This episode of Fuel Up explores how models of excellence (exemplars) can support students in understanding learning targets, improving the quality of their work, and building confidence. The conversation focuses on practical ways teachers can collect, share, and use student work samples to make expectations clear and achievable.
Literacy Essentials – Best practices in literacy instruction
EL Education Curriculum (K–5):
https://curriculum.eleducation.org
EL Education — K–5 Literacy Resources
https://eleducation.org/resources
Leaders of Their Own Learning by Ron Berger
We say the learning targets, which are so great, we even unpack them at our schools.
But seeing them is a whole different thing, and I'm a visual learner. So you know, thinking about the map, I want to see the map. I don't want to just hear how to get there
those kids that are visual learners. I mean, that really helps them to internalize a learning target and make it become real.
What if we started collecting work samples now? What is that going to look like in three to five years? Can you imagine?
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 models of excellence.
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.
Good day, everybody. We are so thankful you joined us today and set aside a few minutes to listen in wherever this finds you, whether it's getting ready for a new day or wrapping things up on the way home. Thank you for joining us at the table, and the table is a little different today, so Katie's off, and we've invited a guest back to be co host. A big welcome to Jackie. Preston, Hey, welcome back, Jackie. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. So if you don't remember, Jackie is a literacy coach that Katie and I serve alongside, and she works as a literacy coach in Oak Ridge public schools. Welcome back, Jackie. Thanks. And speaking of being at the table, Jack, I have to tell you about something that was served at my table the other day, spaghetti pie. Have you heard of spaghetti pie?
I don't know. I've never heard of spaghetti pie. Tell me about it. So some people I say spaghetti pie, and they're like, oh my goodness, that is so good. And other people were like, spaghetti pie. What? So for me, spaghetti pie is one of the best comfort foods. My mom would always make it when I was growing up. And out of the blue the other day, it just came to my mind, and I had a craving for it. So I was like, Man, I have to make some spaghetti pie. So I did what so many of us do. I went online. Actually, I went to Pinterest to find the recipe and to look at all the pictures of success. You know, sometimes when I'm scrolling through the options for recipes on Pinterest, I usually pick the one that has the best picture. Is that the way it works for you? Yes. So, you know, it's so good to have a model of what it's supposed to look like. And sometimes, you know, you make it and it's like, yep, that's what mine looks like. And other times, maybe most of the time, mine turns out a little different. But this one, yes, it turned out great. And you know, spaghetti pie was enjoyed for a couple days. So shout out to Pinterest and whoever put that recipe and model of what that success looked like, because it went a long ways in making my spaghetti pie successful.
Jackie, what about you, as you think about your life? Can you think of a time where a model was helpful for you?
Okay, so we are. We had to do some landscaping last year, and I wasn't quite sure what bushes and grasses and flowers that I wanted in this certain area of my house, and so I actually took a picture of it and I uploaded it to chat GBT. Have you ever done that? I haven't, oh my gosh, it's so cool. So anyway, chat GBT and I, like, was specific about, like, what kinds of things I wanted in there, like grasses versus, like, too many flowers and that kind of thing. Anyway, it spit out an image for me, which really helped me design this landscaping that we were doing last year. So it was really cool. Oh my goodness. And I kept doing it until I got the one that I that I really liked. So that is crazy. So you can, you take a picture of your house, you can upload it into chat GPT, and say, Make me a beautiful landscape with grasses or whatever you want. And you can do that, but also go back and revisit that until you get it to what you want it to look like. Yes, yes. I could say I don't really like this part of it. Make it a little different.
It, or spread out these things, or what if the sky is the limit? Oh, my goodness, pretty cool stuff, and that connects to some of our topics. We've been talking around at the table recently, Katie and I shared our last episode, how we took a group out to do some learning around high quality work. El put on a conference in Massachusetts, and we were fortunate to take a few groups out there. And so during our last episode, we invited our listeners into a debrief about our recent involvement at the institute around high quality work. And today we're going to dive just a little bit deeper into a piece of that learning.
El shares how work can develop in quality through the use of models critique and descriptive feedback.
Jackie, we could probably take three episodes one on each of those to kind of flesh some of that out. But today we're going to just do a deeper dive and a closer look at the first one, models of work. Sometimes we call that models of excellence or exemplars. They all kind of mean the same thing. We might get into critique a little bit today, but the main focus is going to be on models of work. So
with that being said, let's pause and take a minute to get grounded. Jackie, what does current research have to say about the use of exemplars and models of work.
Yeah, so here in Michigan, we lean a lot into our Michigan literacy essentials. So those are 10 essential instructional practices that we want to see in classrooms every day. And essential six really focuses on writing instruction, and it specifically says that we should be providing students with opportunities to study models of writing. So in the in the way that we can do that is by pulling exemplars. You mentioned. You know, models of excellence are exemplars, and those are just high quality student work samples that really make learning targets come alive. It helps students to visualize
what a learning target is and ultimately achieve mastery. So we really want students to use these models of excellence so that they can understand the quality, and it will ultimately help them to self assess and gain confidence in their work.
Good stuff. Thank you for grounding us back into the essentials that research that we're so fortunate to have as an anchor point in Michigan. And if you happen to be a listener outside of Michigan, you can find those online as well and also linked in the show notes for today. And what was cool about that, Jackie, is it talks about the research for writing, by my hunch, is a lot of the benefits
with using models and writing can also be carried over to some other areas too, outside of writing, and we're going to talk about some of those
today. You know, as literacy coaches, we've been growing and deepening our own understanding of high quality work and the conditions needed for it to thrive. And so Jackie and I are so excited to invite you into some of that too, that we can learn together about this.
El has numerous embedded projects within its resource, whether it's writing projects, as Jackie mentioned, with research performance tasks, if you're a three through five teacher, we can see that in the task cards, maybe their reading responses, all of this work has potential to have conversations around high quality work. Jackie, Katie and I, we've all been doing some reading and reflecting recently about one of the El companion text. It's called leaders of their own learning. If the companion book we talked about previously, we called the purple book, this would be the Red Book, and learning more about the important roles of models, critique and descriptive feedback. And I think Jackie, if you're okay, maybe we just start with reading a quote from this book we were talking about this before we got started today, absolutely. And so maybe we just anchor into this and use this as a starting point. So here's what it says. This is, again from the red book called leaders of their own learning, and it talks about using models of work. And here's what it says,
it is a challenge to think of a skilled profession that does not rely on models critique and descriptive feedback to improve performance. Imagine fields such as medicine, journalism and software development without clear models and without continual critique and revision. Professionals in these fields know what a high quality product looks like, whether it's a Pulitzer Prize winning article or a software application with record breaking sales and these models provide them with a reference point for productive critique and feedback that will enable them to improve their own work. I mean, that is so true like that, that whole idea of using models and feedback is everywhere we look in different professions.
Okay, so that that actually makes me think of my son who plays soccer, and one of his coaches last year made him actually, like, watch video and critique it and look at it. And actually he had to, like, document, like, how many passes and things like that. So it just made me think of that when you said athletes, watch athletes. And that's so true. Yeah. And if we have this practice embedded in sports, athletics, and if it's embedded in professions like medicine and journalism,
why not in our classrooms, right? My hunch is it's there.
But are there ways for us to increase that for the benefit of our kids? That's what this conversation is about. Awesome. It continues. It makes this makes me think of what you said about your son. It says professional dancers have watched 1000s of dance performances and have those etched in their mind. And professional basketball players have watched 1000s of games. They have a clear picture of where they want to go, and they need continual critique from coaches and colleagues to get there. And again, our hope is that we can increase this practice in reasonable ways in our K through five classrooms. Okay,
with that being said,
and we have that anchor in the ground. Let's start and answer the question, what is a model of work? What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, so, I mean, I think it's just a real piece of student work. I mean, it could be from your classroom, it could be from your last year's students, or it could be from another school. But I think the key is that it has to demonstrate some deep thinking and craftsmanship. And you know, we want kids to be able to see excellence in it.
Yeah, so a student piece of work that is of high quality of self and really allows students to have a clear vision of where they're going.
We, as teachers, we live in learning targets. We live in the content standards that we teach from. And you know what there, it's written well, but you know what to students? That's just words on a page. We can, we can talk about the learning target at the beginning of a lesson, and we should so kids know where they're going. But you know what? Sometimes those are just words on the screen too, and we need to provide opportunities for kids to see it and to touch it and to hold on to it, so they see exactly what these models look like.
You know that actually makes me think. You know, we work with teachers so often, and a lot of times when we work with them, they want to see what the end product looks like totally and so I think we just as teachers, we know what the end product is once we see it, but our students don't, yes, and for teachers for us to know where we're going, yeah. I mean, wouldn't that help, even in our daily lessons, that get is we're coaching and walking alongside our students with these standards and these targets for us to be intentional about the words we use, or to have that model up posted somewhere that we can continue to refer to it. It's not a guessing game, and it's not a mystery what we're shooting for, like, let's be clear about it, absolutely gathering that model might be one of the most important things that we do before the lesson even starts.
Makes me think of we were before we started this podcast, we were talking about spring break trips. Yeah, and you're going on a trip. Many people around here listeners are going to be going on trips, and if you happen to be taking a road trip,
you better have a map if you're driving, or you better have your you know maps app up to know where you're going. You're not going to get on
you're not going to get on the road, and just like hope you get there or want to stop every five minutes to pull the map out like, probably before you get on the road, you've pulled it up, and you have a clear plan and vision of where you're going. And our kids need to have that too, for whatever it is they're working on.
Yeah, totally. And again, going back to, you know, learning targets, we we we say the learning targets, which are so great, and we, we even unpack them at our school, so that kids really understand them, but seeing them is a whole different thing. Yes, and I'm a visual learner. So you know, thinking about the map, I want to see the map. I don't want to just hear how to get there, right? So
those kids that are visual learners, I mean, that really helps them to internalize a learning target and make it become real. We had this conversation recently around all block with our three through five teachers, what does it look like to successfully respond to a prompt in their 2017
version with all block students are frequent.
Constantly reading text, research, reading or free choice, and they have to respond to a prompt, and sometimes we've left that as a mystery, like, what does a successful response look like?
And I wonder, like you said, if we as teachers have ever thought through that, what do we want this to look like? And they'll wonder, they might not turn out the way we want, because we haven't communicated that clearly. Let's pause for a week and clearly show kids what does a model look like, whether we're doing it through a fishbowl activity where kids are watching us complete one, whether we put a successful response up there and we ask the question like, What do you notice?
We have to have a vision of where we're going, otherwise kids will never have a successful in that case, reading response, because they don't know what they're shooting for. Yeah, so Kevin, I have a question for you. Go for it. So we've been talking about the importance of those models, right, and how we want exemplar models. Do you think there's a place for weak examples? Oh, yes, really, let's talk that through. For trying to show and map kids a vision of where we want to go, we probably wouldn't think of putting weak examples up there, but especially if we taught this lesson before, sometimes we can foresee pitfalls, or we start to see hear themes like, Oh, I think I've done this. I know our students are going to struggle on this, and if you do have a sample of that, whether it's teacher created or a past student example, to highlight that up there and have conversations of, hey, listen, let's take a look at this. This is a pitfall you might fall into. And just again, be clear about it. Let's take the mystery away from our learners around what success looks like. And maybe sometimes that's using, you know, a model that has examples of pitfalls, and maybe it connects to our our traveling stories. Like, if I'm going down the road and I know there's a what
do you call it pothole? Like, I hope somebody tells me ahead of time so I can avoid that thing, right? Like, yeah, show me where that thing is so I can, like, swerve around it. There's apps for that too. You know, they give you a little heads up. It's like a heads up. You're giving kids a heads up, and they deserve that. Yeah?
So let's talk about,
where do we get these models of work? Like, where do they come from? Jack, you were talking earlier about some of these samples coming from students. Where might be some other places that we can collect models of excellence and models of work from?
Yeah, that's a great question. So el was brand new for our district last year, so teachers didn't have a pile of work samples that they could share with kids, so some of the teachers just made their own right. So they showed they showed the kids this is what it's going to look like at the end. But there's a lot that you can gain from the professional world. You can ask other districts. I mean, we've partnered with you, and Reese puffer and so just asking for you know, help with what does this look like at the end. But I think too, we can gather in the moment samples. So I'll give you an example. One teacher had her phone and was actually taking snapshots of pictures of high quality work as her students were creating it, yes, and then she just took that the pictures right there on her phone and put it under the document. Camera stopped the kids in the moment and talked about, hey, let's look at this piece. What makes this good? Yes, so it's like a little mini lesson or redirect right in the middle of the lesson, right? Just gives you that extra little shot of energy to Hey, look at the good work we're doing. Let's all consider doing some of that stuff. Ah, that's so good. And you know, you mentioned the professional world, it made me think of a teacher that
I'm doing some planning with right now. They're in the tree unit in kindergarten, and they have a performance task at the end where they're going to be creating a tree book, and they're personalizing it to trees that are in their school courtyard so it's authentic to their learners.
But we're collecting all kinds of tree guides from the library, professional ones, nice and Yale, if you go on their site and search models of excellence, they have a bank of student work models of excellence that people have submitted that you can get you can use those too. We actually printed. They have a tree book that a kindergarten class made. Oh, nice. So I had those printed, and then we're going to get some from the library and use those as models of success. And the cool thing is, is, as they do that work this year, they're also going to be able to collect some sample, because this is their first year they're doing it. They're going to be able to collect some of those successful student examples to add into a portfolio to use for next year. She can get them from lots of different places. Yeah. El first grade classroom that I was just in, they had
ELS examples.
Of the poet, the poetry for sun, moon and stars, they had ELS examples of high quality work that they used as models of excellence. So it's it's available. So we've talked about the importance of having models of work to take our learning targets and bring them to life, so they can see exactly what they're shooting for. There is no mystery behind what success looks like. We've also talked about where they come from. They can come from student examples. They can come from teacher generated examples, and they can also come from the professional world, a collection of those. And Jackie makes me think about something that you've started a conversation in your district about gathering these pieces of work, can you share with our listeners what that's looked like with you guys?
Yes. So again, el was new to us last year, so we did a lot of learning around el and just the philosophy of it, and Ron Berger's book, like really struck me when I was learning about El and just his philosophy on on student work and and how powerful that can be. And so last year, we actually watched a video out there. Maybe some of the listeners have actually watched that themselves, but it's a really good video where rod and Berger talks about his briefcase. I think that's what he calls it, his briefcase. He carries a briefcase, and it's full of student work that he's collected over the years. And so that was just a kind of like a launch with our teachers, like, what if we started collecting work samples now? What is that going to look like in three to five years? Can you imagine? Yes. So yeah, it's really cool to think about that. So you framed it with the language briefcase, yeah. And challenge the teachers that you walk alongside to start collecting, yeah, be on the lookout for high quality work. And start some folders, whether it's labeled by module or by unit, and start this briefcase that holds all of these pieces of work. And not only
will we as a school and teachers have a better vision of what high quality looks like, but also we're inviting our learners into that to take the mystery away absolutely
so let's say we have this briefcase, right?
What do we what do we do with it? Walk me through what it looks like when you show student work to a classroom? Yeah. So
I think there's a couple ways that if we started to learn around this and gathered some ideas from the text that we've been reading, think there's a couple things we could do. The first one you mentioned earlier, this idea of catch and release and things right in the moment you talked about the strategy with the phone like that they might not go into it could be a digital briefcase. Yeah, totally, right. So it could be something that just supports a daily lesson. But if we're thinking about collecting briefcases for big projects like a writing project or performance task, let's say that we have these models of work, these models of excellence. What do we do with those?
And the book talks about almost like three steps. We're not going to get into all of them today, but the first step is collecting the models. The second step is critique, and the third step is creating from the critique, creating this list of qualities, like an anchor chart of what success looks like, and allowing that anchor chart to live in the room and to guide all of the lessons we move forward. So we're not going to get into all of that today, but I wonder the second part, if we just talk about their critique. When I heard the first that word critique for the first time, it's like, Tell me more. Like, I don't typically think of critique sometimes in a positive way, yeah, although in the way it's framed in the book, I think it's super positive.
But one example it might look like, what is, let's say that we are, if we circle back to the reading response, yeah. And we were inviting kids to take some time to do some independent reading or partner reading in and now you're going to take what you're what you've read, you're going to write a response based on a prompt we might before we even introduce that routine, we have our in our briefcase. We have some rock star examples of what those responses look like, and we pull one of those out, and you know, it doesn't have to be perfect. It's gonna be pretty good, though. Yeah, we pull it out and maybe there it's posted on the wall, and every kid has a copy of it. And we just asked the question, we well, and we set kids up with a role of detective, an investigator. I mean, what student doesn't want to be an investigator? Right? Like that. Sounds fun? Yeah, totally. We got out magnifying glasses. Maybe we have some special like those plastic colored glasses. And you know, we're in a first grade room, and we say, Okay, everybody put on your colored glasses today. We are investigators, or in this case, with the reading response, it might be third graders. And we say, just take a minute and study it.
What do you notice? What makes this work great, and
we start to have a conversation. And as some of these things come up, we start to collect them on an anchor chart becomes our criteria list. This is the secret. These are the ingredients to making a successful response to reading,
and we list that out, we have conversations around it, and that critique, that classroom critique, that classroom conversation, that classroom investigation of getting all the good qualities of this model of work
takes the mystery away and sets a vision of this is what we're shooting for, and that really makes it come alive for kids, and keeps them active in it, right? Instead of just saying, These are the great qualities of writers, now, they have stated those, they have pulled those out. So that's really cool to think about their voices in it, yeah, I could. We could as teachers. We could just give them the list, right? This is what you need to do, right? But you know, when they get to detect, they get to discover as they get to discover as detectives. What makes it great? Oh, they are so much more attuned to those pieces.
What do you think
stops us from doing that?
I think it's the time probably right. But if you really think about that,
isn't it better to start and have routines, and you are going to save time in the long run, because, for example, I was just talking to a first grade teacher today, and when the kids were looking at the exemplars, they were saying, there's finger spaces, right? So think about front loading that versus having a kid go rewrite it and fix all their finger spaces. Yes, and there's a place for revision for but you know what? Maybe the finger spaces weren't there because we assumed they knew and it felt like a mystery, right? Or they just forgot. They're thinking so hard about what they're wanting to write that they forget. So yes, I wonder if somebody might be listening saying, Where am I going to find the time to do that? But you know what, pausing for a couple days to do this, especially at the beginning of the year or the beginning of the work, oh my goodness, like it is going to pay off, right? Some of the frustration of the kids aren't getting it, or I had to go back and revisit this. Maybe
that disappears or lessens, yeah,
and oh my goodness, engagement, they're probably more attuned to what's going on. Oh, for sure. I mean, who doesn't love to see a good work sample, right? And you know what? Maybe we won't put a critique in for everything, but starting with one and seeing how it goes. You know, in we've talked about how critique or models of excellence can show up in many different ways, like maybe one day it's an in the moment, yes, critique, and another day it might be more time, because maybe it's a final performance task or end of the unit assessment, and you really, really want them to take more time in it. So yeah, and if you look at the scope and sequence, or if you look at the, you know, the map for a unit, maybe lesson one isn't studying the critique or the model, sometimes it is.
But you know what? Give yourself a little permission to do that and cast that vision for kids, and make that learning target visual and come to life, so there is no secrets about what we're shooting for. And in the process, you and me and Jackie and anybody who's leading learning with little ones, we're going to have a bigger picture of what success looks like too.
So we've talked about models of success and started to just dive in a little bit to what critique might look like. And Jackie, as we finish things up today, as you think about our listeners, some who may be jumping into El education for the first time, and others who have been using this curriculum for a while. If you can invite them to be mindful of just one thing when working with models of work, what would be one small step that you would invite them to consider today?
I think, just the fact that it's never too late to get started. Start start your briefcase. Start your briefcase. Start your briefcase. Could be a digital briefcase. Could be with your phone. It could be just being on the lookout, as students are doing work of collecting some great samples. Yes, and I would add to that, something Jackie said earlier, too, maybe is just looking for some of those in the moment, quick
energizers, where you can just use spot something good, and you say, Hey guys, you have to check this out. And you pull it up, keeping safety in mind, right? We don't want to embarrass anybody, make anybody uncomfortable. But if the safety is in place, to show some of that great work, even if.
It's just a piece. It doesn't have to be the whole the work doesn't have to be perfect, but you might find the one stellar piece in there that everybody could learn from. And not only is that kid going to feel like a rock star, but the rest of that class is going to be energized to be looking for that same thing too. So there you go, a few small steps to consider over the next few weeks. As you get back into the work
and as we close up this episode, we hope you got some fuel in the tank and leave us 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.