all the way through. And we get that too with our drafts. Like we can have high quality work in a draft, not a completed project, where we can say, hey, this is what, what's great. And I just keep thinking back to the conference, when they would look at a student's work and they'd be like, it's not perfect, but it's pretty close. I love that.
I was just thinking that, yeah, so, man, lots of good takeaways, and I'm gonna toss it over to Katie. Well, like Katie, like you were part of this too. Like we were at the table as you sat during those three days, and maybe approached it, you know, with some different perspectives, like, what's swollen in your mind?
Oh, my goodness, so many things. We grappled with a lot of different concepts. We had conversations throughout the day into dinner, which is so many things, but I really think the thing that I brought back, that I'm still thinking about, is this idea of using their work as models. Like let's look at an actual student writing and say, what is really good about this is their transition words. When you go write today, I bet you can do those transition words. And it just really resonated with me, because students are doing really good work, and it makes a difference when they're looking at their peers work versus teacher work. It makes it attainable. It makes it something like, Oh, my friend right next to me, he wrote that. Well, I can write that too. So that really was one of the things, amongst others, but that was the one thing that I'm thinking about, and how to bring that back into the system.
Yeah, the power of having exemplars, those students work. We had a chance to do that. If you when we walked out, yes, the students were there as part of the training, where we could interact with them. But if you went out into the like the foyer, there were tables of just these exemplars. Our students work, and many of us were going around with everyone's taking pictures like they were exemplars to us. Oh my goodness, our kids can do this to have something that they can reach towards and see that and push towards. Yeah, there's a lot of power in that.
And then you talked about it doesn't have to be perfect, but kids, even if they just had a capital, being able to show their work to their peers and pull out that capital is powerful, and it keeps that motivation. And it's not perfect, but it's pretty good. So what about you, Kevin, you were there with your team. I know you guys had really great conversations, too. What's that thing that's sticking with you?
I would echo everything that's been said at the table. And the other thing that stood out to me kind of goes back to the definition that you talked about with high quality work, complexity, craftsmanship and authenticity. And the one that stood out to me was just having high quality work be authentic. And some of this lives in. I mean, it could live in big projects and small projects. But, you know, Ella is a curriculum that is nationwide. So when you when they put together these performance tasks, if we specifically think about them, they write it in a way that could apply to almost everybody. But you know, it's not necessarily authentic to the community that schools are in and for them just to give permission to say, you know, listen, it's okay if you have a project on this, to adjust it in ways to make authentic to your students. We've seen some of our classrooms and teachers and districts in our area do some of that work, where they've taken the frog study and said, You know what, we're going to tweak this and make it about Michigan for about Michigan frogs, and we're going to do a project that's right in our neighborhood. And Courtney, you've talked a little bit about taking one of your projects about trees and saying, like, let's make this authentic to our own school yard. Like, talk about that.
Yeah. So one of four. Tasks is writing about a tree, and the curriculum gives you specific, specific trees to use. But to make it more authentic, we're going to look at the trees around our building, see what types they are. I'm hoping to have someone from the conservation district to come in and talk to us about the trees, and then the kids are going to write a field guide about the trees that are around our school. So it really will hit home, because it's in their neighborhood, it's at their own school. So I'm excited to give that a try, and it goes back to the exemplars Kevin was talking about. This idea came from one of the exemplars that was out for us to look at. So exemplars, yes, for kids, but also for teachers to say, hey, I can do that with with my own students.
It really goes authenticity. And in that definition, it's not just for you. There's a real audience, right? That they can be writing these field guides for it could be other students in this school or, who knows, right?
But I planned on sending one to the library. Parents could possibly buy one, and I think that they're gonna really love to own a book that their own child and class made, I feel
like it leans into that sense of pride when you make it relevant and authentic in that way. We did plants and pollinator notebooks, just teaching about the importance of plants and pollinators and how they give over food. And we ended up taking a grant and going and planting Michigan native flowers over at our ESB next to bee boxes that had been installed. And so we put all of our native plants out there so that we have our own little pollination center right over at the ESB. And then the kids wrote about the Michigan native flowers and then handed out seeds and informational packets of how our community can support our pollinators in our backyard based on our flowers and things that our pollinators like, and they got to hand those out to adults and share their knowledge and the sense of pride from like, Oh, I know these things, and I can teach my community. It's so powerful,
and some of those are small tweaks, like you can still do the lessons that are embedded in El there's no expectation you need to go and rewrite them, but there might be some small shifts in just making it personal to what's relevant to your school and your classroom. Like your kids Courtney going out and studying the trees in the courtyard of the school are going to have a blast, and it's going to be so much more connected to maybe some trees that are in the curriculum that they don't even know
about, right? And being actually outside to observe the trees is going to add so much more than just looking at the pictures or reading a book that's within the curriculum, but we'll be able to observe them outside and speak to someone who has a lot of knowledge about them.
So many good takeaways from our institute on high quality work,
I feel like we could probably keep going. We could. So let's
do it a little bit. We're gonna keep going a little bit with this next question, and that is, as you think about our conversation and all those things you came back with from the trip, as you think about our listeners, some who may be jumping into El education for the first time, others who have been using this curriculum for years, if you can invite them to be mindful of one thing when working with high quality work, what small step Would you invite them to consider Melissa? You want to get
us started, sure? So my small step would be just start talking about high quality work every day. Bring it up in conversations, point it out. Give your students an opportunity to show you what they did was high quality every day. Make it part of their vocabulary, so that they understand what it is and that we're all working towards that common goal, kind of every day. So my small step is just make it part of your daily vocabulary.
Love it. Courtney, small step for you,
my small step would be to just give yourself permission to not feel the need to move on in your curriculum every single day. Give yourself permission to take that time when you need it and when your students need it, nice.
I think you said, slow down the train. Slow that train down. Slow it down. Slow that train down. Yes. Jenna, small step to consider.
I think my small step is a shift in mindset and being intentional with the way you talk to students about the feedback you're giving to them,
starting with strengths in the way we not just view kids, but in the way we talk to them, and how we the language we use when working with their work. What is next? I can't wait to see your next draft. I think was set at the
table that that is so powerful that could be a small step in itself, right?
Totally. Well, listen, it was such a blast to travel with you all we could. We could probably spend an episode talking about airplane stories, we sure could those travel days. Yeah, what is it like to travel with a group of 12 people? So with delays? Yes, with delays. Oh, it was so much fun. And as we close up this episode, we hope you got some fuel in the tank and leave with some fresh energy for the weeks ahead. We're going to close things off today with high fives and hitchhikers. Here's the cool thing, we have the power to re energize and refuel those around us. So find a colleague. It could be the person next door. It could be the person across the hall, maybe it's in another grade. Find that colleague and give them a high five. Tell them you got this. Remind them you're a rock star, and pick them up as a hitchhiker. Invite them to join the conversation and take a seat with us at the table. All the best to you and see you next time on fuel up.