INTRODUCTION

 

It’s not easy to do this, really. Very few of us have had expert training to do this. It’s been trial and error through the years. We know only what we’ve seen, experienced, and savored. Yes, we know it’s tough to make a good cup of coffee.

 

 

But, it’s tougher to make a class into writers.

 

So, first, let’s start with the easier charge, and what we may need to fortify ourselves for this challenge: a great cup of coffee. That’s what is keeping the teaching community going, right?  Really, when did you begin to drink coffee?

 

Most of us had our first professional cup in some nondescript faculty room. The Culture of coffee, strong and satisfying…sometimes, bitter and steamy can connect to the Culture of Writing… so let’s talk coffee…

 

It should lead us to talking about teaching.

 

 

The Coffee Kulture for Teaching Writing

 

 

Think…                                

There’s Dunkin’ Donuts…. Reliable fare

There’s Starbucks. …Designer fare

There’s homebrew. …Comfortable fare

 

 

A world of coffee.

 

As a devoted, I’ll not use the word addicted…lover of the bean, I see a parallel here for teaching writing…just bear with me. I promise you, this works and you’ve read this far!

 

 

Think…

 

There is School Assignments… The need for reliable written response

There is State Assessments… The need for designer written response

There is Writing Workshops… The need for comfortable written response

 

A world of writing…

 

There are plenty of books written that help teachers improve their practice in teaching writing. This one comes at it from a different angle.

 

It’s not that I love coffee so much that it builds a framework for my thinking about my life and work. It’s just that teaching writing, like making coffee, depends on lots of variables within our control and outside of it. In the world of coffee, we can choose our purpose…a reasonable quick fix, a staged coffee house experience, or a familiar kitchen table moment. Each of these coffee cup scenes is different, but the result is the same…we’ll essentially enjoy a cup of coffee.

 

In the world of writing, we have a variety of purposes to meet: curriculum-based, assessment-driven and the classroom-dependent. Again, each purpose is different, but the goal is the same: we’ll enjoy the growth of our students. But there’s much outside our control. In the world of coffee, nature, growing conditions, costs can create issues for bringing coffee to the consumer. In teaching, class schedules, district and state mandates and students’ experience with language can create issues as well for our teaching of writing.

 

See the connection?  I told you, this book brings a view of writing from a different blend!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, the king of  the designer cup of coffee, Starbucks, has raised the awareness of coffee world-wide and has  given the  masses  not only coffee, but something called, a  “Third Place Destination”, which is a place other than home or work where people can go to meet and mix.

 

Using this book, the Starbucks theme takes an educational turn.  In these pages are the makings of that environment. You can create a third place for students…a place that exists beyond the curriculum and test pressured world of writing.

 

This book is about building A Café Kulture where, the K is for Knowing. A place where the comfort of community can support a student’s growth as a capable writer! That familiar feeling that one gets stepping into a Starbucks, anywhere in the world, can be experienced from classroom to classroom. Just think, even students who move from class to class in fragmented schedules in one school building could feel the easy, familiar support of a Café Kulture approach to writing in science, math, social studies classrooms if the third place view was supported in a school building!

 

A simple framework called the Cafe Kulture can “brand” the learners’ view of writing, the way coffee shops have branded our experiences with coffee consumption. Building a culture is about expectation.  It can be about expectation in coffee and expectation in the classroom. Using a Cafe Kulture strategy, students can be supported in many different classrooms for writers. As students moved through their day, they’d recognize the territory of writing in any teacher’s classroom, just as we would recognize our beloved skim latte, even if we were ordering it in a Paris shop and not in our own familiar neighborhood!

 

 

When I think of a Cafe Culture, I think of comfort…and Comfort comes from the familiar. When kids write, having consistent familiar frameworks can make them comfortable enough to do their best. So a Writing Kulture….K, for Knowing is based on teachers knowing… and delivering a simple framework to make kids feel comfortable quickly in order for them to know…and believe that they can write in any subject area and in any classroom.  

 

The Café Kulture for writing becomes that third place where kids want to come, to meet and to mix…to think and learn, and of course…write.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By this time, you may want a cup of coffee.

 

Go ahead find your experience…designer, reliable, or comfortable. Take this book along as you enjoy your cup. So I’ll wait…go grab one, Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks, or kitchen blend. And as you do, think about what you’ll be reading. The thinking in this book supports all the facets of Cafe Kulture Choice. If you’re reading this book for ideas to help you create daily Kulture and assigned writing, this book will support your thinking, if you want this book to touch upon assessment that connects to testing. ..you’ve got your wish, and if you hope this book will support your growing awareness of a writing workshop-- you’ve come to the right place.

 

Unlike the Coffee experiences in the world of commerce, Café Kulture does not compete for your dollar…only for your imagination, which is boundless as you teach your writers!

 

 

So, in the next sections, I’ll brew up the components, and you can pour your heart into it, so to speak. Just take your cup in hand, and get perking, building a Café Kulture that can be simply blended into your classroom writing program for a truly satisfying experience.

 

 

Cheers! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Café Kulture: The Framework for Brewing a “Third Place “Writing Workshop”

 

 

C….Craft: Modeling to Elevate Written Expression

Teaching Moves:

                           Familiar Landmarks     Third Place Messages

                           The Minilesson             Keeping it short and perky.

                           Using Mentor Texts       Elexahente knows what’s Good.

                           Building Fluency          Bubbling up: Inking of Thinking.

                           Noticing Language       Brewing beautiful Language

               

 

A….Awareness: Writing in Any Content Area

 

                           Predictable Frameworks…Security in the

                           Coaching a Writer…

 

 

 

F…Flexibility:  Navigating Paths to Writing Excellence

 

                           Return to the Mentor Texts

                           Write Likes

 

E…Efficacy: The  “Can Do”  Spirit of a Writer

               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“There is real magic in enthusiasm, it spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment.”

 

                                                                                Norman Vincent Peale

C….Craft: Modeling to Elevate Written Expression

 

 

Teaching Moves:

                           Familiar Landmarks          Third Place Messages

                           The Minilesson                  Keeping it short and perky.

                           Using Mentor Texts           Elexahente knows what’s Good.

                           Building Fluency               Bubbling up: Inking of Thinking.

                           Noticing Language            Brewing Beautiful Language

 

 

       

 

 

 

Starbucks does it with branding. The colors, the furniture, the baristas! That’s what makes it possible to march up to a register in any Starbucks and proudly order a Grande mocha no whip skim latte without a blink! You feel supported by what you see and what people are doing in the space. It looks familiar. You are entering a No Risk Zone, which should appear on the door!

 

These are the Third Place messages that appear in the Coffee Culture world.

 

 

 

From the first days of school….