narrowing, and I continued my efforts to remain upbeat with her whenever we talked about QAR during coaching
sessions.
Phase III – Established Understanding. At the opening of Year Three, the district mandated classroom work
on Extended Response: state standardized activities that involved reading a passage and writing an extended answer
to an inference question. To address the incoming initiative without dismissing the great strides the teaching staff
had made in QAR, our professional-development workshops deliberately concentrated on accentuating the
relationship between QAR and Extended Response. These workshops proved to be a catalyst for a notable transition
in Tricia’s QAR understanding. At the conclusion of the first of three workshops, appropriately titled “QAR Meets
Extended Response Part I, II, and III,” Tricia invited me to assist her in designing an Extended Response lesson that
embedded QAR.
Tricia’s co-created QAR lesson marked her transition into the Supported Appropriation enactment phase and
indicated an established understanding of QAR. Concentrating attention on establishing a connection between QAR
and Extended Response in workshops provided a scaffold for her to strengthen and advance her emerging
understanding. Tricia was closing the gap on her colleagues who were still lingering between Supported and
Masterful Appropriation.
In the next coaching session with Tricia, I observed her deliver a skillfully woven QAR lesson that required
none of my support (Field Notes, 11/30/05), essentially arriving at the enactment level of her colleagues–Masterful
Appropriation.
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