What If Every Student Wrote in Every Class Every Day?

Sometimes I like to dream big dreams. I revel in “What if?” scenarios. What if everyone on the planet got along? What if teachers got paid according to how difficult their job actually is? What if I had a dollar for every time a kid asked to borrow a pencil and then didn’t return it?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what might happen in schools if every student wrote every day in every class. I know. It’s a crazy idea. But, as I said, I like to dream big dreams. If teachers in all subject areas—math, science, social studies, English, fine arts, LOTE, physical education, career and technical education—made it their mission to insert just a little bit of writing into their daily lesson plans, the results would be astonishing.

If every student wrote every day in every class, here’s what might happen:

Students would become more confident writers. Writing— like most things that are worth doing well—takes practice, and the more you do it, the better you get. Students don’t have to write formal papers (which, let’s face it, should be special-occasion experiences) in order to improve as writers. Quickwrites, short answers, explanatory paragraphs, summaries, and letters to the teacher (or other students) are all ways of practicing writing within academic disciplines. The simple act of stringing words together to make sentences and adding additional sentences until something emerges that makes sense builds confidence and self-efficacy.

Teachers would have a better idea of what students know and don’t know. Asking students to explain something in writing gives a glimpse into their understanding in a way that is more complete and nuanced than a multiple choice question or thumbs-up/thumbs-down or fist-to-five physical response. Writing is an easy-to-implement formative assessment tool at any point in the lesson cycle. Having students write what they already know about a topic prior to instruction can give teachers an idea of where to begin teaching the entire class or which students will need differentiation, either enrichment or remediation. Pausing mid-lesson to allow students to explain how they reached a solution or solved a problem can provide insight into their thought processes and help the teacher diagnose gaps in understanding. An exit ticket summarizing the day’s essential question on a notecard provides instantaneous feedback about whether students “got it” so teachers will know whether to move on or revisit the concept tomorrow.

Blank pages and blank stares would become things of the past. Like a car that’s been sitting undriven for a few months, many student writers have trouble getting started when they are asked to write. Once students start writing every day in every class, their batteries remain fully charged, and the ideas emerge much more readily. This is especially true when frequent writing activities are low-stakes, ones in which getting ideas down on paper doesn’t come with the “gotcha” of a grade attached. Writing in a fearful state is paralyzing. Writing (sans pressure) to explore what you think about a topic is freeing. Not every idea that comes out of your pen (or shows up on your screen) is going to be brilliant, but putting ideas into the world every day increases the odds that you’ll produce something worth saying.

Classroom conversations would be better. Writing before talking helps us generate ideas and clarify our thinking. How often, before a difficult conversation, do we write out and rehearse what we have to say to increase the chances of it coming out as intended? Similarly, allowing students to write a response to a question before a classroom discussion has several advantages. First, it provides every student a chance to wrestle with the thinking instead of sitting back and waiting for the loudmouth in the room to answer the question orally, freeing them from any obligation to think for themselves. Second, it gives students a chance to try out their ideas, to have some “think time,” and to organize their response before being asked to share it aloud. Whether or not the student is called on to respond, the student has done some thinking, and that’s what’s most important in an educational setting.

The quality of student writing would improve, which means, among other things, that writing test scores would increase. The more you write, the better you write. If you write every day, throughout the day, you’re bound to get better. Instead of complaining that “these kids can’t write” and focusing on inadequacies, teachers should consider providing numerous opportunities for writing and offering encouragement to reinforce what’s good. Praise-hungry students will latch onto the traits that receive positive feedback, and, eventually, their writing will get better. When the quality and quantity of student writing improves and anxiety about writing withers, the writing they’re asked to produce on-demand for standardized tests will seem less daunting. It’s just another thing we’re asked to write, right? No big deal. What will be a big deal is the amount of time educators can spend focusing on exploring meaningful content rather than tedious test preparation.  

The school will develop a culture of literacy. Where the written word is valued, learning thrives. When students see that all teachers—not just the English teachers—care about writing, they’ll care more, too. Soon, you’ll hear discussions about what writing looks like in various content areas, how writing in science looks different than writing in social studies or English. Disciplinary literacy will shape students to become more thoughtful, purposeful writers and more curious readers. Students will write for real-world audiences and will be eager to let their powerful voices be heard. Building a culture of literacy sets all students up for real-world success in whatever the future holds for them because those who can read perceptively and write with precision have the power to influence others, to get what they want, and to achieve whatever they dream.   

Teachers would spend more time grading. Wait! That’s not true. The kind of writing I’m talking about is mostly ungraded and doesn’t require out-of-class teacher feedback. When students write daily in school, they’re mostly engaging in writing to learn (also known as learning through writing), which is about acquiring the knowledge and skills, not being assessed as right or wrong. It’s more about doing the writing (and the associated thinking) rather than receiving a reward for correctness or compliance. And there’s a likelihood that students will write down some incorrect or misguided ideas on their pathways to mastery, which shouldn’t be penalized because making mistakes is a healthy part of learning. Students should be writing more than we could possibly read anyway. Shifting the audience away from the teacher gives students a more potent motivation for writing well and communicating clearly. When, and if, teachers grade and comment on writing, many other readers should have seen and provided constructive feedback on that piece previously. Content-area teachers who fear being unqualified to assess student writing should free themselves from some of that pressure. It’s not your job to be a copy editor and fix every grammatical error. Focus on what makes sense. Question what doesn’t. When you focus on meaning, any time you spend reading and responding to student writing will be more pleasurable; it will be a conversation between you and your students about what they think about their learning. And that is fascinating.

I realize that asking teachers to add a bit of writing to their lessons is encouraging risk-taking and stepping outside of comfort zones. I acknowledge that my dream isn’t likely to come true on most campuses. I know, however, that students don’t write enough in school, and I’ve seen how learning-through-writing strategies can transform classrooms into active, vibrant, student-centered communities of scholars. You probably don’t have the power to control what goes on in others’ classrooms, but you have control over what goes on in yours. Any bit of writing you add is more than your students would have done without you.  Help me make my big dream come true.

If I Had a Hammer

A hammer is a useful thing to know how to use. If you gave me a claw hammer and taught me to use it, I could do a lot of things: hang a picture, nail together a couple of boards, pry a nail out of something. Once I learned how to use a claw hammer, I might be able to figure out how to use other types of hammers—ball peen hammers, club hammers, sledge hammers—which would enable me to accomplish many more tasks.

As I added hammers to my toolbox, it would be useful to know what each is used for, its strengths and weaknesses, so if a hammering task arose, I could select the best hammer for the job.

But what if I needed to cut a 2x4 in half?

A hammer won’t be of any use in this situation. I would also need access to and understanding of saws—miter, jig, band, hack, hand, circular—so I would know which one would best meet my need.

A toolbox with only one tool in it isn’t much use. Having many tools but no knowledge of how and when to use them is equally useless. Likewise, if I never build anything myself, what’s the use of having tools at all?

These three points relate to much of what we do in the classroom. As we try to equip our students with what they need to accomplish our learning objectives, we have to consider these truths. 

A toolbox with only one tool in it isn’t much use. Sometimes we give our students a tool or strategy, hoping to help them but inadvertently limiting them. In writing, for instance, we might give students an organizational structure or template for writing an essay. When reading, we might provide them with a set of steps for annotating a text. For note-taking, we might teach them a format—Cornell Notes, for instance. Each of these tools is useful and worthwhile in some situations, but when we try to force every student to use the same tool in all circumstances, problems arise. A far better idea is to provide students with several strategies, multiple tools for their academic toolbox. There are many acceptable ways to organize almost any essay. Good readers use a number of annotation strategies to make sense of what they read. And sometimes two- or three-column notes, sketchnotes, graphic organizers, and traditional outlines are more useful than Cornell Notes for certain purposes.  

Having many tools but no knowledge of how and when to use them is equally useless. Suppose we fill our students’ toolboxes with strategies but don’t teach them what to do with them. Suppose we make all the decisions—use this tool for this and this one for this—rather than asking our students to select among a variety of tools and defend their decision. We should share with students the pros and cons of each tool as we introduce it and later let the students decide which to use for whatever task is at hand. I’m a believer that classrooms need to be full of strategic discussions: developing plans, testing hypotheses, creating blueprints for learning, and debriefing often. The teacher can’t be the one doing all the strategizing, though. When students develop the autonomy to determine which organizational structure matches what they have to say in their essay, which annotation method will work best for the type of text and purpose for reading, and which note-taking format will help them achieve their objective for taking notes, they have become independent learners who can handle whatever challenges the world of college or career throws at them. They are master craftsmen and craftswomen who can take charge of their own learning.  

If I never build anything myself, what’s the use of having tools at all? It’s sad when kids know how to take notes but never need to take them. It’s equally unfortunate to have reading skills but nothing to read, writing skills with no opportunity to try them out on real-world audiences. We need to make sure the tools we give our students are going to be used. With the best of intentions, we often circumvent the actual development of students’ skills by shouldering most of the cognitive work ourselves. We provide fill-in-the-blank essay templates for students who don’t need them. Or we decide not to assign writing at all. We summarize reading instead of asking students to work their way through it; equally shameful, we give study questions and reading guides that students can answer without having to actually read the text. We ask students to take notes for the sake of taking notes rather than taking notes that are necessary to accomplish a learning objective. It’s our obligation to provide students with reasons to use the tools we teach them, to give them something to build with those tools.

With some deliberate planning, we can become educators who equip our students with the right tools, teach them how and when to use them, and then give them reasons to dig into their toolboxes. Before we know it, our students will become handy in ways we never imagined, thinking of new things to build and collecting additional tools on their own to help them build them.

11 Reasons to Love Sentence Frames and Stems

Sentence frames and stems are versatile, adaptable, and powerful. In case you are unfamiliar with the concept, here are some examples:

Sentence frames are _____ because they not only ______ but they also _______.

One reason I think sentence stems are useful is. . .

Although I usually use sentence frames for _______, I could also use them for ______.

You may not love these like I do. . . yet. I hope you will after you read this list of 11 reasons to love sentence frames and stems:

1.  Sentence stems can turn a question into a complete answer. You can ask a question, flip it into a statement, and give it to your students as a prompt to get them accustomed to providing complete responses to your questions. (Ex.  Why are sentence frames helpful?  Sentence frames are helpful because. . .).

2.  Sentence frames encourage students to write increasingly complicated sentences. By providing students with a framework for linking several ideas together like mature writers do, students can see their ideas come to life in sophisticated ways. With repeated practice, these patterns will become more natural.

3.  English language learners and native speakers with developing language skills can see how the words they know fit together in sentences. Learning a bunch of vocabulary words isn’t useful until you can use those words in grammatically correct sentences. If I were learning Spanish, a sentence frame such as “Me gustan _______ pero no me gusta ______” could help me like and dislike all kinds of things until I could form sentences of my own without support. .

4.  Teachers can build their students’ academic vocabulary by providing stems and frames that use words they want their students to use. A stem like “The thing I like best about the book is. . . “ can be beefed up with spicier vocabulary: “The most outstanding aspect of the novel is. .  .” or “A noteworthy characteristic of this novel is. . . .”

5.  Sentence frames are phenomenal discussion starters. Students who might be reluctant to speak in a group or in front of the class may have more courage to try if they have a frame or stem to guide their speaking, and they’ll be impressed at how smart they sound.

6.  Using stems and frames for speaking improves academic language usage, and when students become more adept at using words they see across content areas and discipline-specific vocabulary, they begin writing and speaking like scholars.

7. Students who are more comfortable using academic language (see #6 above) know and can use the words they see on standardized tests without having to take mind-numbing practice tests or doing tedious test-prep packets.

8. Writing, reading, and speaking are inextricably linked. As students practice writing and speaking using stems, they acquire building blocks of language that will help them be more skilled readers.

9.  Students will quit speaking and writing in fragments and simple sentences.

10.  They are a technique for differentiation. Sentence frames are like training wheels for writing and speaking. Students who need them can use them to practice, and once they can communicate effectively without them, they no longer have to use them.

11. Agreeing, disagreeing, asking a follow-up question, introducing a new idea, offering an alternative perspective, and building on another’s idea are all important aspects of college- and career communication that are challenging for students. Having a handy list of stems categorized by their function gives students the framework they need to incorporate these elements into class discussions. You may even find that students start linking ideas together more smoothly in their writing.

Whatever level of learners you work with, sentence frames and stems can be useful in jump-starting conversation, upping the quality of language usage, and helping people express their ideas. If you haven’t used them, give them a try. It doesn’t have to be a big production or ordeal; simply put the stem or frame you want students to learn on the screen or board for all to see. Consider giving students several options of stems to choose from.

Pretty soon, you’ll discover that sentence stems and frames have made your students _________  ____________, ___________  _________, and _______  _______!

We All Deserve a Break

I don’t know who is more excited about Spring Break bring right around the corner: the students or the teachers. We all need and deserve a break. 

The spring semester is relentless. After the tease of a not-quite-two-week winter vacation, January hits with a vengeance. There’s no adjustment period like there is at the beginning of school. We hit the ground running and charge into February, the shortest month with the most stuff crammed into it. Add to that the perils of flu season and all the turmoil that accompanies avoiding getting sick, actually being sick, recovering from  actually being sick, trying to catch up all you missed while you were sick, and helping everyone else catch up from the school days they missed because they were sick. The sun goes on an extended holiday. Days are cold, and those that aren’t cold are dreary in other ways. Grades have been accumulating for weeks, and the day of reckoning is near. Meanwhile, students think summer is a lot closer than it is and haven’t realized the consequences of shutting down early with months remaining in the year. We definitely need a week off. 

Breaks are important, and not just the ones that involve spending time away from school. Taking breaks within the class period keeps students fresh and vibrant so they can keep going strong as we ask them to do the hard work of learning. I’ve written before about brain breaks. These tiny pauses in instruction re-energize students and allow them to reset before diving back into the tasks at hand.  

While I continue to support the idea of providing regular brain breaks, my thinking on what these breaks should look like has evolved over time. In a classroom where every minute is precious and so many objectives must be met over the course of a unit, a semester, or a year, I suggest we stop thinking about brain breaks and start considering how to incorporate more state changes into our lessons. 

Breaks imply the need to get away from what we are doing. Breaks are escapes. Breaks don’t involve work. We need breaks from things we find grueling, tedious, and miserable. If I say, “Let’s take a break because you guys have been writing for the last 30 minutes,” I am acknowledging that writing is a terrible task, one you’d be a fool to enjoy doing (which is not the truth, though some of you are nodding your heads in agreement). If the subsequent break has nothing whatsoever to do with writing or English, I not only send the message that there’s nothing fun about the subject I teach but I also cause students who were in the zone to lose their momentum. After our raucous rock, paper, scissors tournament, getting students to settle back down and write for the remainder of the period might be an impossibility. The brain break I gave my students was an enjoyable mini-vacation, and now they have to return to the workhouse with a sense of Monday morning dread. 

State changes, on the other hand, don’t have to be departures from the curriculum. Think of them as variations on how the work is being done. If the students have been silent for a while, let them talk. If they’ve been stationary, get them up and moving. If they’ve been reading, let them write, speak, or draw. State changes are the crux of good teaching, whether you are working with kids or adults. Doing the same thing in the same way for too long creates the educational equivalent of bedsores.  

If I were teaching a class where students had been hard at work writing for half an hour, a state change would allow them to reset their brains. In this writing class scenario, a state change might look like one of these:

• Stand up and talk with your neighbor about what you’re writing. Neighbor, your job is to ask one question to get your partner to think more deeply about what he or she is writing.
• Go back to the beginning of your paper and read it aloud to yourself in a whisper. 
• Get out of your chair, paper in hand. Read your writing aloud to yourself. Every time you begin a new paragraph, turn 90 degrees clockwise. (This reminds students of the importance of paragraphing and makes them think more deliberately about the organization of their writing.)
• Switch papers with a neighbor. Read your neighbor’s paper. Find one thing the writer did that you love and one thing you have a question about. Be prepared to share them with the writer.
• Think about a goal you’d like to work on for the remainder of the writing period today. Write it down on a sticky note. Stand and share your goal with someone sitting nearby. Now place that sticky note on the corner of your desk so I will know what you’re working on and can conference with you about it if needed.  
• Roll your head around in a circle and think about the main idea of your essay. Roll it the other direction and consider how you are communicating that main idea to the reader. Massage your writing hand with your other hand and contemplate the words you might be using repeatedly in your writing and brainstorm other words you can use to keep your writing varied and interesting. Roll your shoulders forward in circles and think about how you are linking your ideas together in your writing. Roll your shoulders backward and visualize what comes next in your paper. Now get back to writing. 

Each of these state changes allows students to think more deeply about their writing while doing something different to give their brain a rest from the actual act of writing. Each of these supports my goals as an educator. Each one prepares the students to continue to work productively on their writing for the remainder of class. 

State changes can also be an excellent time to review content and connect learning. In a math class, I might ask the students to pause for a mental math break, having them calculate a running total in their heads as I give them instructions: “Multiply 7 and 6. Divide that total in half. Add four.  Divide by five. Multiply by 12.” I might ask students to explain a definition or a process to another student. If students had been taking notes, I could ask them to stop and summarize their notes orally, to sketch a picture representing what they just learned, or to pose a question about the notes. 

Allegedly, adults have attention spans of 10 to 20 minutes. Children and teens have shorter ones. State changes acknowledge this reality and accomodate for it. Like readjusting your car seat in the midst of a long drive or changing the radio station to a different style of music, state changes awaken the brain, keep you alert, and allow you to keep going. 

State changes make the time in class more tolerable so that full-scale breaks aren’t needed as frequently. If you’re not already doing so, take a look at your daily lessons and consider how you can build in frequent state changes to refocus your students and allow them to approach learning in many ways. Writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization, and reading—the five key components of AVID’s WICOR acronym—inspire options for state changes that will reinvigorate your students after the break so they can keep going until the end of the year.   

Sometimes, however, like right now, people like you need more than just a state change. You need a vacation. Enjoy your hard-earned break, and make the most of it. You and your students deserve it. 

Everyone's Jobs

“I’m sorry. I can’t help you. That’s not my job.”

That’s what the A/V guy said to me before he left me in the room with a computer that wouldn’t play the audio on a video I was supposed to show. I was working as a presenter at a conference in downtown Chicago, and this was my first experience with labor unions.

What I didn’t know is that audio and visual belong to two different unions. The organizers at the conference had to hire two sets of workers to support its presenters in technology. The so-called A/V guy was in actuality just a V guy. He belonged to the video union. He could help me with anything involving the video aspect of my presentation, but he wasn’t allowed to touch the audio stuff, which was the realm of the A guy, who happened to be elsewhere when I needed his technical support. Meanwhile, the trash collectors’ union was on strike, so stinky bags of garbage piled up on streets in front of shops and in alleyways. No one was allowed to do anyone else’s work. That was the rule. “It’s not my job” was something we heard a lot that week.

I wonder how often we adopt that not-my-job mentality in education. In Texas public schools, we don’t have unions, but it seems like we are quick to disavow any teaching task that doesn’t fall neatly into our subject or specialization area.  

Here are five areas which, as I see it, are the jobs of every adult in a school to teach, no matter what:

1.  It’s everyone’s job to teach reading.  I hope I’m not the first person to tell you that reading needs to happen frequently in every classroom.  If we are preparing students for their futures, which will likely include at least some post-secondary education and a career, we must make them competent, confident readers who are able to comprehend and think about texts. That means not pre-digesting material for them and spitting it into their mouths like a momma bird. That means providing students with rich, high-interest content-area texts and giving them the tools to comprehend them in authentic ways—not study questions, packets, and worksheets. That means having discussions with students about what to do when they struggle with a word’s meaning (hint: the answer isn’t always “look it up in the dictionary,” but that’s an okay option if you’ve exhausted other possibilities), what to do when they realize that their comprehension has broken down, and how to adjust their approach for various reading purposes. You don’t have to have a degree in reading to do this; if you know how to read (which I assume you do if you’ve made it this far into this article), you have the skills to help kids get better at reading. They’re not going to get better at reading unless they read, and if reading only happens in their language arts class, that’s probably not enough practice to lead to growth. Make it part of your job to help your students improve as readers.

2.  It’s everyone’s job to teach writing.  For some reason, writing scares teachers, even English teachers.  Can we all just agree that the ability to write with clarity is an essential academic skill as well as an essential skill for most careers?  If so, we need to get over our collective fear and start implementing writing in our classes on a routine basis. This doesn’t mean we have to start writing research papers in math class. Teachers can easily incorporate writing as a learning tool in any content area. Start with something simple like a quick write or an exit ticket. Give students something engaging to think about to introduce a lesson and have them write about it before discussing it with the class. Ask students to explain a concept or a process in writing. I can hear what you’re thinking now: “I am not a writing expert. I wouldn’t know how to grade writing. I have forgotten all about grammar. What if I teach them the wrong things?” Put those doubts and fears aside. Here’s the only question you need to ask yourself to be a competent writing teacher: “Does it make sense?”  More important than any feedback you can give is the opportunity for students to write in every class multiple times a week. Show them real-world examples of what writing looks like in your subject area and ask them to identify the traits and qualities they notice. Help them come up with rubrics and indicators of excellence.  Most importantly, give them opportunities to write. I can tell you from experience that the more frequently we write, the easier it gets. Make it part of your job to give your students plenty of practice writing.

3.  It’s everyone’s job to teach critical thinking. The world requires us to solve problems every day. Math class shouldn’t be the only place where students solve problems at school. Providing students with coaching on how to analyze situations, break complex tasks into parts, generate and test solutions, and evaluate the outcomes will help build independent critical thinkers. Breaking everything down for students and reducing everything to a set of pre-thought-out steps may help students learn to follow directions, but it won’t do much to assist them when they encounter difficulties that can’t be solved using the previously learned recipe. That’s why we all need to make sure teaching critical thinking is part of our job.

4.  It’s everyone’s job to teach persistence and perseverance.  When life gets rough, it’s important to keep going. Shouting “Don’t give up!” and “Push through it” at kids doesn’t do the trick for most. Teaching students to have grit requires two things. First, you have to provide them with worthwhile challenges, ones that are meaningful to work toward but are not easy. In most instances, what challenges one person doesn’t challenge another, so it’s advisable to plan several tiers of difficulty to provide appropriate rigor for each student. Second, you have to be upfront about normalizing difficulty and openly discussing with students ways of dealing with struggle. Provide exemplars of others coping with challenges. Offer second and third chances. Stop mid-problem and strategize with your students. Make your class a safe space to take risks. Point out your students’ resilient moves as you witness them. Celebrate successes when they come. Like reading, writing, and critical thinking, teaching persistence and perseverance should also be part of your job.  

5.  It’s everyone’s job to teach kids to be decent human beings. They’re not learning it from the media. They may or may not be learning it at home. And, some aren’t learning it from their friends. The list of life lessons in the “decent human being” curriculum is long and multifaceted. Get along with others. Share your toys. Learn to win and lose with grace. Take an interest in others. Take responsibility for the world around you and for the public good. Communicate. Be honest, trustworthy, and upstanding. Listen more than you speak. Do the right thing, even when no one is going to know about it. Be kind, patient, and polite. Treat one another with respect. Don’t let the world tread on you. Speak out when you see injustice. Earn the admiration of others for being a person of integrity. The list could go on for pages. If every educator modeled these traits, reinforced them in norms and class expectations, and took advantage of teachable moments to guide students to grow as humans, not just as learners, we’d be making unimaginable impacts on the future. Indeed, teaching kids to be decent human beings should be everyone’s job, too.

It looks like I’ve dumped a lot on your plate. The good news about these is that none of these is an extra prep; all of them can be easily worked into your existing curriculum. In many cases, I suspect you’ll find that the additions actually enhance what you are already teaching. Reading, writing, and thinking critically about your content will all deepen students’ understanding, and teaching students to be good people who don’t give up easily will pay off in greater success for students who are more delightful to spend time with. If we make these everyone’s jobs, together we can achieve incredible results.

20 Questions: A Note-taking Self-Quiz

20 Questions  
A Note-taking Self-Quiz

Answer the following questions about your reading and note-taking from a textbook. The “best practice” answer for each question is “yes.” If you’re struggling with note-taking and studying, consider ways you might change some of your “no” answers to “yes.”.  

While reading:   

1. Do you preview the chapter before reading to get an overview of how the author has organized it?

2.  Do you read in an environment that is free of distractions (no television, music, text messages, computer interruptions, etc.)?

3.  Do you think while you read? (You should be actively working to construct meaning and understand as you read.)

4.  Do you leave white space in your notes so you can add more information or make connections later?

5.  Do you abbreviate whenever possible?

6.  Do you avoid writing complete sentences in your notes, focusing instead on phrases, words, or pictures?

7.  Do your notes reflect the organization of the chapter?  Do you write the names of sections?  

8.  Can a person looking at your notes distinguish main ideas from supporting details?

9.  Do you try to see the big ideas in the reading?  Are you thinking about how the author organized the chapter, why the author included specific information, how ideas compare and contrast, etc.?

10.  Are you categorizing the information or grouping the information by theme (ie. social, political, economic; causes, effects) as you read?

11.  Are you avoiding minutia (tiny details or trivia like dates and statistics)?

12.  Do you look for cues in the text (“the most important reason…”, “another cause…”, “three goals…”)?

13.  Do you put info in a chart, picture, or diagram when useful to do so?

14.  Are you thinking about your notes as a reminder of what you learned in your reading rather than as a storage place for information you didn’t take the time to put in your brain?

15.  Do you think about why people, events, examples, etc. are important?

16.  Are your notes legible?   

After reading (steps that lead to long-term learning):   

17.  Do you review and revise your notes after taking them (preferably before class)?  Are you underlining or highlighting key terms? Putting stars by important ideas? Color-coding your notes?

18.  Do you write higher-level questions about your notes after reviewing and revising them?

19.  Do you summarize the notes as a whole after writing questions?   

20.  Can you use your notes to retell the story of the chapter?

Giving Myself Feedback on Giving My Students Feedback

Imagine the worst football coach ever. He watches his team play a losing season but waits until the very end of the final game to let the players know everything they’ve done wrong in each game. As the team is getting chewed out and lectured, they feel terrible about what they’ve done. They feel like failures (though the scores on the scoreboard also have given them some hint of that all along), some want to quit and never play again, and even if they wanted to change and improve, it’s too late now. The games have been played and the record books are closed.

In my English classes, I was sometimes like that coach. I let my students work on pieces of writing, gave them little guidance beyond the initial assignment and perhaps a skills lesson at the beginning, and then collected their completed papers, which I spent hours of my outside-of-school life grading. It was like a second job, and I was the manager who was writing hundreds of scathing employee evaluations. My students received their grades--usually not as high as they’d hoped for--along with countless corrections and frustratedly scribbled comments explaining how far they had fallen short of my expectations. And that was that. No wonder many students shut down and began to view themselves as failures. I had prevented any hope of a growth mindset taking hold. Except for the most resilient and determined ones who sought help to pull their grades up, most of my students decided then and there that writing was a skill they just weren’t any good at, and they lost all hope for future improvement.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately about the feedback we give our students. I have yet to find one expert in the field who says that the time and effort I spent writing comments on my students’ finished papers was worth it. I should have known that already. My students had already given me the feedback I needed in the form of crumpled up essays left in the trashcan or abandoned on the classroom floor. They weren’t planning to use my comments to help them improve; mostly, they resented me for writing them.

Several things were problematic about the way I was approaching writing in my classes. First, I had created a culture where the grade was the one important goal. Learning and improvement were not on the students’ radar screens at all. Second, I didn’t realize when the feedback was necessary and welcome: along the way as the students were doing the writing. I should have been working feverishly while my students were writing, holding brief conferences with each student to pinpoint precise moves that would help that student along the way, and I should have spent much less out-of-class time scrawling comments on student papers. Of course, this was often impossible because much of my students’ writing time occurred at home where I was not available for assessment. My class time, I thought, was too precious to waste on allowing students to sit there and write. Finally, I mistakenly believed that it was my job to rewrite my students’ papers for them, to use my expert editing and revision skills to spot and correct every error and to reword, reorganize, and clarify their writing for them. It was a rigorous mental exercise for me; my students, however, learned nothing from it.  

I’m embarrassed now as I think back on some of the types of comments I wrote on student papers. Here are some of the types of things I said and what I really meant:

What I wrote: Why didn’t you [whatever thing you were supposed to have done but didn’t]? We talked about this in class!

What I meant: By “we talked about it,” I mean that I mentioned it to the class as part of my lecture on things to include in your paper. Why didn’t you do the thing I told you to do but never checked to see if you knew how nor even understood what I was saying. Though I didn’t let you do any thinking about this on your own or process this skill with other students, I am still holding you fully accountable for this concept.

_____________________________

What I wrote:  Fragment!

What I meant:  I know the difference between a fragment and a complete sentence, and I have just proven that by pointing it out on your paper. Apparently, you have not mastered this skill, and it’s probably because I didn’t spend any time allowing you to explore this grammatical concept with any guidance.

____________________________

What I wrote:  (I didn’t write any words here; I just circled a bunch of errors, added some necessary commas, and corrected some capitalization issues)

What I meant: Proofreading is the most important thing, and you don’t do it well. In fact, it’s more important than the ideas you are writing about or whether your writing communicates its intended message. Since I have clearly spent a ton of time finding every error and correcting it in red pen, you can just make the changes that I’ve made for you on your original draft and know that your paper will be better. I just hope you’re learning about punctuation and capitalization while you make those changes.

__________________________

What I wrote: Good job! Nice! Excellent!

What I meant: I have access to a thesaurus so that I can give you many positive words that are actually rather vague and don’t let you know what you have done that has met my approval. I hope you’re a mind reader so you’ll know to keep doing those things in future essays.

__________________________

What I wrote: Weak thesis.

What I meant:  You may have noticed that I wrote this on nearly every student’s paper in the class. I taught it. Why didn’t you or anyone else get it? Surely it couldn’t be my fault, right?

__________________________

What I wrote: You need to [whatever I think the student should have done instead of what the student did…].

What I meant: Obviously, I know best, and this has become my paper instead of yours. Writing is a science, not an art, and it’s full of rights and wrongs. What you did was wrong. I’m not going to make suggestions or ask you questions to help you make the best choice; I’m going to issue a commandment.  Your omnipotent teacher has spoken.  

__________________________

I could go on, but I will spare you the gory details.

In hindsight, I could have been more thoughtful about the way I worded much of my feedback in written comments and in conversations with my students. My feedback frequently took the form of “you” statements and commands (“You should…,” “Move this…,” “Don’t…”). In my writing interactions with student writers, I now try to focus on “I” statements:

• “I see what you’re trying to do here, but I’m a bit confused by what you mean.”
• “I’d love to hear more about this.”
• “I am a little unclear about how this quotation relates to the point you’re trying to make.”
• “I generally expect to find a thesis statement somewhere in the first paragraph of an essay, but I’m not sure which sentence you’re intending to be your thesis.”  

Statements such as these put the writer in the driver’s seat and make my comments seem a lot less like attacks. I’m speaking as a reader who is interested in what the writer has to say and is sharing reactions with her. I hope that my reader responses will prompt the writer to think about the choices she made and to consider making some changes to help other readers.

Improving the quality of my written feedback is one step toward improvement, but I think there are still better ways to achieve the results I wanted. If I had been more intentional about providing feedback along the way rather than at the end of the writing process, I could have had small conferences with students to address the aspects of their writing that would produce the most improvement in the moment. If I noticed that several students were experiencing the same difficulty, I could have stopped class for a bit to teach a quick  mini-lesson to address this common issue. Then I could have followed up with any students who needed some individual attention to master that concept as they practiced.

On mornings like today as I leave my car and walk into work, I see and hear the Vines High School marching band practicing on the parking lot across the street. Their director, whose comments I often hear as he addresses his students on a loudspeaker from atop his observation tower, offers excellent feedback in the moment. He’s consistently encouraging but meticulous as he pinpoints his musicians’ point of confusion, gives them some instruction or advice, and then asks them to retry the trouble spot and make the necessary adjustments. I imagine he gets exactly the results he seeks.

I wish I had been more deliberate at offering that sort of feedback for my students when they needed it most rather than waiting until the end and providing them with a lengthy list of problems to address.

Like many teachers, I struggled with assessment and providing feedback and did what I thought I was supposed to do. I wasn’t deliberately negligent and certainly put in ample effort, but I seldom saw the growth and results I hoped to achieve. I needed to remember that I was a coach too--a writing coach--and that timeouts and halftime pep talks were necessary to redirect my students, to pump them up when they were feeling defeated, and to send them back into the game with a plan to lead themselves to victory.

The One-Week WICOR Challenge

One of the best ways to take AVID schoolwide and promote top-quality learning for every student in every classroom is to pay attention to the strategies you’re using to engage your students. By taking my One-Week WICOR Challenge, you can become aware of how frequently and consistently you’re using AVID’s five components of instruction (writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization, and reading) with your students.

How do I take the One-Week WICOR Challenge?

I’m glad you asked. Simply make a chart, one for each prep you teach, with the days of the week and the five parts of WICOR on it (or you can use mine here). As you go through your week, take note of when and how you address each of the five areas.

For instance, if your students read an article, discuss it with a partner, and then write a summary of what they discussed, you’ve just used reading, collaboration, and writing. Write what you did on your chart.

This link will take you to a printable handout listing many aspects of WICOR, just in case you want some clarification of the types of strategies that fall under each category.

What do I do with this once I’m finished?

You don’t have to do anything with it. The AVID police aren’t going to storm your classroom to ask for verification of your WICOR activity. What I’d suggest, however, is that you use the chart as a self-diagnostic to guide you in planning for your class.

Good instruction addresses all areas of WICOR, but some teachers have a hard time including all of them in their lessons. If you notice that you’ve had two days in a row with no student collaboration, perhaps it’s time to work in an activity--big or small--that allows students to talk with a partner or trio. If you discover that students seldom write in your class, consider asking students to write a few sentences to summarize what they’re learning and hand it in as an exit card. When test time rolls around, if you’re not doing it already, think about helping students understand how to study for your course--an act that involves organization of time, materials, and content as well as inquiry.

If you discover that you’re using a balance of  WICOR strategies routinely in your class, pat yourself on the back and know that you’re helping campus efforts to take AVID schoolwide. Your students and your AVID Site Team will thank you!

RAMPing Up the Rigor

Kids need to write, right?

They’re not going to get better at it if they don’t do it. Frequently. In every class.

You may be thinking to yourself, “But I’m not a writing teacher. I wasn’t taught how to teach writing. I’m not a confident writer myself. How can I possibly teach my students how to write?”

Relax a moment. I know that if you’ve read this far, you know how to read. You probably have even identified that I used a few sentence fragments in the preceding paragraphs, and you may or may not have been comfortable with my decision to do so. But since I know you know how to read, I also know that you can read a student’s writing and tell whether it makes sense and whether it says something. That’s the first step--and the most important one--to becoming a teacher whose students write.

I’m not asking you to become a writing teacher if you’re not one already and if the class you teach doesn’t require it. What I am asking is that, no matter what you teach, you ask your students to write.   

To help you make this happen, I’m going to clue you in on a little tip, an acronym many English teachers use that will jumpstart your ability to design interesting and rigorous writing: RAMP.  

RAMP stands for Role, Audience, Mode, and Purpose. These are four elements students can identify for themselves when they are dissecting a writing prompt:

Role: What persona or perspective am I adopting as a writer?  

Audience:  To whom or for whom am I writing?

Mode: What type of writing am I being asked to do (category and genre/format)? Probable types include narrative, expository, and persuasive.

Purpose:  Why am I writing this?

As I mentioned above, many teachers use this to help students determine what they’re supposed to do in response to a writing prompt. Decisions regarding word choice, degree of formality, organization, and content relate directly to the four elements of RAMP. I’m going to write in a different style if I’m writing a formal lab report for publication in a chemistry journal than I am if I compose a text message to a friend to find out about his date last Saturday.

Not only can RAMP be useful to students, but RAMP can come in handy for teachers who are trying to create more interesting real-world writing assignments for their students. Asking students to adopt different roles and to write for varied purposes not only can make writing more fun but also “ramp up” the rigor in writing assignments.

Here are some deconstructed writing prompt samples to help you see how easy (and perhaps even fun) creating writing activities using RAMP can be.

An old-school, boring essay topic:

Write an essay about the themes in Moby Dick. Select three themes, and support each with evidence from the novel.

            ROLE:  A student

            AUDIENCE: The bored English teacher

            MODE:  Expository/literary analysis

            PURPOSE: To inform and explain

A more exciting Moby Dick essay (spoiler alert):

You are the psychiatrist treating Ishmael as the lone survivor of the Pequod's sinking. Since the patient refuses to speak, you have only his manuscript (the novel Moby Dick) to use to diagnose him and recommend a treatment. Using the evidence, write a report to the hospital’s Board of Governors about your patient detailing the nature of the trauma, the effect on Ishmael, and your plan for treatment.

            ROLE: Hospital psychiatrist

            AUDIENCE: The hospital’s Board of Directors

            MODE: Expository/analytical

   PURPOSE: To analyze Ishmael’s character and what mental or emotional support or treatment he may need.

Something for the historians:

You are an educated woman in England in the 1790s who has just read Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women. Inspired by what she has said, you decide to send in an anonymous editorial to the local newspaper about your reactions to the essay, but you know that a letter from a woman will be ignored. Write your editorial as if a man wrote it, but still try to get your points across. Make specific reference to Wollstonecraft’s ideas in your editorial.

ROLE: A British woman in the 1790s pretending to be a man

AUDIENCE: The editors and readers of the local newspaper

MODE: Argumentative

PURPOSE: To persuade readers that your thoughts, reactions, and opinions are correct.   

American history from an offbeat perspective:

As a termite gnawing on the table on which the Declaration of Independence was signed, you had the chance to witness the event firsthand and overhear the comments of those who signed it. Write a letter to your British cousin giving your account of what happened that day, including what you heard from the signers about their excitement, concerns, and hopes.

            ROLE: Eavesdropping termite

            AUDIENCE: A British relative overseas

            MODE: Narrative letter

            PURPOSE: To summarize what you heard and viewpoints of the signers

To explain a scientific concept in simplest terms:

Write a children’s book to explain mitosis to a third grader in an interesting, entertaining, educational way. You may illustrate your book.

            ROLE:  Yourself (a brainy science student)

            AUDIENCE: A third grader who could care less about cell division

            MODE: Expository/informational (may also be narrative)

   PURPOSE: To explain mitosis in a way a third grader would understand

Bringing science to the real world:

You have recently become aware that neighbors have been using a nearby field as a dumping ground for their household trash and are concerned about the effect this might have on the wooded area and creekbed nearby. Write a letter to the City Council expressing your concerns and asking them to take measures to halt this potentially dangerous hazard to the ecosystem.

            ROLE: A concerned citizen

            AUDIENCE:  City Council

            MODE: Persuasive letter

            PURPOSE: To expose a biohazard and stop further damage

           

Writing in math can be fun, too:

Write a love letter from the Pythagorean Theorem to pi.

            ROLE: The amorous Pythagorean Theorem

            AUDIENCE: 3.14159265359…

            MODE: Personal/love letter

            PURPOSE: To declare your undying love and admiration

Let’s not forget the performing arts:

You are a critic from an entertainment magazine who attended last night’s choir concert. Write a review so that your readers who didn’t attend will know what they missed and what you--the expert music critic--thought of the performance. Your readers will appreciate lively writing and vivid details in your critique.

ROLE: Music critic

AUDIENCE: The readers of your magazine

MODE: Expository/arts review

PURPOSE: To critique the performance and provide details for readers who weren’t there.

Something cross curricular and controversial:

You, Karl Marx, have recently completed your Communist Manifesto and are looking for the perfect cover art for the paperback edition of your book. Consider the artists who are working around this time, and select one whom you think will be the best candidate to create an appropriate artwork to showcase your ideas. Write a letter to that artist telling him about your ideas and convincing him or her to create an artwork for your cover.

ROLE: Karl Marx

AUDIENCE: A 19th century artist of your choice

MODE: Persuasive letter

PURPOSE: To convince the artist to design a book cover

_______________________________________________________

It’s relatively easy to come up with a writing activity with a little creativity and the assistance of RAMP to help you sort things out. I encourage you to give it a try. You don’t have to grade for spelling or grammar; in this type of writing, the content and understanding are most important. That’s the key to Writing to Learn.

Thanks for giving your students a writing workout once in a while.