The WICOR of Reading: Reading and Writing

Writing is an essential component of WICOR and a good way to reinforce the skills we're trying to teach our students who encounter struggles with reading.

This week, I turn my attention to the relationship between reading and writing and showcase a few ready-to-use strategies that can help you achieve success with challenging texts in your classroom. 

1.  Cornell Notes:  Cornell Notes are a cornerstone of the AVID classroom, not because there's anything magical about the two-column notes themselves but because they help students understand the kind of thinking required for learning. When you ask your students to take notes in the right column of Cornell Notes, you want them to record the main ideas and supporting points in the text. This aids with meaning-making; students have to sort through the text to sift the main points out of all those words and succinctly summarize them in note form. The most helpful teachers will provide students with an Essential Question to guide their reading or even a reading prompt. After the note taking occurs, ask students to enter the note making phase of the Cornell Note-taking process in which they revisit their notes, highlighting, underlining, or circling main points and key terms, crossing out information that turned out to be irrelevant or unnecessary, and chunking the notes into sections. Then, ask them to write some questions in the left margin, preferably higher-level thinking questions using Costa's Levels of Thinking or your taxonomy of choice. Students can spend some time discussing those questions in pairs or small groups or using the questions to guide a full-class discussion or Socratic Seminar. Finally, conclude the process by asking students to synthesize their thinking at the bottom of the page in a summary that answers the Essential Question. This multi-step process requires students to revisit the text at different cognitive levels and helps the learning stick. By jumping through these hoops, students have made friends with the text and can use their new-found learning for whatever the next part of your curriculum requires. 

2.  Metacognitive Reflection:  In my last post, I addressed the idea of explicitly teaching students the things that good readers do. One way to make these processes become routine practices for your students is to ask them to reflect on the thinking that went into their reading of a text. How did they approach the process? Where did they encounter difficulties?  What did they do when they realized that understanding was breaking down? Asking students to reflect in writing about the process of the reading itself is challenging for them but can lead to fruitful discussion--full-class or one-on-one--on the "how" of reading. By making students aware of their thinking, you can cause real change in their reading behaviors, and perhaps the next reading assignment will seem less daunting.  

3.  Quickwrites:  I'm a big fan of using ungraded quickwrites at every stage of the reading process. Sometimes, I find it's useful to have students write about what they already know or want to know about a topic before they read. Or pose a question that piques their interest on the topic and whets their anticipation to know more. I've also used quickwrites during reading, asking students to stop in the middle of an article, chapter, or fictional text to write about what they already know, what questions they have, and what they anticipate they will discover as they continue reading. After reading, quickwrites are a handy tool to help students clarify their thinking about a topic before discussing it with others. As the name implies, these writings should only take a few minutes, and grammar, spelling, and all those other English teacher concerns aren't important. The purpose of the quickwrite is to generate thinking and get students' ideas down on paper. I've also found that routine quickwriting helps students get used to writing on demand; consequently, the ideas flow much more easily later on when they're asked to share their thoughts in writing on a standardized test or other on-demand essay later on.

4.  Annotation: Teaching students how to annotate a text--whether informational or literary--requires the students to write. Frequently, students think that marking a text only requires underlining, highlighting, or circling words and phrases. The teacher who wants to make big strides helps the students understand that the real power of annotation lies in the comments, questions, and thoughts you jot in the margins as you read. Teach your students how to annotate thoughtfully, and you will see their comprehension skills soar.

5.  Gist Summaries:  Summarizing is a notoriously difficult skill for learners. Ask any fifth grader to tell you about a movie she just watched, and you'll likely hear a scene-by-scene rehashing rather than the succinct summary you hoped for. One method I've found helpful is the Gist Summary. After reading, ask students--individually or in pairs--to sum up the main idea of the text in 25 words or fewer. Sometimes, it's helpful to brainstorm key words as a class prior to writing the summary to give struggling students a word bank of important points to add to the summary. 

6.  Learning Logs:  Learning logs combine summary and reflection. After reading, ask students to explain what they've learned, how they learned it, and why it's important. It's a more formalized version of the quickwrite or metacognitive reflection mentioned above. I've seen two-column learning logs with "what I learned" and "what I thought about it" on the two sides. I've also seen logs that look like journal entries. The format is up to you. The thinking is what's important. 

7.  Exit Cards:  Formative assessments like exit cards allow you to monitor effectively whether your students are "getting" the reading you're asking them to do. If students are spending class reading, ask them to write a three-sentence summary or a gist statement as a ticket out of class when the bell rings. You can stand at the door and collect them. It'll only take a moment to flip through the exit cards to determine whether students understand the reading or whether more discussion and debriefing is needed tomorrow. 

8.  KWL:  One more prior-to-reading strategy for informational texts is to create a three-column chart called a KWL.  In the left column, students write what they already Know about the topic. The middle column is where they write what they Want to know about the topic. And the right column is where they will write what they Learned about the subject from the reading. I recently saw a variation on this: a two-column chart with "Know" on the left and "Questions I have about the topic" on the right. Both types of charts help students activate prior knowledge, develop anticipation for the reading, and prepare them to dive into the text with a learning mindset.   

From the list above, just a smattering of many possibilities, you can see that writing can be one of your best allies in helping your students process challenging text.

Next time, I'll examine how inquiry (the I in WICOR) can be equally helpful.

The WICOR of Reading: Reading and Organization

In my last post, I examined some of teachers’ frustrations and the causes of students’ inability to read effectively or their reluctance to do so. I promised that this week’s follow-up would include some AVID-approved strategies for addressing the issue. Instead of writing one enormous e-mail that you’d take one look at and delete, I’m breaking this into four chunks--pairing Reading with the remaining letters of WICOR (Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, and Organization).  I’ll begin at what seems to be a sensible jumping-off point:  Reading and Organization.

 

The WICOR of Reading: Part 1--Reading and Organization

 

Things go more smoothly when there’s an organizational scheme. I tell myself that every time I open my Google Drive or hunt for an important item I received in the mail at my house and put somewhere I'd be able to find it later. It’s true about reading, too. By employing strategies associated with the “Organization” component of WICOR, teachers can coach their students to reading success.

 

Organization can refer to helping students develop structures and procedures for managing time and materials, but it can also refer to providing students with strategies for tackling the tasks and surmounting the challenges they will encounter in school and in real life.

 

Here are a few strategies and thoughts about the relationship between reading and organization:

 

1. Throw Out the Worksheets and Equip Students with Real-World Reading Skills:  One way teachers strive to “help” their students read is to provide them with worksheets and study guides that direct them to the most important take-aways from whatever they have been asked to read. I’ve yet to see any research study or reading guru who thinks this is an effective practice. This attempt at organization may allow students to locate a handful of facts in a text, but it does nothing to teach students to look for the main idea, to sift facts from opinions, to make inferences about an author’s claim, to determine the meaning of words or terminology in context, or to follow a flow of ideas in a text. Teachers who force their students to read text on their own may encounter resistance from students at first, but this is only because you’re asking them to do something difficult. You’re like a physical therapist asking your client to perform a painful muscular movement that is essential for recovery and progress; your client will curse you as you do what you have to do to make him better.

 

2. Talk to Students About What Effective Readers Do:  I’m an effective reader. Most of you are, too. Sometimes, we forget that the things that seem to come naturally to us aren’t always second nature to our students.  They don’t know that effective readers expect text to make sense, adjust their reading rate in response to the difficulty of the text, reread when comprehension breaks down, summarize, form mental pictures, and use context clues to sleuth out the meaning of unfamiliar words. It’s okay to talk with students about what you’re doing as you read--even to do a “Read Aloud/Think Aloud”--or to make them practice the skills more overtly as they read until the skills become automatic.

 

3.  Marking the Text: Marking the text while reading is one way to provide some structure for your students. Ask the students to underline key points, to circle important characters or terms, to write annotations--gist statements, questions, predictions, connections--in the margins as they read. Don’t go overboard; you don’t want the complexity of the text marking strategy to get in the way of comprehension.

 

4. Provide a Reading Prompt: We often assign writing using prompts that direct student work and state our expectations.  Seldom do we think about providing a reading prompt to do the same thing. A reading prompt establishes a purpose for reading and informs students what to focus on as they read. With a reading prompt, students don’t have to be psychic as they try to guess what the teacher wants them to get out of the reading.

 

5.  Consider Text Structures:  Textbooks, articles, editorials, poems, stories, and even novels have organizing patterns.  Asking students to pay attention to and analyze the organization schema writers use will not only help them learn to make meaning from texts but may also cause them to be more deliberate about creating effective organization in their own writing and thinking.

 

6.  Make Time for Reading:  What you make time for is an indication of what you value. If you want to communicate to students that reading is important, make time for reading during class. Daily is best. Or at least several times a week in English classes. In my experiences visiting English and reading classes in the district, the most cheerful and enthusiastic student readers are in classes where the teacher asks them to read daily and reads and talks about reading with them.

 

Stay tuned for Part 2. . . . Coming up next week, I will examine the connection between writing and reading.

 

Why Don't Kids Read?

One of my favorite letters in WICOR is the R, which stands for Reading.  Reading is an essential skill for success in school.  It’s an essential skill in life.  I hope that the surgeon giving me a transplanted heart has read her medical textbook as well as current medical research.  I hope the CPA preparing my tax returns has read the current tax laws.  I hope that my students read the chapter I assigned for homework last week. 

Unfortunately, a cry of distress heard from teachers around the world (translated into English for the purposes of this e-mail) is “Kids today can’t read!”  Alongside that is its not-too-distant cousin, “Kids today don’t read!” 

This week’s Wednesday WICOR blog is a top-ten list devoted to answering that question:  Why Don’t Kids Read?  

Why Don’t Kids Read?

1.  They’ve never had to.  School has provided them with fill-in-the-blank worksheets, study guides, and study questions that allow the students to scan a text for boldface words or important phrases rather than trying to make meaning of the text.  The person who made the worksheet did all the comprehending for the students instead of making them do it on their own.

2.  They’re out of practice.  Like any skill, reading requires practice, and the less they read, the more their reading muscles atrophy and they become comprehension weaklings. 

3.  It’s not fun.  Believe it or not, most teenagers do not find reading about the of development of ancient civilizations in Mesopotamia to be as thrilling as updating their Instagram, meeting their virtual friends online for a game of World of Warcraft, kicking a soccer ball, or IMing their BFFs. Some teens have discovered the joys of pleasure reading—hopefully an ever-increasing number in Plano due to self-selected reading being done in  English classes--, but that’s generally a well-kept secret in the adolescent world.

4.  It’s hard work.  Reading, especially the kind we expect in rigorous high school and college courses, does require some effort.  Struggling to follow a complex argument, grappling with a challenging sentence construction, and wading through some dense academic verbiage are all aspects of the reading adventure, and some people are not up for the challenge.

5.  They’re easily discouraged.  (See 4 above). When the going gets rough, some teenagers find it’s easier not to try.  

6. They don’t expect the text to make sense and aren’t willing to struggle when necessary to figure out what it means.  If I had a dollar for every time I head a student say, “I read it, but I didn’t understand it,” I could retire now.  Another favorite response:  “This chapter doesn’t make sense.”  Really?  It’s amazing that the professional textbook writers wrote something completely nonsensical and got it past the professional editors to have it published.  Really?   

7.  They don’t have reading role models.  Recent literacy studies indicate that pleasure reading is at an all-time low; in fact, a 2007 NEA report indicated that nearly 50% of all Americans ages 18 to 24 read no books—fiction or nonfiction--for pleasure, and overall adult readership is declining across the age spectrum. If students don’t see people they admire reading and talking about their reading, they have little incentive to try it on their own. 

8.  Some of them actually have legitimate reading impairments or difficulties.  Reading problems are widespread and diagnosed with increasing frequency. Unfortunately for these students, texts probably aren’t going to vanish from academia immediately, so they have to find modifications and adaptations to help them succeed on reading-related tasks. 

9.  They do read—just not books and articles.  Leisure reading today involves reading text messages, websites, blogs, status updates, and the captions scrolling across the bottom of the screen during the Academy Awards pre-show telecast—text which is short, to-the-point, quippy, and probably not laden with SAT-worthy vocabulary or challenging sentence structures.  In the world of academia (for which we are allegedly preparing our students), sometimes one has to read something longer than 140 characters, something that won’t fit on the screen of a smart phone.      

10.  Reading requires sustained concentration, and students have so many distractions these days.  In a world full of sound bites, white noise, music video-paced editing, and 3D high-tech spectacle, reading is decidedly less glamorous and flashy than what students do in their leisure time.  Reading requires the reader to provide his or her own special effects.  Doing that requires the undivided attention of the entire brain. Ouch.        

 

Stay tuned:  Next week’s blog will give you some AVID-approved strategies to help you begin solving the problem of why your kids can’t or don’t read.

 

I hope you carve out some time for pleasure reading this week!

Craig

Secrets, Secrets Are No Fun...

I don't like Starbucks. There! I said it.

It's just not my kind of store. First off, I'm not a coffee drinker, so my menu choices are somewhat limited. I'm fairly adept at brewing my own tea at home or on the go and, if given a choice, prefer water. Tap is fine. So the idea of paying a big chunk of change for someone to make a beverage for me isn't my cup of tea, literally.

But those are not the real reasons I don't like Starbucks. In truth, I'm uncomfortable going there because I don't know how to "do" the Starbucks thing. In some stores, I don't even know where I'm supposed to stand to place an order. Then, when it comes to making a decision, I have to choose from sizes that don't make sense to me (Why is "tall" only slightly larger than a Dixie Cup?) and employ a whole vocabulary of terms that somehow everyone else seems to know but me. I have to decide what sort of milk I want, how frothy I want it, how many shots of caffeine I need, whether I prefer room left at the top to add goodies of my own, and whether I want flavorings, sweeteners, or toppings. There's an entire article on WikiHow explaining the ins and outs of this process, with baffling insider tips like this one:  "A tall typically comes with a single shot of espresso, a grande comes with a double shot, and a venti also comes with a double shot, unless it is a venti iced drink, in which [case] it comes with a triple shot of espresso." When I order at Starbucks, I feel like a stranger who doesn't know the language or the local customs.

You know what else? I don't see what's the big deal about In-N-Out Burger. I realize them's fightin' words to some of my West Coast friends, but, really, this fast food joint doesn't dazzle a guy raised with Whataburger and Braum's nearby.  On a trip to Sacramento years ago, some locals said, "You must try an In-N-Out Burger while you're here." I did. Fortunately for me, I didn't have to ask, "Which burger should I order?" The In-N-Out menu only offers three options:  a hamburger, a cheeseburger, and a "Double-Double," which is apparently a registered trademark term. The sole side order option is fries (not much of an option, is it?), and the adventurous may select from three flavors of milkshakes. During my taste test, burgers and fries were fresh and tasty but nothing special. Due to the simplicity of the menu (Their website even says, "Ordering is as easy as 1."), In-N-Out avoids the mind-boggling complexity of Starbucks.  Or so I thought....

Imagine my surprise when I learned that for years In-N-Out Burger has had a "Secret Menu" that only those in-the-know order from. You can get your burger "Animal Style" (which includes a mustard-cooked patty and grilled onions), enjoy your meat nestled in a lettuce wrap instead of a carb-filled bun, or appreciate the simple beauty of a grilled cheese sandwich if you know about this hidden menu. It might have been helpful to have this info while I was in line.

Once again, like Starbucks, In-N-Out has become a place that only people with a knowledge of unwritten or hard-to-find secrets can navigate successfully.

I wonder how many similar secrets we keep from our students in the daily operation of our classrooms.

Do we make our expectations specific and clear? Are we transparent about why we are doing a particular activity? Are policies and procedures spelled out and easy to follow, even for the uninitiated? Could a person walking into our classrooms off the street (after passing the interrogation and identity check at the reception desk) tell what our students are supposed to be doing and why? Do our students feel that sense of panic that I feel as I inch to the front of the line in Starbucks or the jealousy and sense of helplessness I feel when I watch the guy at the next table at In-N-Out devour a sandwich I couldn't find on the menu?

Recently, I discovered that some of our cherished educational practices may inadvertently be "members only" experiences for our students. An article in the New York Times last week revealed that the traditional college practice of lecture-only instruction was biased toward white male students from wealthy, educated families. Every student benefited more from active learning strategies than from lectures, and the students who saw the most positive effects from active learning (and were the least successful at learning during our lectures) were women, minorities, low-income students, and first-generation college goers. This is a powerful reminder that the sit-and-get methods of "instruction" are largely unsuccessful for the majority of the kids we teach.

So what can we do to divulge those secrets and let all our students in on the workings of our classrooms so all can benefit? Here's a list of a few ideas:

• Post daily objectives (learning targets, essential questions, or whatever you want to call them) in kid-friendly language and point them out to our students before the learning begins.
• Engage our students in experiences that enable them to immerse themselves in the learning, struggle with the concepts, and figure out things for themselves. 
• Utilize word walls for academic and content vocabulary that may be unfamiliar to some. 
• Establish clear procedures for what students should do when they enter and exit the classroom, how they should keep track of their learning, what they ought to do when they miss class, and what you expect of them.
• Provide rubrics for assignments ahead of time, and help students make sense of them before and during the time they're working. 
• Conference with students (even for tiny amounts of time) to make sure they understand what's going on. 
• Let students in on the "why" of the lesson by establishing a practical reason for what you're teaching them or asking them to do. 
• Explain specifically what you mean when you say "study for the test." Give students concrete activities or processes so they'll know what "studying" means. 
• Communicate with students and parents (via e-mail blasts, a class blog--Blogger is extremely easy to figure out and links with your Google login at school--, or whatever method you prefer) to let them know what's going on, what's coming up, and how they can seek extra help if they need it. 

Here's a quick example:

Earlier this week I visited several middle school language arts classrooms that did an especially effective job of taking the mystery out of expectations and procedures. In one, a clear objective was posted prominently for all to see, a word wall let me know what vocabulary words and roots they had studied so far this semester, a display informed me of what the teacher was reading and what she had finished reading, and the teacher gave crystal-clear instructions and then followed up with students individually as they worked to make sure they knew what they were supposed to be doing. In the other, the teacher opened class with a slide on the screen that contained an objective, a list of activities on the day's agenda, a photograph of the items the students would need to have on their desk to begin class (writer's notebook, a pen, and a highlighter), and--this made my AVID heart happy--the letters WICOR with the elements of the acronym highlighted to show the students that during class they would be using inquiry, collaboration, organization, and reading. In both classrooms, I had no doubt that the students felt equipped for success.

None of the items on the above list are difficult to implement. And why not do all you can to make your students comfortable and confident when they enter your classroom?

After all, grabbing a cup of coffee, ordering a burger, and participating in school shouldn't be stress-filled activities shrouded in mystery.

Thank you for all you do to help your students find their way. 

Craig

   

But What Are the Kids Doing?

“I have the best idea for a lesson.  I found this new article on a website that I thought I could read to the students and then we could talk about it and how it relates to what we have been studying.”

“But what are the kids doing?”

“…and then I thought I would tell the students a story about that time I…”

“But what are the kids doing?”

“…using the PowerPoint to explain the concept of…”

“But what are the kids doing?”

“…with a video from YouTube that provides a great way to get the students interested in the topic of…”

“But what are the kids doing?”

“…and I could show them a model  and some really gross pictures of….”

“But what are the kids doing?”

In and out of the classroom, teachers spend a lot of time thinking about how they’re going to teach their students. Ideas come to us when we are reading, browsing online, sweating on the treadmill, driving, or even taking a shower. But not every idea that comes to us is classroom-worthy. Sometimes, something that sounds fun, intriguing, or creative still fails to pass the one-question test: “But what are the kids doing?”

Several weeks ago, I sat in a group planning for a one-hour presentation we would be giving at a meeting of the district’s principals. We spent quite a time brainstorming the components of the presentation before we began sketching out a lesson plan.  As we added to our list, one voice of reason in the room asked us contemplative questions about the lesson, most often the question, “But what are the principals going to be doing?”  If the answer was “Listening,” “Sitting,” or “Nothing,” we revamped that portion of the agenda to make the learning something other than a sit-and-get experience.

It occurred to me that “What are they doing?” is probably the most important question we can ask ourselves while we plan for our classrooms.  It’s so easy for us to pontificate in the front of the classroom—to be the wise conveyor of information, the witty raconteur, the know-it-all professor. Even if students are mesmerized by our monologues and lectures, research tells us they’ll only remember a small portion of the information if they simply sit and listen. Writing down what you say only increases their retention by a small degree. Allowing students to talk about the material with one another and asking them to do something with the content boosts their learning potential dramatically.  

I can already hear some of you thinking to yourselves (or saying aloud), “My students are much better behaved when I stand in front of them and lecture. ”  Perhaps.  You know, babies cry less when they are sound asleep, too.    

Others of you are thinking fondly (and perhaps defensively) about your class discussions, the ones where you are standing in the front and asking your class provocative questions to stimulate conversation. Those may be beneficial to the handful of student who are actively engaged in answering and debating, but what are the other twenty class members doing? (For the record, most of the time I was one of the other twenty class members, and I wrote a lot of letters to friends, doodled on the margins of my notebook, outlined the great American novel I thought I’d write someday, wished I were elsewhere, and dreaded being called upon.)

How about adding a quickwrite before your discussion to allow students to organize and plan out their thoughts? Could the discussion take place in smaller groups within the class so that all students can have the opportunity to contribute?

One of my favorite aspects of AVID’s classroom strategies is the emphasis on student engagement and active learning. Stay tuned throughout the year, and I promise more techniques you can use in your classes to find better answers to the all-important planning question:  “But what are the students doing?”

I challenge you to make your classroom a place where the students do most of the talking, most of the doing, and most of the learning. We shouldn’t be the only ones doing the work in our classrooms, should we?

How to Give Instructions That Kids Will Follow

How many times have you given what you thought were clear instructions only to discover that your students completely misconstrued what you wanted them to do? Or they responded with a billion questions after the fact?

Giving clear instructions can make or break a class activity. Poorly-delivered directions can cause confusion and chaos and can impede success and increase classroom management issues. In the past few years, one of my professional goals has been to work on the oral  instructions I give when I work with students and with adult learners.  I’ve listened, observed, and pondered pitfalls to determine what works and what doesn’t. Here are a few tips teachers can apply if they want to strengthen their direction-giving:

1.  Tell the students where they’re headed.  Remember what life was like before a GPS guided us everywhere?  For a few years, many of us relied on Yahoo Maps and other online tools to provide printed lists of driving directions to get us from here to there. Oftentimes, the detailed instructions were especially confusing if you didn’t look at a map first; it might take five separate steps to explain that you were supposed to get onto the Tollway going southbound. Taking a moment to preview the route could prevent confusion along the way because the driver could use the big-picture idea to make sense of the smaller instructional steps. Previewing the map also could've helped the driver get back on track when an instructional step was missed or misunderstood.  The same idea applies in the classroom. Unless it needs to be a surprise, teachers should probably let their students know what they’re about to do before providing instructions.  It can be something as simple as, “Today we’re going to learn how to use and share a Google Doc, how to create a folder to organize your Google Drive, and how to submit an assignment on Google Classroom,” or, “We’re about to set up our Writing Notebooks.”  Expert direction-givers Gordon Ramsey, Alton Brown, Emeril Lagasse, and Rachel Ray always let their at-home viewers know what they’re concocting before they start throwing ingredients together. Students, like TV-watching wannabe chefs, love knowing what they’re doing before—bam!—the instructions start flying at them.        

2.  Avoid the fillers. Someone at some point in history taught teachers to be too polite:  “Okay, so…Now, what I’d like you to do, if you don’t mind, is to take out a piece of paper—if it’s okay with you—and a pen, preferably, or, if you don’t like pen, a pencil.  I need you to be quiet so that you can hear the next instruction, if you will.”  Some teachers spend so much time apologizing in advance, avoiding giving commands, asking "if you would" or would you please" questions, and sugarcoating their verbiage that the directions get lost in the shuffle.  How about this instead?  “Take out a piece of paper and a pen.”  I don’t think this “harsh” demand is going to damage any students irreparably, and the fewer words we say, the more important each spoken word becomes.

3.  Make sure students are ready to receive instructions before you give instructions.  Don’t tell students how to fill out the top of the scantron while you’re in the middle of handing out the scantrons unless you want half the class to turn in a scantron with no name and no information on it.  Don’t start explaining where to find a Google Form when ten students are still turning on their computers.  Don’t begin instructions when a gaggle of girls is huddled in the corner of the classroom discussing the homecoming dance proposal that occurred during the passing period.  Establish your class routine for getting students’ attention, get their attention, make sure all students have what they need, and then begin your instructions. If you don’t make sure they’re ready, be prepared to repeat yourself or to watch your students invent their own interpretations of the instructions.

4.  Keep the instructions simple and direct.  This one is self-explanatory. Tricky instructions overwhelm learners. Break the procedure down into manageable steps, and state the steps clearly.  Verb + direct object.  “Take out a piece of paper.”  “Fold the paper in half, hotdog style.” “Trade papers with your elbow partner.”  

5.  Provide written instructions, too.  Simplified written steps projected on a screen or on the board can help students who are visual learners or who lag behind. Pare down your written instructions to the most essential wording, and elaborate as needed while you present them orally.

6.  Have a signal so you'll know when to proceed.  "When you've finished marking the text, put your pen down so I know you're ready to proceed." "Sit down in your seats after your entire group has shared their prewrites." Simple visual cues can help you determine when to give the next set of instructions. 

7.  Help the slowpokes catch up by providing “bridge” instructions.  You'll inevitably have a few students who lag behind the rest of the class. Some of them might be dragging their heels because they're unsure of what they are supposed to be doing. I'm fond of adding a little bridge to let everyone know how to catch up with the rest:  "After you've underlined the sentence you think is the main point of the article, write a paraphrase of that sentence in your writer's notebook."  The students who are confused or delayed then know to speed up the previous step and rejoin the class.                         

               

8.  Keep them from jumping the gun.  When you begin giving instructions, some students start before you've finished what you have to say. Starting off with, "Stand up and find a group of three people who don't sit at your table," will cause several students--or the entire class--to leap from their seats to locate their group before you tell them what to do. I recommend giving a cue at the beginning of your instructions to let them know when to begin.  "In about a minute, when I turn on the music..."  "After I finish these instructions, on the count of three...." Providing a clear signal prompting them to begin the activity will keep them in their seats and attentive while you tell them what they need to hear. 

9.  Don’t overload.  We're all guilty from time to time of giving too much information at the beginning, which leads to us having to repeat ourselves later. We begin by saying something innocent like, "Stand up, find a partner, discuss the question on the board, and then draft a summary of your response in your notebook. Then, you're going to list pros and cons for the statement you wrote down." A better approach might begin like this: "When I say 'Go,' stand up and find a solemate--someone who is wearing shoes similar to yours. When you find your partner, stand side-by-side, face me, and quietly wait for the next instruction. Go!"  Once you've ensured that everyone has found a partner, you're ready to continue. 

10. Ask for questions in a way that will get the questions you want.  I've found that "What questions do you have?" works better than "Are there any questions?" This doesn't give the students an easy "no" answer and doesn't presuppose that there will be no questions about your instructions. Even the best instruction givers sometimes leave the students with legitimate unanswered questions. 

The art of giving clear instructions is not easy to master. All of us can continually improve. But if you are mindful of the pointers above, you'll soon find that your students become more compliant and that your classroom runs much more smoothly. 

Now, when I say 'Forward this blog post,' send this to three of your teacher friends who might need help with instruction-giving so they can learn what you just learned.  They will thank you later. 

Thanks for all you do to make your classroom a successful learning environment for all your students. Forward this blog post!

Craig

Why Can’t the Whole Year Be Like the First Day of School?

Why Can’t the Whole Year Be Like the First Day of School?

Two weeks ago, I started a new position as an English Language Arts Instructional Specialist after years of teaching English, Humanities, and/or AVID at Shepton High School. Consequently, Monday was the first first day of school since 1993 that I was not standing up in front of a roomful of teenagers with whom I would spend the next 180 or so days.  Instead, I spent most of the day visiting five middle or high schools around the district, meeting some teachers, and tracking down everyone I’m supposed to support at those schools.

As I stepped in and out of classrooms and walked through the halls, I noticed a few things that seem to be generally true about middle school and high school students and teachers on the first day of school:

• Nearly everyone looks excited to be there.
• Students are eager to please, want to succeed, and are willing to make an effort.
• Teachers are polite, patient, and well-rested.
• Students don’t mind asking adults for help, and the adults don’t seem to mind being helpful.
• The teachers are prepared and organized. So are the students.
• The classrooms are full, but the hallways aren’t.
• No one is failing.

Wouldn’t it be nice, I thought, if most or all of these things were still true in May? I realize that is a Pollyannaish idea, but it’s worth considering. Here are a few thoughts about what teachers might do to make this “schooltopia” a reality:

Nearly everyone looks excited to be there.

My buzzword for the school year is “joy”—so much so that my coworkers keep jokingly asking me “Where’s the joy?” if they happen to catch me with a furrowed brow. I’ve been urging teachers at back-to-school inservices to make their classrooms joyful places for students. “How do I do this?” you may ask: Share your love for your subject. Enjoy the exploration with your students. Laugh. Play. If you’re not having fun, I’m pretty sure your students aren’t either. Find the joy in what you have to teach, and it’ll make coming to class easier for you and for the students.

Students are eager to please, want to succeed, and are willing to make an effort.

In an inspirational and hilarious TED Talk, Rita Pierson said, “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.” They will, however, keep working for a teacher who likes them and believes in them, even when the work gets more challenging.  Although Machiavelli in The Prince suggests that an effective leader strive to be feared rather than loved, I’m not sure that’s the best advice for teachers. Though students may work in a classroom with a climate of fear, they won’t be excited to be there, and they won’t do anything more than required. You can’t make teenagers like you, but you can let them know you like them, which makes it much harder to dislike you in return.    

Teachers are prepared and organized.  So are the students.

Even Pigpen from the Peanuts comic strip had an organized binder and a clutter-free backpack on the first day of class. When students have their time and materials organized, they are primed for success. Help your students with organization, the O in WICOR, by providing them with structures for calendaring and keeping up with assignments and classwork. When teachers are prepared and organized, the classes run more smoothly, more learning occurs, teachers are calmer, and there are fewer disciplinary issues because lessons move seamlessly from one activity to the next, giving students no down time to cause trouble or get bored. Also, calm teachers are happy teachers, which makes them infinitely more tolerant and patient. 

Teachers are polite, patient, and well-rested.

You may be the only adult in a student’s life who reacts to the world in an adult manner. Show students how to treat others through your actions. Handle conflicts and disciplinary issues with logic and maturity. Take care of yourself. Get plenty of rest. Breathe more often than you think you need to.  When we get stressed and overwhelmed, we become less patient and pleasant. Remember that your students are not fully-formed adults, so they will do things that will test your every last ounce of self-restraint. Be the adult who responds calmly and pleasantly.

Students don’t mind asking adults for help, and the adults don’t seem to mind being helpful.

Is your classroom a place where students can ask questions safely? Do you encourage students to take risks? Is a struggling student an opportunity or an imposition? When a student comes in with a question, do you stop what you’re doing and help? Making your classroom a safe place to learn, to mess up, to explore, to get frustrated, and to ask for help is a key to making learning happen. 

The classrooms are full, but the hallways aren’t.

After years of seeing students wandering the halls without a sense of purpose or urgency, I have concluded that most of the students in the halls don’t really have to go to the restroom.  They’re just bored and restless.  Make your classroom a fun place to be so they’ll want to stay there. Ensure that they feel the time spent in your room is worthwhile and that they’ll miss something important if they aren’t there. And utilize state changes and activities that involve movement frequently so they can get the wiggles out in your room and not have to roam. 

No one is failing.

Isn’t it great when students feel successful? The beginning of the semester offers hope to all. As our gradebooks fill up, however, we chip away at the self-esteem of some of our students as they find themselves unsuccessful and increasingly see the futility of trying to dig their way out of the hole. I think, though, that if teachers work on the other six items on this list, they will create an environment that makes failure less desirable, encourages students to work harder and seek help when their efforts aren’t paying off, and maximizes success for all students.

I can already hear the naysayers telling me that these things could never happen. I concede that they’re probably right.  But isn’t it worth making an effort to make things perfect even if we don’t quite achieve perfection?

Thanks for the work you’re doing and will continue doing to help shape the future positively.

Have a wonderful new school year!

Craig