Graham Litterst: [00:00:00] I am a firm believer in taking an asset-based approach, and so we look at our students as what can they do, not what they don’t have or can’t do. That is core to WIDA in general, but it’s also core to my own philosophy of education. So that is first and foremost, and that helps frame our perspective as we go to the planning and instructional stage of really looking at what can our students do.

Mandi Morris: Welcome to the ML Chat podcast. I’m Mandi Morris, your host. Today we had Graham Litterst as our guest, and what a treat. He is so passionate about math and co-teaching language learners. Through math content. It was such an interesting conversation. And about halfway through 

the conversation I thought, oh my gosh, I really want you to be my kid’s math teacher. he had me excited about math by the end of the conversation, and I think that you will feel the exact same way after you hear this conversation with Graham. So let’s go and 

get [00:01:00] into this conversation all about math and language learning.

Graham Litterst is the EL coordinator for secondary schools in St. Cloud area School District, one of Minnesota’s most diverse districts spanning the last 15 years. Graham has witnessed a quadrupling of the ML population in his district, including a significant rise in refugee newcomer, long-term English learners and dually identified subgroups.

With nearly a quarter of St. Cloud’s, 10,000 students identified as English learners, Graham Spearheads initiatives to strategically integrate content and language development. Graham earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from St. Cloud State University with a BA in Linguistics, BS and Spanish and BS and TESOL and his MA and tesol.

Graham, welcome to the ML Chat podcast. We are so happy to have you here today. 

Graham Litterst: Thanks for having me. Glad to be here. 

Mandi Morris: So it sounds like you have a really interesting job. It sounds like you’re supporting a lot of English learners [00:02:00] in a really diverse school district. Tell us a little bit about what is your work 

like? 

Graham Litterst: Oh, I, I feel like I have to wear 

many different types of hats within the role that I do. I St. Cloud is a. It is a big community, but it’s also a small city. And so in, in Minnesota we say it’s incredibly diverse, but it’s diverse as of like the past only couple of decades. And the change that has occurred has caused ripple effects throughout our community, trying to scramble and figure out, hey, what do we do?

How do we support the rising needs that we see through our immigrant population and the multilingual learners that we serve? And so within my role, like I come from the classroom. I taught for many years. I was in the classroom for about 10 years before I stepped into my role right now, and got into this position as a liaison between school and sub school in kind of that district or state level.

And so that’s where I have to wear many different hats between coach, [00:03:00] consultant, coordinator, collaborator, curriculum writer, whatever it is. 

Mandi Morris: Graham, you are the coordinator for all secondary schools in your school district. How many schools do you support and what does that role look like? 

Graham Litterst: Yeah, we’ve got two high schools, two middle schools.

One alternative learning center that includes a newly upcoming alternative learning center at the middle school. So it does serve students in six grade, six through 12. On top of that, we do have a K eight or pre-K eight building, so I support the middle school programming out there. And then we’ve got a variety of different alternative programs that service students that have IEPs in special ed settings.

Some of them are level three or level four. Some of them are 18 to 21, 22 programs that are helping support our students that are duly identified, be successful in their next steps beyond high school. I. 

Mandi Morris: That’s [00:04:00] really neat. I am really feeling eager to dive into your WIDA presentation and the topic that you shared at wida.

I think it’s so interesting, we love talking about linguist through content on this podcast. What brought you to math? Tell us the story. How did math become the place where you started to spearhead language through content? 

Graham Litterst: Oh, absolutely. Gosh, I would have to take that story all the way back to my own.

Experience as a student in math and from a early start, I would say that I was advanced within math at sixth grade I was in Math Masters. So if there are any other former math Masters folks out there, you can connect with Citi down taking a test and loving it. You know, I’m one of those crazy people that actually love to, let’s figure out how we can do this, how we can do it as fast as possible, and let’s get creative in the process, and ended up testing at a state level.

So I was like third. Individually across the state in the state of Minnesota where I grew up, and I just loved, math wasn’t an accelerated program ever since I was young. [00:05:00] And eventually when I got to high school and was taking courses like pre-calc, trigonometry and asking some really tough questions around how this could apply, what am I gonna do with this?

Like, how can I relate this to real life? And ended up in situations where I was, I felt closed, closed down, or shut down. And really that. Stopped my mathematical adventures for a long time until I got into teaching. And once I got into teaching in the world of working with multilingual learners, they make you teach everything.

And so I got into that phase of, okay, I am gonna be supporting newcomers with mathematical, I. Understanding with language. Then eventually I get into co-teaching and just loved working in the world of math and most of my linguistic counterparts do not. And so it’s just, okay, I guess I’m the enigma in this situation.

I. Many years down the road. Eventually was fortunate enough to go through some professional development with Sarah Vander, who’s [00:06:00] our like MD Minnesota Department of Education math specialist now, but at the time was a consultant and teacher in the field. I. And got to really, truly love and understand like what you can do with supporting math and language at the same 

time, and how critical it is to provide that type of support.

Mandi Morris: Graham, you are the first person we have had on this podcast who loves math. Think you’re the first. We had someone come from Center of Applied Linguistics who specializes, I adore her like science is her thing. She. So fun. She’s so awesome. We actually had a couple people that have really focused on science.

You are our first math person, and it is so exciting for me to hear someone who has a passion for language learners and a passion for math. What you said earlier resonates a ton with me. A lot of people in the world of. Supporting language learners or linguistics are often like, they lean very heavily [00:07:00] into ELA.

And then when we think about co-teaching, that feels comfortable. It feels comfortable to do co-teaching, to do support through ELA, but what you’re talking about is co-teaching for language learners, creating 

scaffold and supports through math. Just so fun. This is not a world where I could be successful.

I wanna know like, how are you doing this work? What does it look like for you? 

Graham Litterst: Oh well, uh, it’s been a learning experience as we’ve been 

growing. Now when we first. I did a reset early on in my time as even before getting into the coordinator role. We, our department had really centered our needs based on our students’ 

performances and looking at where are multilingual learners really struggling, looking at grades, 

looking at more of our MCA 

and seeing those student indicators.

Where are students really struggling? And we landed on language arts and math. This is where we need to set our attention and really focus in on considering we do have a large [00:08:00] number of students that are long-term English learners, what does the research say around supporting their needs and what is most effective, aside from dual language programming, which unfortunately, like we do have pockets of that, but we don’t have.

A RO robust program at the secondary level to really support students within a dual language model. Then it’s co-teaching, and I am proud of the work that St. Cloud has done, but we dove into co-teaching and math and language arts, and that was challenging for many because so frequently our English language teaching counterparts will really have a hard time with the concept of, I’m not a math teacher.

And I don’t know about the idea of diving into geometry and what you’re gonna have me try to teach trigonometric functions. That’s way beyond what I’m capable of doing. And they sell themselves short and really, I. Really don’t necessarily spend that effort focusing on, I’m the language expert and [00:09:00] given time collaboration the right conditions.

I can really tease out the language that’s critical for our students to be successful in this situation. And so I think it’s been a slow process for us to get there, but we’re changing the narrative around what is my role and responsibility as a, as a. A teacher that supports multilingual needs within the mathematical environment.

Mandi Morris: So I like share the same message. I’m a huge believer in it that this interdisciplinary work and this community work is broader than just the ELA classroom. But as I’m listening to you talk about supporting that math, like I am sweating a little bit and like my. Heart is racing a little bit because I’m thinking, man, if you put me up against that task, I would feel really uncomfortable, put me in pretty much any other classroom other than math to support language learners, and I would figure out the thing that I need [00:10:00] to do to rise to the occasion.

I imagine you came across other people who felt like how I’m describing I feel right now. How did you overcome that? 

Graham Litterst: First off, I think it’s important to. Honor that, that’s the reality is, or that the majority of our. Our team that comes into a setting where they might be co-teaching or collaborating with a teacher that’s been trained in math, that has a passion for it, that’s gonna be uncomfortable in some situations.

And so what we really do is we strive to find the right pairing people who do have either a passion or willingness to grow and learn and build their relationships. And that requires a level of. Courage to, to get uncomfortable, to get messy, to own our own strengths and build up off of each other’s.

Really, when it comes down to it, it’s collaboration. And collaboration is critical in this model where I know I’m not gonna be coming in as that math. [00:11:00] Expert in the classroom, but I’m the language expert and although the math teacher understands the scope and sequence of how these concepts are built upon, they’re not coming in with the same kind of language expertise that I have.

Mandi Morris: I love something. You said it. It’s gonna get messy. You have to be comfortable that it’s gonna get messy, that really rings true to me. Change is uncomfortable and change is messy. And as adults, we just don’t. Like that. We, generally speaking, and we especially don’t like the way that it feels in front of our peers.

So I’m sure you’ve been in a training where like you’re with your peers and somebody like calls you out to give an answer or to respond to something. And I don’t know if anybody listening is like me. I’m, I, I don’t, I don’t wanna answer what if I’m wrong and now I’m wrong in front of all of my peers and my colleagues.

And now I feel really uncomfortable. I feel embarrassed and. I love what you’re saying here is just framing the whole thing around owning that this is uncomfortable. [00:12:00] This can be messy, and it sounds like you’re not expecting people to show up with perfection. You’re expecting people to show up with a willingness to try with some curiosity, some openness.

How has that partnership. Gone for you in your work, do you find willing partners who say, step out to the aisle? Okay. I’m willing to try and be curious and be open. 

Graham Litterst: Absolutely. And it, it’s interesting ’cause I find many of our math teachers are really like reaching out for this level of collaboration support.

They recognize that their skillset, although may be strong, maybe like vast. However, they see that their multilingual learners are not being as successful as engaged, as interested in what they’re really trying to present 

to sell, to help them grow in. Then they know that they’re capable of, and so. Like we see that [00:13:00] interest from the math department.

We see that growing, the budding interest from the EL teachers. But like you had indicated earlier on, that it seems more comfortable to delve into the world of English language art. I. And much of our past practices has been supporting story elements, supporting how do I analyze character traits, how do I do these kind of things that are really language art standards.

But then when it comes down to, I. To the math practices. When we get to the secondary level and we’re moving beyond calculating surface area to now, like multiplying and dividing polynomials in ninth grade and moving on to those trigon demetric functions in 10th and 11th grade and statistics and all these things that can seem like almost out of grasp. When I pause and take a step back and, and listen for the language, look for how are our students interacting with the content at hand and recognizing the [00:14:00] need that’s there. Like 

we come from a world where math has always been linear, 

one directional. Where the math teacher is, the sage on the stage, that gives us magically all of the information that we need to know, and then we show them on paper and we pass and we’re, we 

somehow have met those standards.

But for our multilingual learners, that’s not how it works. And for, I would argue for all learners, there has to be that level of engagement, that interaction, that discourse, and. We know that change is necessary. So how do we onboard ’em? How do we get them? How do we create that excitement around like mathematical language instruction is recognizing the need for that level of change to see our math scores, our language scores go up to see our students excel, to see our students be able to compete in this 21st century, like we need to make sure that we’re.

Not just doing the math. We’re talking the math. We’re writing the math. We’re really, truly engaging in [00:15:00] it in all levels. 

Mandi Morris: So I have to take a step back to something you said earlier. You loved math. Were passionate about math as a child, competitive, a competitive student in the field of math, and then I’m going back and looking and so you ended up pursuing linguistics Spanish and tesol.

For your undergrad and then TESOL again for your master’s. I really loved the parts of my learning that were around linguistics. It’s such a analytical aspect of language learning and so I, I can really see how maybe your mathematical mind might have also really loved linguistics, but. This shift for you that happened in high school was so significant that did you think at one point that you were gonna go to school and study mathematics or maybe engineering or something in the world of math?

It was this shift so significant that it pushed you into a totally different field. 

Graham Litterst: It was a significant experience for sure, and it was one of those moments that I think [00:16:00] being an educator for so long that. We might as educators almost just write off as just, oh, it was just one of those days, one of those moments.

And so I try not to hold that personally to the individual who shared that with me. But really what I experienced was a wall. I asked, how does this apply? And I don’t even remember the specific formula that we’re using or the objective at hand, but what I do remember is. That I was asking for more, I was like, interested to discuss this further, and the wall was put up in the sense like, if you’re, take what you know about the formula, apply it to the problem, you’re gonna get your answer.

And I think that right there is how we’ve done math for so many years that it speaks volume to where we’re at in this world. And I’m not gonna get into all the politics of it all, but like where we’re at is we haven’t uplifted our students in a way to allow them to ask these questions, think critically around how this could be applied and given the resources to have this high level [00:17:00] discourse regardless of circumstances at hand.

And that’s the beauty of. Some of the work that I’ve done around math language routines is you really can allow for participation of all players, regardless of English language proficiency of background. You’re really looking at how do we create this higher level discourse within the classroom and maintain that high level of rigor that I would hope for my students.

Mandi Morris: So your school district did a deep dive into your data, the data surface, that students were broadly struggling in math and ELA, and you’ve made the shift as a school district to be really intentional. You’re doing co-teaching, finding willing partners. What has that experience been like for students? If you were to think about students who experienced this level of.

Co-teaching this level of support in mathematics. What is the shift that you’ve seen for their experience in school? 

Graham Litterst: So let me [00:18:00] take a step back and say that this was early on in the process that we realized we needed to set our sights on ELA and math. Since that time, we’ve realized in the need to expand our co-taught offerings into science and social studies, really hitting the four core content areas and providing access to those required.

Core components to provide our students that pathway towards graduation. Now, what has that meant for our students is interesting because about two thirds of our student population are receiving their ELD instruction through co-teaching alone. I. And so what, when you talk to students, oftentimes there are multilingual students who may not necessarily connect and say that, oh yeah, I’m an EL student, because they see themselves integrated into the core content.

With that support built in through this collaborative process so that our teachers are co-planning, co-constructing, [00:19:00] cosing, co reflecting, given time. To do and supports in place. And our students and our families, they belong for the ride and they, many of them feel like, oh, EL was when I was pulled out, when I was maybe more of a newcomer or level two or level three student and receive some of that designated or sheltered instruction and don’t necessarily relate to it.

Even though, yep. I take the access test and yes, I have this additional teacher that works with me and sets goals with me, but it’s just, yeah, I’ve got two teachers helping me with my language arts and my social studies with my math, and that’s the beautiful thing about this. It provides that access and opportunity that 

Students, maybe in a smaller school district who may not have, don’t have as robust of resources, may not necessarily have that same opportunity. 

Mandi Morris: What a wonderful and inclusive experience for your students. I love that idea that students might not even, I. Really realize these are my designated [00:20:00] EL minutes because it’s just happening as part of their content.

And the idea. I love how you were framing co-teaching with co-planning, co-teaching, cosing, co reflecting. There are a lot of different components that go into successful co-teaching. As far as scheduling at the secondary level, how have you guys sorted that out for teachers who co-teach to have time to co-plan?

What does that look like for you and how high priority is it for you when you’re thinking about building out schedules? 

Graham Litterst: Well, that’s been tricky and that’s something that we continually work on 

improving. Right now we’re in the deep part of 

that stage planning out 25, 26, and so we think about how do we make that work.

There are some parameters we’ve set. We really try to strive to have our EL teachers 

working with no more than two different teachers across, no more 

than two different content areas so that they can focus in on this is my area of expertise within language, and this is what I’m most [00:21:00] comfortable with.

So if I’m not comfortable with the math side of things, 

like I’m co-teaching in language arts and social studies or however it may fit. And 

then, uh, as we look at master scheduling, we prioritize el master scheduling processes alongside special education and look at how do we make sure that our courses line up so that our students who are at a certain proficiency level are still gonna get.

The services that they need. Students who are duly identified, who have specific requirements on their IEP are getting what they need alongside what they need in el so that students who are in unique circumstances, maybe they’re, they are part of our. Immersion program and taking Spanish or Chinese alongside Yale are still able to get access and get what they are there or orchestra or whatever it is.

So we’re taking that into consideration. And then we’re mapping out in No, by no means is it a hundred percent perfect all the [00:22:00] time, but trying to aim for teachers that have common planning times. And then even taking it a step further and building in collaborative time that our teachers have throughout their contract day, that can still be used for collaboration or what we call student support time, regardless of who they’re working with.

Whether they’re working with that is just built in throughout the week so that they know I can meet with these teachers then, or during my common planning time or whatever. But we really do see, and we hear from our teachers that the most needed resource is time. And we know when we’re planning out a meaningful lesson and I’m working with that content teacher and I’m thinking about all the different English language proficiency levels and all the different ways I’m gonna scaffold instruction, that does require some of that additional time to think about, like, how are we gonna make it work?

And it, it also requires the right kind of. Partners, our team to work [00:23:00] together. So we prioritize partners that are eager to work together, that have had success working together in the past, and we try to maintain those pairs that really worked well 

together for years to come. 

Mandi Morris: Yeah, that’s so 

great. And I love too the idea of maintaining those pairs because the work that you, you invested so much time and energy into some of that can get.

Reused and recycled, right? 

Maybe not all of it. We always improve upon our instruction and 

textbooks change and school district focus changes and things like this, but it’s a nice concept to, okay, you were co-teaching with math or science, and that you’ll be doing that again next year 

with the same grades, even the same teachers, so that you can build off of 

those relationships year after year. I’d love to hear you talk about your WIDA presentation. Share with us what was your focus and what led you to submitting, to present, like where did that passion drive [00:24:00] you to go and present at a big national conference like wida? 

Graham Litterst: Oh gosh. It was definitely one of those moments where I felt a level of obligation like I needed to.

Put the work out there that had developed, but at the same point, it was probably one of the most nerve wracking moments before you click and hit send. Because I did recognize the caliber that you are. You’re not, I hate to say competing against, but that you’re working with when you are talking about the WIDA National Conference.

I was fortunate to be able to go to Louisville a few years ago, and so the, I knew how I. How high caliber it really was. And so to then want to go off to Pittsburgh this year and really present the work that I’ve really put together in collaboration with a couple of others that I gotta call out. I, it was definitely, it was one of those moments where it’s like, grandma, you gotta do it.

You gotta share this information. ’cause it’s [00:25:00] really they, like you said, there’s not a lot out there that are truly passionate about how do we support in a strategic manner the mathematical and language development of our students at the secondary level. And the work has just really been a compilation over several years.

I mentioned Sarah Vander W If you don’t know who she is, check her out. She’s got blogs. She’s got so much information out there. She really is a rockstar in the field. I would give her a huge shout out. I’ve also done some collaborative presentations with her through the Minnesota Council of Teachers of Mathematics this past summer and in in previous years.

I also had, was fortunate enough to work with a math coordinator in our district who has now since become a consultant and works for DRC. She’s now on the testing side of things, who has really contributed a ton to the work that I. I have been able to share beyond what we did collaboratively. Yeah. It was to get into it, it was, it’s been something that I’ve always loved to do.

[00:26:00] Like ever since I’ve left the classroom, I felt there’s been this need to share the learning with others since I don’t have a classroom of my own. And so professional development has been one of those ways in which I’ve done that either throughout my own district. Through different state level conferences, but now that WIDA was really one of those exciting opportunities that I was able to share.

Mandi Morris: This past year was my first year at WIDA and it was such a great conference. I’m looking forward to going to it again in 2025. It really. Felt like the energy was so exciting. I went to some incredible sessions, just amazing teachers, educators, like yourself, administrators, doing really incredible work.

The whole conference was fantastic. So I understand that that nervousness, right of hitting the sin button, you’re like, oh man, this is like top caliber of people in my field. When you talk about math at a professional [00:27:00] learning or. At a conference like wida, what are some of the key takeaways? You’re like, if teachers walk away hearing this, if or if I could shift minds and they walked away believing this, what are those key?

Moments or key light bulbs that you’re hoping people walk away with? 

Graham Litterst: Absolutely. I am a firm believer in taking an asset-based approach, and so we look at our students as what can they do, not what they don’t have or can’t do. That is core to WIDA in general, but it’s also core to my own philosophy of education.

So that is first and foremost, and that helps frame. Our perspective as we go to the planning and instructional stage of really looking at what can our students do in addition to that, like we look at ways, how do we get our kids speaking and writing every single day in our math classrooms? How are we getting them interacting around the content at hand?

And there’s so many [00:28:00] different ways in which we can do that. Now, if we make an intention. We’re gonna get our kids speaking about math, we’re gonna get them writing about math. We’re gonna get them referencing their notes and doing all sorts of different things in a meaningful way. Then if we take that as I, that’s my goal, we’re gonna have that in place.

We’re gonna make sure that happens. And some of the math language routines that I went over, we talked about stronger and clear each time. Information gap, which is an oldie but goodie. This is something that I remember learning about in my undergrad and then looking at different ways in which we can apply that to math.

But another one was clarify critique. Correct, which is for any of you out there who are working in the math world that you know live in error analysis, this fits very nicely into your world. And these three math language routines are like my go-to. Some of them are more back pocket strategies that I feel like you can easily apply without a ton of planning.

Whereas something like an information [00:29:00] gap activity does require some really thoughtful preparation because you usually then have these handouts and different things that you need, whereas a stronger and clear you might be able to do even in the moment as a Oh, I see. My students need another opportunity to interact.

What we were just learning, so we’re gonna. Take another opportunity to talk with somebody else, come back to our own writing or work that we’ve put down on paper and then we’re gonna try to make it even better. 

Mandi Morris: So you said something that for us here at Flashlight, you’re like, kids need to be speaking in writing every single day, even in math class.

And that is really what we do, right? Like our whole work here at Flashlights about getting that productive language practice formative assessment for our students so that they are. Practicing the speaking and writing component and aligned with content is the strongest way for students to interact with that speaking and language practice.

I’m sorry, speaking and writing practice. What does that look like for you in a [00:30:00] math class? So you are working with a math teacher or working with your ML specialist, and you are thinking about integrating opportunities for students to be speaking and writing every day in math class. Could you talk us through a little bit like.

How do you go about integrating that into math class? 

Graham Litterst: Yeah. Let me go into a little bit deeper into some of the math language routines that, that, uh, we’ve definitely worked with our department on as well as presented at these conferences. So stronger and clearer each time is one that I. I’ve seen as that back pocket strategy.

Within this, what our, what teachers do is they present a problem and then this could be something that could be like utilized for a review. It could be something that is utilized for new learning, but then they present a problem and they ask students to take a moment to try to put on the page, whether that’s through illustration, through writing, through computation.

They try to write down, how would I tackle this problem? So they get [00:31:00] some of their thoughts down on the paper. Then to get it stronger and clear, they get up, put their pencils down, they go and talk with somebody else, and they share like, this is how I tackled, this is what I did. We can obviously build in supports with sentence frames, reference, different vocabulary lists that we’re working on, and we get kids to talk about it.

And then, okay, everybody, we want you to thank your partner, find somebody else to talk about how did you solve this? While I’m doing this, I am gathering ideas. I’m getting multiple forms of input. I’m utilizing that to reinforce what I already understand, what I know to be true, as well as question and.

Clarify some of those misconceptions that come along the way. Then at the end of this process, which really can only can happen in a couple of minutes, we have students come back to their desk, sit down, look back at their work, pick up that pencil that they put down, and then they start to make connections, corrections, or even better just.

Th like, [00:32:00] use that as the first draft and create something new, completely new from scratch. And so they’re able to show what they’ve learned through that interaction. And we always say, don’t forget to reference your supports. Go back into your notes. Look at our sentence frames that we have for you, our discourse markers, or vocabulary list, and they’re able to then really strengthen.

The kind of learning that they were trying to show at first, but now have has been reinforced and made stronger and clear. And so that level of structured interaction is how we make sure that our students are utilizing those language skills while deepening their understanding of the mathematical content at hand.

Mandi Morris: So it sounds like you have some really clear routines and structures that you are supporting math teachers, supporting the EL specialists in that co-teaching model to implement these routines. And it sounds like these aren’t routines that you’re trying out the first week of school and then saying, nevermind, let’s try something new.[00:33:00] 

These are routines, like this is just a part of the student’s school day. They’re predictable. Students can expect these routines. They know how to respond to these routines. What other routines do you have that you have found success? I know you, you listed some out, but I love how you just unpacked that one.

Maybe unpack another one for us. 

Graham Litterst: Absolutely. Okay. So another one of my favorites out there and now getting what you’re gonna, what you’re going to glean is some of the practices that fit really nicely in with the math language routines that I described fit really nice into building thinking classrooms.

So if you’re looking for really diving into. Where do we need to move in mathematical instruction, check out building thinking classrooms. ’cause it’s certainly worth a read and a dive into within it. There’s a lot of vertical learning that happens, which we know is good for our brain is get like vertical whiteboards in place, get our students up on their feet doing the math.

Looking off of each [00:34:00] other, do you know? And there’s lots of different cool ways that we can do that. But one of the routines that fits nicely into this as well is that clarify critique. Correct. And so a referenced error analysis, the way that this typically works is you present a problem and it’s mathematically flawed.

And so it could be. Really just the computation. It could be a combination of a script and some of the computation, but you share that mathematically flawed piece of work and you have students read through it. You have students that discuss it and what are you noticing? What’s going on here? You have students start to then identify, okay, where did like our mathematical work go wrong?

Where did the, where did this error come from? Where did the person who did this deviate? And then we start to talk about how do you address it? And then you go into, okay, how would I solve this problem? And you have them through a combination [00:35:00] of writing, illustrating. And putting their work on the page.

Then they map out how they would solve this problem. And so there’s lots of different levels of supports that are going in. We’re touching in all domains of language in this process, and it’s fits nicely into what’s already happening in so many math classrooms through error analysis. But now we’ve done it where we’re creating it.

This structure that can be easily taught, like you said, developed as a routine and. Supportive of different language needs in place. You can have students talking in their L one. You can have students referencing their notes In this process, you can provide different levels of challenges for students just by having a series of different cards that you’re putting out there based on where our students are at, what they need, but still connected to that objective at hand.

Mandi Morris: This reminds me a lot of exemplars, non exemplars in the ELA world. This is like going [00:36:00] back, but I remember being in a training, it was maybe 20. 13 20 12, but where it was saying exemplars for students are really helpful. Okay. We’re working on an argumentative essay. We’re working on a narrative and we have an exemplar, but sometimes it’s almost more powerful to have a non exemplar so that students can tackle that and.

In some ways, it builds confidence around what they do know and what they can do versus seeing an exemplar and feeling like, great, I can’t write like that. So this feels a little bit like that, but on the math side, is that a fair comparison? 

Graham Litterst: Absolutely. Especially when you’re dealing with a subject that is so analytical that we are really looking for and we feel we have this weight on ourselves in a math classroom, like it has to be right.

And there’s one right hands. But that’s not necessarily the case. And to be given that liberty to say, let’s look for the flaws. What is up with this when our mind is already there, but we feel like we’re the subject of scrutiny so often if we’re the ones that [00:37:00] aren’t mathematically inclined. And so to be given that.

That freedom and utilized as a strength. Now we’re gonna utilize this analytical approach that you’ve taken. We’re gonna try to identify what’s going on. You’re gonna work with your partners and your teams and try to figure out like, why did this happen? And now we’re gonna try to like re-approach it and how can we do it without going down that same path that this other individual or team had done in their process.

Mandi Morris: Graham, I feel like I can do math after just talking with you. You’re so passionate and you bring so much joy and excitement to the work that you do. It makes me happy for your students. It makes me happy for this crosswalk between math and language learning. It’s just so fun to hear your approach. It feels very.

Practical and pragmatic. It feels like any school district can do this work. You know that you’ve gotta have the right partners and the right people willing to do it. [00:38:00] But it makes me really excited to talk to someone like you in this field that’s coming from a math perspective. I think it brings such great diversity and is so wonderful for students.

I’m gonna move into some lightning round questions. I know we could talk about this all day, and it’s just been so much fun hearing you share all of this goodness about co-teaching. I’m wondering if you were to think back to the beginning of your career to now, what is a big paradigm shift that has happened for you over your career?

What is something that’s been a big, big head shift or a practice shift for you? 

Graham Litterst: This is no insult. I come from working with students and 

sometimes, and much of my experience was working with not only middle school students, but also kindergartners before that. Some would think that’s challenging. I feel like the, what’s been I.

A little bit more challenging in my role now in working with adults sometimes can be even more [00:39:00] difficult, and so really it’s trying to figure out how do I understand and recognize like what’s important and critical for the adults that I’m supporting and working with, and make sure that they understand that we’re not doing away with what’s important for you.

We’re really just trying to help you support the students that are right there in front of you. 

Mandi Morris: Graham, this conversation has been so fantastic. I so appreciate the learning that I’ve experienced in this space today. And we have some 

questions just to round us out here before we end this special time together.

If you could go back to the beginning of your career, what would you tell yourself when you first started your role? What advice would you 

give to that version of yourself? 

Graham Litterst: That’s a good question. I think that I would have to just 

remind myself to. Be patient to take those steps one at a time.

Sometimes I get really over ambitious and I feel like I can 

see all the needs out there right there in front of me, and I just wanna tackle and [00:40:00] address all of them. And I think 

that’s the way a lot of our teachers feel too. They feel I’ve got all these different needs, I’ve got all these circumstances, and it can feel really overwhelming.

But if we don’t just pause and realize I can only. Take one step at a time. I can only take one bite of that elephant at a time that I’m really not gonna get very far. And so being patient and recognizing that we are doing good work and that we’re just going to get incrementally better as we take that perspective, that would be a good reminder for me for sure.

Mandi Morris: Incrementally better. That’s so good. So what do you think is a process that you’re implementing in your school district that you feel could have the biggest impact on students and their progress? What is just something that you’ve talked a lot about, things that you’re excited about, but if you were to really pinpoint like a thing that’s like, this is a thing that we’re doing or we’re trying or we’re starting and I feel excited about it and I feel like it could make a big difference.

Graham Litterst: Yeah, so the one thing [00:41:00] that I’m proud of, we’re dipping our toes into this process of really looking at how do we. Truly know what our students can do in a world where they’re being assessed using an access test once a year. Many of our students at the secondary level really are, have fallen out of love with using this and are not necessarily demonstrating what they can do.

So what type of interim measures can we put in? Place to gather that information that is aligned with our reporting measures. So one thing I’m really excited about that we’re doing slowly is we’re diving into what kind of benchmark rubrics can be put into place to capture what our kiddos can do, what our multilingual learners are capable of.

That’s in alignment with the proficiency level descriptors in their grade level cluster. And so it’s like a big task, but it’s really looking at, okay, if I capture a student writing or if I. Capture some sort of student work or recording, I’m able to go through a checklist and just say, yep, they were [00:42:00] able to do this at the discourse level.

This at the sentence level, like grammatical structure or this at the vocabulary word, phrase level, and these are the then next. Step teaching moves for me to help grow them along the continuum that I know they’re gonna be measured on later on. And I think that’s something I’m super excited about.

That’s what I see as making some really positive moves forward because it’s easily, it’s easy to be seduced by the content that we’re a part of teaching. So those of you out in the world that are co-teaching, it’s really easy to get tied into that novel that we’re diving into. Or tied into that historical period and really having that assessment lens on did they understand those facts?

Did they, were they able to meet those specific content objectives? But we’re not always looking that closely. As we need to with language progression and development over [00:43:00] time across the different dimensions of language and proficiency level descriptors. 

Mandi Morris: It’s just complex and it’s layered. There are so many different parts of students.

Proficiency journey for content and for language and why that progress monitoring those formative checkpoints are just so important for language as much as content. I really appreciate you calling that out. That’s great. Okay, Graham, last question. What is one piece of advice that you would give to an ML teacher?

Graham Litterst: I think that’s a wonderful question and I, I really am going to frame that in the lens of those that are out there collaborating in some form or fashion, whether it’s co-teaching or not. So one thing, especially bringing it back to math, like how do we do it in the world of math? The recommendation that I provide is I.

Asking your content or grade level counterpart that you’re working with, really what are you expecting? What are we anticipating? What do we want to hear? What do we wanna see? And then taking your language [00:44:00] lens and just jotting down vigorously, what are the vocabulary you’re hearing come out coming out of that content or grade level expert’s mouth?

What kind of syntactical structures are we hearing, discourse markers, background knowledge that’s popping up? What are some of those things? Cognates that we can pull in and just like vigorously putting it down on the page. So often we struggle with like, how do we support our students in being successful in these environments?

But by putting it on the page, we then, as language experts can have that conversation around, okay, this is what I heard. I heard you talking about this and this. These are the vocabulary terms, these are the structures. Does that sound right? Like we would be really looking at that and I can start to figure out what do I now need to tease into instruction whether I’m front loading.

Through my own pullout kind of services I’m providing, whether it’s designated separate from the content area or integrating 

into that content level instruction. I’ve teased that out from the expert in the field who doesn’t really see themselves as that language expert, but [00:45:00] now they’re just sharing what they’re expecting, what they’ve seen, what they want, and I’m then able to pull that in without.

Necessarily the best grasp of that content 

area. And so that’s definitely like my go-to strategy for anybody who’s in that collaborative approach or just trying to support a multilingual worder in. 

Another setting that they maybe don’t provide instruction, but they provide support on the backend of things. 

Mandi Morris: Graham, this has been so lovely. I’m thankful 

for your time today and you’ve shared a lot of great concepts and then some really just clear instructional moves, routines, really clear concepts 

and thoughts around co-teaching and. Bridging this world of language instruction and math, which can feel really daunting and complex.

Thank you so much 

for your time. Thank you for

being here. This has been such a pleasure.

[00:46:00]