Today was the last day of our first semester--the midway point of the school-year. The past month has been busy, and I have not found as much time to blog with a seemingly unending stream of grading to do on the weekends.
In spite of the busyness, there's much to celebrate:
I. Excellent Class Discussions
My Humanities classes are now over halfway through Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. For the third year, I have asked the students to come to class prepared for seminar style discussions over the chapters assigned for that day. Each day a pair or small group of students are responsible for facilitating the discussion. I told the students before the first discussion that I would not get involved myself, unless somebody has a point of confusion that their classmates cannot answer, in which case, they may ask me to say something. Otherwise, I get to sit back and take notes on the discussion, keeping a record of who contributed, and what was said. The first year I had the students do this style of discussion on Incidents, one of my classes got into it, which made me feel that it was a worthwhile activity. However, not every class, and not every discussion have gone so well... until this year. I have two sections of Humanities. One is large at 23 students, and has many energetic, talkative personalities. The other is small at 12 students, and has many calm, quiet personalities. Over the course of the daily discussions we have had this week, both sections have impressed me with perhaps the highest caliber of discussion I have heard in my teaching career. A few particular things that impressed me:
-Everyone has their books open and is using direct quotes from the text to support their claims. The students are engaging directly with the text.
-"Adding to what (so-and-so) said,": Students are really listening to the thread of the discussion, and are not just tuning in to get their contribution credit before tuning out. They are actively paying attention to what their classmates are saying, and are trying to build on what has already come up.
-"I really didn't get...": This has only come up a few times, but it's come up more than past years. More students are willing to admit that they did not understand a particular scene or development in the plot, and ask for clarification. Often, they find out that other classmates were confused by the same thing, but hadn't wanted to speak up.
-"This reminds me of something we talked about in (other unit)": Students are making connections to previous units in Humanities class, calling back to discussions about such topics as world-views and rhetorical appeals.
-"This reminds me of something we talked about in (other class)": This has been fun--students are making connections between the themes in Incidents, and topics they have studied in Bible and Psychology class!
-On Tuesday, my small class paused their discussion of the plot to talk at length about the theology of slavery, wrestling with how slaveholders could justify their treatment of slaves from a Biblical perspective. On that same day, my bigger class drew a parallel between Incidents and Night, by Elie Wiesel, which they had read the previous year in English 10. I'd noticed that parallel before, too, but one of the students brought up an insight I hadn't thought about: "It's interesting how Elie Wiesel's sufferings caused him to question God's existence, while Linda's sufferings seemed to strengthen her faith in God." That left me thinking, which is always a surprise when teaching a book I have read through and taught so many times.
II. Silent Sustained Reading
This semester, I set aside a day each week on which my students would go to the library and read. I asked that the students have at least one book discussion with me at some point during the semester. While I did have a handful of students wait until this week to do their book discussions, the number was far smaller than usual, and the discussions were more substantive. Did every student use every reading day well? No. However, as I listened to each student tell me about what they had read, it became readily apparent to me that more students had read the books they said they would read, and moreover, that more students had enjoyed what they read. The highlight was a book-talk with one boy who described himself as a non-reader. For the sake of his privacy, as I know that students occasionally read my blog, I won't mention the book that he read, as that might give away his identity. I open every book-talk by asking for a basic synopsis of the book, and often the students spend a minute or two talking me through the plot in a nutshell. This student talked for 15 minutes straight, and by the end I felt like I knew the whole story inside and out. It was fun to listen to him retell the story, and as he did so, he would realize he'd left out an important detail about the setting or the characters and then back up and fill me in on the part he'd forgotten before moving on. He was pretty into it. While he talked, I looked up the author on our library's online catalog and found out that we have at least five other books by this author in our library. He hadn't realized this, and seemed excited when I told him. I hope he keeps reading! All it takes is one book to spark a love for reading. I wonder how many other students found that book this semester?
There's more to celebrate, and plenty more to look forward to, but time is ticking and I have grading to do, so I'll wrap up this post.
All in all, it was a good semester, and I'm looking forward to the semester ahead. I hope to keep up with my blogging even after the baby arrives (just 5 more weeks!)--ironically, reflection time seems to only become more important, the busier we get.
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Friday, December 9, 2016
Modeling Critical Reading
Critical reading is a skill developed over the course of years; a school-career, in fact. For some students, the holy grail of reading comprehension is a '5' on the AP English exam, an exam for which 45% of the score is determined by a multiple choice reading test. I don't know that I have ever had a student who has scored perfectly on the multiple choice section, but I do know that there are one or two in every class who come close. These students all share a key trait in common: they are always--without exception--voracious readers, and have been since elementary school.
These are students who read a variety of material outside of class--not only young adult novels, but also classic works; not only fiction, but also books and articles about politics, economics, science, or math.
These are students who question and seek to verify what their teachers say in class, who will look up claims, studies, or books mentioned by their teachers, sometimes even on the spot, on their laptops.
These are students who know what it is to read something deeply, to struggle tirelessly for understanding, and who have the stamina and resiliency to parse through peer-reviewed studies and scholarly articles when doing research projects, or preparing for debates.
I don't really prepare them for the reading on the AP exam; they're already prepared, and likely have been for a while. Their skills are the accumulation of years of reading for fun, coupled with years of reading to learn (a distinction which has blended with time). What began as a love for reading has developed into a particular way of thinking and approaching the world, and they are the richer for it.
As their AP teacher, I simply provide them with practice tests that signal to them the type of reading that they will need to undertake on the AP exam, and which inevitably affirm that they will achieve a high score on the actual test.
What about students who enjoy reading, but feel they do not have the time to read independently? Or, students who have never enjoyed reading, but are hard workers?
I contend that if students are not reading on their own (that is, outside of class), and have not been reading on their own for the majority of their school careers, they come into AP test preparation at a distinct disadvantage. They have had neither the practice, nor exposure to variety that their voracious reader classmates have had. They have not built up the stamina or ingrained the critical reading skills second nature to their classmates who are regularly reading challenging texts. These students may be high-achievers--they may work hard and attain top grades. They may be bright and intelligent and talented in a variety of other areas. What is missing is the breadth and depth of independent reading over the years that a select few of their classmates have had.
Last week, I had a group of students approach me, asking for more support on their reading comprehension. I was caught off-guard; I've never had students ask for more help on reading before, and frankly, I have not done much in the way of specifically teaching critical reading skills to my AP students. My unspoken mentality has been "either you've got it by now, or you don't", and I've opted to put 90% of my teaching energy into developing their writing skills instead.
However, when this group of students approached me, the ball was in my court--the question before me was "can I equip these students with the skills and habit of mind necessary to succeed on the AP test?"
Honestly, I don't think so--with any kind of standardized test, there are far too many independent variables to guarantee a certain score: how the student is feeling on the day of the test; whether they slept well the night before; whether they have interest or background knowledge in the passages they read; whether they suffer from test anxiety; whether the questions ask about literary terms or concepts I did not anticipate. Even subtracting independent variables, could any amount of effort or creative teaching on my part substitute for years of independent reading practice? No, I cannot guarantee a high score on the AP exam.
However, what I decided I can do is try to train my students to deepen their critical reading ability, and I whole-heartedly believe that time spent on this endeavor cannot hurt, only help. Moreover, critical reading is a skill far more important than the judgment issued by the CollegeBoard. It is a life-skill that will prepare my students to be stronger thinkers and consumers of information.
I decided that the place to start was to model critical thinking while reading. I invited any AP students who were interested to a meeting during lunch yesterday. 15 out of my 29 AP students showed up!
I borrowed an idea I found in "Teaching Arguments: Rhetorical Comprehension, Critique, and Response" by Jennifer Fletcher: having the students fill out a checklist while I did a think-aloud.
I chose a fairly engaging, recent piece to read through: "A Confession of Liberal Intolerance" by Nicholas Kristof. I printed copies for each of the students, but also projected the article onto my whiteboard. I then distributed a checklist of critical reading actions that I wanted the students to watch for while I read and thought out loud.
Before I started reading, I even wondered aloud what the title, date, and author might tell me about the piece. I then began to read, one or two paragraphs at a time. I would pause regularly and comment or ask questions. I would critique or praise Kristof's use of studies to support his point; wonder about the quality of his sources; highlight his writing strategies--analogies, use of anaphora, etc.
In 20 minutes, I only made it halfway through the article. When I asked the students how I'd done on their checklists, they told me I'd done everything except disagree with Kristof. The students seemed to appreciate the activity and several thanked me afterwards. I told them I'd try to model thinking aloud again using a more challenging piece by Henry David Thoreau after Christmas, and then have them practice thinking aloud together in groups.
It was fun to do the think-aloud; I'd read the article when it was published back in May, so I knew generally what Kristof had said, but I hadn't prepared what I was going to say for the think-aloud, as I wanted it to be spontaneous. I actually picked up on some new aspects I'd missed the first time around, and even appreciated Kristof's writing more as I verbally worked through the article.
I may not be able to prepare my students to internalize these skills to the extent that they can apply them effortlessly while reading passages quickly on the AP exam, but if I can help them to dialogue with the author as they read, if I can help them to think and ask questions as they engage with a text, I can sleep well at night.
I wish I'd thought to do this sooner--I am definitely going to do this type of modeling more in the future!
These are students who read a variety of material outside of class--not only young adult novels, but also classic works; not only fiction, but also books and articles about politics, economics, science, or math.
These are students who question and seek to verify what their teachers say in class, who will look up claims, studies, or books mentioned by their teachers, sometimes even on the spot, on their laptops.
These are students who know what it is to read something deeply, to struggle tirelessly for understanding, and who have the stamina and resiliency to parse through peer-reviewed studies and scholarly articles when doing research projects, or preparing for debates.
I don't really prepare them for the reading on the AP exam; they're already prepared, and likely have been for a while. Their skills are the accumulation of years of reading for fun, coupled with years of reading to learn (a distinction which has blended with time). What began as a love for reading has developed into a particular way of thinking and approaching the world, and they are the richer for it.
As their AP teacher, I simply provide them with practice tests that signal to them the type of reading that they will need to undertake on the AP exam, and which inevitably affirm that they will achieve a high score on the actual test.
What about students who enjoy reading, but feel they do not have the time to read independently? Or, students who have never enjoyed reading, but are hard workers?
I contend that if students are not reading on their own (that is, outside of class), and have not been reading on their own for the majority of their school careers, they come into AP test preparation at a distinct disadvantage. They have had neither the practice, nor exposure to variety that their voracious reader classmates have had. They have not built up the stamina or ingrained the critical reading skills second nature to their classmates who are regularly reading challenging texts. These students may be high-achievers--they may work hard and attain top grades. They may be bright and intelligent and talented in a variety of other areas. What is missing is the breadth and depth of independent reading over the years that a select few of their classmates have had.
Last week, I had a group of students approach me, asking for more support on their reading comprehension. I was caught off-guard; I've never had students ask for more help on reading before, and frankly, I have not done much in the way of specifically teaching critical reading skills to my AP students. My unspoken mentality has been "either you've got it by now, or you don't", and I've opted to put 90% of my teaching energy into developing their writing skills instead.
However, when this group of students approached me, the ball was in my court--the question before me was "can I equip these students with the skills and habit of mind necessary to succeed on the AP test?"
Honestly, I don't think so--with any kind of standardized test, there are far too many independent variables to guarantee a certain score: how the student is feeling on the day of the test; whether they slept well the night before; whether they have interest or background knowledge in the passages they read; whether they suffer from test anxiety; whether the questions ask about literary terms or concepts I did not anticipate. Even subtracting independent variables, could any amount of effort or creative teaching on my part substitute for years of independent reading practice? No, I cannot guarantee a high score on the AP exam.
However, what I decided I can do is try to train my students to deepen their critical reading ability, and I whole-heartedly believe that time spent on this endeavor cannot hurt, only help. Moreover, critical reading is a skill far more important than the judgment issued by the CollegeBoard. It is a life-skill that will prepare my students to be stronger thinkers and consumers of information.
I decided that the place to start was to model critical thinking while reading. I invited any AP students who were interested to a meeting during lunch yesterday. 15 out of my 29 AP students showed up!
I borrowed an idea I found in "Teaching Arguments: Rhetorical Comprehension, Critique, and Response" by Jennifer Fletcher: having the students fill out a checklist while I did a think-aloud.
Before I started reading, I even wondered aloud what the title, date, and author might tell me about the piece. I then began to read, one or two paragraphs at a time. I would pause regularly and comment or ask questions. I would critique or praise Kristof's use of studies to support his point; wonder about the quality of his sources; highlight his writing strategies--analogies, use of anaphora, etc.
In 20 minutes, I only made it halfway through the article. When I asked the students how I'd done on their checklists, they told me I'd done everything except disagree with Kristof. The students seemed to appreciate the activity and several thanked me afterwards. I told them I'd try to model thinking aloud again using a more challenging piece by Henry David Thoreau after Christmas, and then have them practice thinking aloud together in groups.
It was fun to do the think-aloud; I'd read the article when it was published back in May, so I knew generally what Kristof had said, but I hadn't prepared what I was going to say for the think-aloud, as I wanted it to be spontaneous. I actually picked up on some new aspects I'd missed the first time around, and even appreciated Kristof's writing more as I verbally worked through the article.
I may not be able to prepare my students to internalize these skills to the extent that they can apply them effortlessly while reading passages quickly on the AP exam, but if I can help them to dialogue with the author as they read, if I can help them to think and ask questions as they engage with a text, I can sleep well at night.
I wish I'd thought to do this sooner--I am definitely going to do this type of modeling more in the future!
Friday, December 2, 2016
Mid-year Revelations: Exciting, but Frustrating
First, an apology: getting sick in early November and missing two days of school set me back on both grading and prep, and it has been a scramble to get caught up. Sadly, my weekly time for reflection was one casualty of this mad scramble.
This month, I have been teaching my unit on Worldview. In previous years, I'd taught this unit in the Spring, but I opted to move it to the fall this time, as I felt like it was too foundational to put off until the end of the year.
I enjoy this unit--we trace the literary movements that have occurred throughout America's history--Romanticism (both Gothic and Transcendentalism), to Realism and Naturalism, to Modernism, while considering the underlying shifts in Worldview, and the implications of all of this on culture and society. There's something fun in contrasting these movements one after another, and perhaps there's some benefit to organizing it this way.
However, as the unit went on, I couldn't help but feel like we were moving too quickly through each movement, each worldview, without much time to savor the poetry, art and literature we were examining, or to really chew on each perspective on humanity, God or nature. Why rush? So that I would be able to wrap up the unit before Christmas, and not have to worry about trying to awkwardly pick up again after Christmas vacation. Moreover, I kept spotting connections to other units that I'd previously overlooked. Case in point, as we talked about existentialism this week, I realized that naturalism and existentialism are ultimately at the heart of our unit on Agency & Victimhood. Three years of teaching these units, and this was the first time I'd made that connection. It was both an A-HA! moment as well as an OH-SHOOT! moment: A-HA! because it's exciting to learn something new, and make deeper connections within the subject I teach, and OH-SHOOT! because in that moment, I could see so clearly how I should've organized my units, just too late.
What if I integrated the examination of worldview into my existing units?
I would lose the rapid side-by-side comparison. As I mentioned above, there is something fascinating about watching the pendulum swing to and fro when watching history unfold at fast-forward pace.
What would I gain, though?
I would gain time to mull. To chew. To savor. To reflect. Instead of a whirlwind tour, we'd be able to dig deep and spend considerable time with each perspective.
Moreover, we'd be able to make stronger connections to our major class theme about becoming people of justice, present in every other unit. My worldview unit was always the odd-one-out. I considered it foundational and therefore vital, and worldview does indeed have incalculable bearing on how we pursue justice (and perhaps even how we define justice)... we just never had the time to explore those connections in any sort of depth when our study of worldview was organized as a single-unit survey.
All is not lost. I have a new angle to use as I prepare to teach my unit on Agency and Victimhood in January, and the students will have a point of reference that they wouldn't have had otherwise. That's exciting.
Still, I'm looking forward to sitting down with my curriculum at length over Christmas and especially next Summer, taking the hood off and engine out for a tune-up.
I wish I'd noticed this while I was working on curriculum this past summer, but I suppose it's these mid-year revelations that drive teaching forward! I'll choose to be grateful.
This month, I have been teaching my unit on Worldview. In previous years, I'd taught this unit in the Spring, but I opted to move it to the fall this time, as I felt like it was too foundational to put off until the end of the year.
I enjoy this unit--we trace the literary movements that have occurred throughout America's history--Romanticism (both Gothic and Transcendentalism), to Realism and Naturalism, to Modernism, while considering the underlying shifts in Worldview, and the implications of all of this on culture and society. There's something fun in contrasting these movements one after another, and perhaps there's some benefit to organizing it this way.
However, as the unit went on, I couldn't help but feel like we were moving too quickly through each movement, each worldview, without much time to savor the poetry, art and literature we were examining, or to really chew on each perspective on humanity, God or nature. Why rush? So that I would be able to wrap up the unit before Christmas, and not have to worry about trying to awkwardly pick up again after Christmas vacation. Moreover, I kept spotting connections to other units that I'd previously overlooked. Case in point, as we talked about existentialism this week, I realized that naturalism and existentialism are ultimately at the heart of our unit on Agency & Victimhood. Three years of teaching these units, and this was the first time I'd made that connection. It was both an A-HA! moment as well as an OH-SHOOT! moment: A-HA! because it's exciting to learn something new, and make deeper connections within the subject I teach, and OH-SHOOT! because in that moment, I could see so clearly how I should've organized my units, just too late.
What if I integrated the examination of worldview into my existing units?
I would lose the rapid side-by-side comparison. As I mentioned above, there is something fascinating about watching the pendulum swing to and fro when watching history unfold at fast-forward pace.
What would I gain, though?
I would gain time to mull. To chew. To savor. To reflect. Instead of a whirlwind tour, we'd be able to dig deep and spend considerable time with each perspective.
Moreover, we'd be able to make stronger connections to our major class theme about becoming people of justice, present in every other unit. My worldview unit was always the odd-one-out. I considered it foundational and therefore vital, and worldview does indeed have incalculable bearing on how we pursue justice (and perhaps even how we define justice)... we just never had the time to explore those connections in any sort of depth when our study of worldview was organized as a single-unit survey.
All is not lost. I have a new angle to use as I prepare to teach my unit on Agency and Victimhood in January, and the students will have a point of reference that they wouldn't have had otherwise. That's exciting.
Still, I'm looking forward to sitting down with my curriculum at length over Christmas and especially next Summer, taking the hood off and engine out for a tune-up.
I wish I'd noticed this while I was working on curriculum this past summer, but I suppose it's these mid-year revelations that drive teaching forward! I'll choose to be grateful.
Friday, October 28, 2016
DBQs, Part II
October has been a busy month--as the first quarter draws to an end, the pace of the school-year shows no sign of slowing.
My students have continued to work on their DBQ, and I have continued to look for ways to make the planning process more engaging and helpful for them. Last time, I wrote about the first step, having them do a gallery walk of the documents. Today, I will share the second and third steps, both of which I tried for the first time this year!
Step Two: The week after the gallery walk, I had the students work in their pairs or groups to categorize the documents. Because I am asking the students to incorporate 8 of the 11 documents into their response to the question, it is essential that they can group the documents together so that their discussion is framed by ideas, and not by individual documents.
For this activity, I put the titles and authors of each document onto cards, which I cut out and gave to each group. They then had 15 minutes to put the cards into three or four categories of their choosing. It was fascinating to see how different groups categorized some of the same documents differently, and also how different groups with similar categories chose different documents to include in those categories. I then asked each group to share their categories and the documents they included, and wrote the results on the board.
Step Three: This past week, I told the students that the time had come to start tying together the content of the documents with the history we've been studying in this unit. For this activity, I provided them with a graphic organizer in which they would use categories from the previous activity as their headings, briefly record what the documents they chose had to say about that topic, which historical events and figures fit with that topic, and how the history may have been influenced by the Enlightenment ideals in the documents.
As the students completed these charts, I kept reminding them that even though they had not started writing yet, they were essentially building a thorough outline which would make writing the DBQ much easier.
Next week, we will start writing, and the final product will be due the following week. This is by far the most guidance I have put into the writing process for a DBQ, and I am excited to see how well the students analyze the documents and make connections between the ideals of the Enlightenment and the realities of early American history!
My students have continued to work on their DBQ, and I have continued to look for ways to make the planning process more engaging and helpful for them. Last time, I wrote about the first step, having them do a gallery walk of the documents. Today, I will share the second and third steps, both of which I tried for the first time this year!
Step Two: The week after the gallery walk, I had the students work in their pairs or groups to categorize the documents. Because I am asking the students to incorporate 8 of the 11 documents into their response to the question, it is essential that they can group the documents together so that their discussion is framed by ideas, and not by individual documents.
For this activity, I put the titles and authors of each document onto cards, which I cut out and gave to each group. They then had 15 minutes to put the cards into three or four categories of their choosing. It was fascinating to see how different groups categorized some of the same documents differently, and also how different groups with similar categories chose different documents to include in those categories. I then asked each group to share their categories and the documents they included, and wrote the results on the board.
Step Three: This past week, I told the students that the time had come to start tying together the content of the documents with the history we've been studying in this unit. For this activity, I provided them with a graphic organizer in which they would use categories from the previous activity as their headings, briefly record what the documents they chose had to say about that topic, which historical events and figures fit with that topic, and how the history may have been influenced by the Enlightenment ideals in the documents.
As the students completed these charts, I kept reminding them that even though they had not started writing yet, they were essentially building a thorough outline which would make writing the DBQ much easier.
Next week, we will start writing, and the final product will be due the following week. This is by far the most guidance I have put into the writing process for a DBQ, and I am excited to see how well the students analyze the documents and make connections between the ideals of the Enlightenment and the realities of early American history!
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Can DBQs be interactive?
In my first few years of teaching, I found DBQs (Document-Based Questions) incredibly difficult to teach to. A large part of the issue was that I was tacking DBQs on near the end of units that I had planned without that kind of analysis in mind. There were several major problems with this:
Firstly, it meant that there was a serious time-crunch--I expected that students would write their DBQ essays in a single class period. This is, after all, what students in AP World History and AP U.S. History have to do, to prepare for the AP exam! The problem is, if students are taking my Humanities class, it means that they have explicitly chosen not to take AP U.S. History, and likely, that they did not take AP World History the previous year. Most of these students have not written a DBQ essay since 9th grade, and more than a few have some degree of DBQ-phobia. For most of my students, a time limit was paralyzing. A few years ago, I asked myself a difficult question: was enforcing a time limit on the DBQ educationally defensible? I was forced to conclude that since none of my students would be taking an AP history exam in the future, the time limit was absolutely indefensible--there was no sound reason to hold them to a time limit.
The second problem was that I was using DBQs as an afterthought because I was required to use them as a social studies department assessment. I was treating them as a hoop, and not as a valuable measure of students' analytical or writing abilities. Because of this, I was not actually teaching to the assessment. I was teaching about other things, and then essentially saying, "Oh, by the way, do this in-depth analysis of historical documents that are only tangentially related to what we've been studying." It is difficult to get students to see the value of an assessment when I, as the teacher, do not see the value of an assessment.
In short, my use of DBQs was not a recipe for success, though it may have successfully scarred students' relationships with historical analysis. I realized that I needed to rethink the purpose of assigning students to write a DBQ. If I took the time-limit out of the equation, the DBQ could be an ongoing endeavor, an opportunity to practice and build valuable skills of analysis and critical reading throughout a unit, rather than only at the end.
For the past two years, I have allowed students more time to work on their DBQs in class, and to ask me questions if they had them. In spite of the extra time, I kept running into the frustration that some students were not asking questions about documents they were struggling to understand until the last minute--some students did not even fully recognize their confusion until the time came to start writing.
Today, as I prepared to start my students on their unit two DBQ on how enlightenment philosophy impacted the creation of the American government, I had a brainstorm: what if I found some way for the students to interact with each document in a meaningful way from the start, reacting and questioning to fix misunderstandings?
I printed each document out on A3 paper and created eleven different stations around the classroom, with Post-it notes at each. I then asked the students to do a "gallery walk" of the documents in pairs, writing reactions and questions down on the Post-it notes as they engaged with each document. The activity took the entire class period, but it was fun to watch the students wrestle with a variety of enlightenment philosophers, from Locke, to Rousseau, to Hobbes, to Montesquieu. Sometimes, a student would ask their partner for help in understanding the document. Sometimes, they would argue about what the document was really saying. Sometimes, they would find help in the Post-its that had already been left. Sometimes, they would ask me for clarification.
Afterwards, I compiled the A3 sheets and Post-it notes and placed them at the back of the room--the students have a copy of the prompt and the documents digitally, of course, but they may refer to the physical notes at any time throughout the unit as they reread, analyze and write. For my part, I feel more comfortable knowing that the students have already started wrestling with each of the documents, and that many misunderstandings or points of confusion have already been uncovered and dealt with.
I'm looking forward to seeing my students make connections between the philosophies they read about today, and the history we will look at over the next few weeks, spanning from the Revolution up through the Constitutional Convention. I'm also looking forward to finding more ways to make this time of reading and thinking more interactive and more engaging in future units!
Firstly, it meant that there was a serious time-crunch--I expected that students would write their DBQ essays in a single class period. This is, after all, what students in AP World History and AP U.S. History have to do, to prepare for the AP exam! The problem is, if students are taking my Humanities class, it means that they have explicitly chosen not to take AP U.S. History, and likely, that they did not take AP World History the previous year. Most of these students have not written a DBQ essay since 9th grade, and more than a few have some degree of DBQ-phobia. For most of my students, a time limit was paralyzing. A few years ago, I asked myself a difficult question: was enforcing a time limit on the DBQ educationally defensible? I was forced to conclude that since none of my students would be taking an AP history exam in the future, the time limit was absolutely indefensible--there was no sound reason to hold them to a time limit.
The second problem was that I was using DBQs as an afterthought because I was required to use them as a social studies department assessment. I was treating them as a hoop, and not as a valuable measure of students' analytical or writing abilities. Because of this, I was not actually teaching to the assessment. I was teaching about other things, and then essentially saying, "Oh, by the way, do this in-depth analysis of historical documents that are only tangentially related to what we've been studying." It is difficult to get students to see the value of an assessment when I, as the teacher, do not see the value of an assessment.
In short, my use of DBQs was not a recipe for success, though it may have successfully scarred students' relationships with historical analysis. I realized that I needed to rethink the purpose of assigning students to write a DBQ. If I took the time-limit out of the equation, the DBQ could be an ongoing endeavor, an opportunity to practice and build valuable skills of analysis and critical reading throughout a unit, rather than only at the end.
For the past two years, I have allowed students more time to work on their DBQs in class, and to ask me questions if they had them. In spite of the extra time, I kept running into the frustration that some students were not asking questions about documents they were struggling to understand until the last minute--some students did not even fully recognize their confusion until the time came to start writing.
Today, as I prepared to start my students on their unit two DBQ on how enlightenment philosophy impacted the creation of the American government, I had a brainstorm: what if I found some way for the students to interact with each document in a meaningful way from the start, reacting and questioning to fix misunderstandings?
I printed each document out on A3 paper and created eleven different stations around the classroom, with Post-it notes at each. I then asked the students to do a "gallery walk" of the documents in pairs, writing reactions and questions down on the Post-it notes as they engaged with each document. The activity took the entire class period, but it was fun to watch the students wrestle with a variety of enlightenment philosophers, from Locke, to Rousseau, to Hobbes, to Montesquieu. Sometimes, a student would ask their partner for help in understanding the document. Sometimes, they would argue about what the document was really saying. Sometimes, they would find help in the Post-its that had already been left. Sometimes, they would ask me for clarification.
Afterwards, I compiled the A3 sheets and Post-it notes and placed them at the back of the room--the students have a copy of the prompt and the documents digitally, of course, but they may refer to the physical notes at any time throughout the unit as they reread, analyze and write. For my part, I feel more comfortable knowing that the students have already started wrestling with each of the documents, and that many misunderstandings or points of confusion have already been uncovered and dealt with.
I'm looking forward to seeing my students make connections between the philosophies they read about today, and the history we will look at over the next few weeks, spanning from the Revolution up through the Constitutional Convention. I'm also looking forward to finding more ways to make this time of reading and thinking more interactive and more engaging in future units!
Friday, September 23, 2016
Google Classroom: the disruptive technology we've been waiting for?
A disruptive technology is one that changes a paradigm completely.
Reading Steve Jobs' biography several weeks ago was a reminder of just how disruptive a technology the personal computer was in so many ways, fundamentally changing communication, the creation and distribution of media, and the sharing and availability of information. Just think of all of the fields impacted by these changes!
Curiously, the classroom remains essentially untouched by this disruption, even classrooms with one-to-one devices supplied by the school or BYOT ("Bring your own technology"). Classrooms still tend to be teacher-centered and organized in much the same way that they have been for the past century. Instead of turning the classroom on its head, computers have awkwardly settled into seemingly unbending classroom environments that are ill-equipped to use them to their full potential.
For all the disruption it has caused to so many other areas of life, the computer has failed to make a substantial difference to how education is done.
Perhaps the burden for disruption is now on those who design software and applications, since the hardware itself has not made the difference it should have.
Perhaps the disruptive technology has already arrived, and has simply not taken told yet.
Personally, I wonder if Google Classroom might be that disruptive technology. I was struck by a revelation this morning as I worked away in my quiet spot near the window at Tully's. My task on this cloudy Saturday morning was to virtually "drop in" on each of my students' unit one essays, which they began writing in GoogleDocs on Wednesday. GoogleDocs are nothing new, of course, but it used to be an unmitigated hassle to get an entire class of students to consistently write essays in GoogleDocs, much less share them with me, and then keep them all organized.
However, using Google Classroom, I simply created a template for the students, and when I posted the assignment, had that template go out to each student as their own editable copy. Additionally, Google Classroom organized the essays in an intuitive manner--no more searching through my Google Drive or my email to find a student's GoogleDoc: everything is right there in the assignment folder on Google Classroom. The teacher's draft of the essay is not due until next Thursday, and ordinarily that would be the first time that I would be able to read through what my students had written; my first opportunity to see how their introductions turned out, how their topic sentences and transitions turned out, how their support and commentary shaped up.
This morning, I am reading through my students' work for the second time. I read through their thesis statements on Wednesday evening and gave them feedback. Each thesis took five minutes or less to read and comment on. This morning, most students have their introductions completed, and again, reading and commenting is taking five minutes or less. Some students even had their essay open while I wrote my feedback, and began to make changes right away!
On Monday, I will workshop topic sentences with the students, and then take another pass through the essays that evening to give more feedback on the topic sentences that they come up with. I'll do the same with transitions on Tuesday and conclusions on Wednesday. By the time the students submit their teacher's drafts on Thursday, there should be no surprises--I'll know who is behind; who is struggling with what aspects of their writing. This will have two impacts on my reading of the completed teacher's drafts next weekend: 1) It will take me less time to read them since I'll have already been reading them in installments over the course of the preceding week, and 2) It will enable me to provide more substantive feedback about their content and logic, since I'll have already given feedback on the technical aspects of their writing and given them opportunities to revise.
Essentially, this technology is enabling me to treat revision as an ongoing process, as it should be, and not something that happens only in huge waves after each draft is submitted.
This, I think, is where there is real potential for disruption to the way we do education. The ability provide real-time feedback in a clear and efficient way that allows students to adjust and revise immediately has major implications for how both teachers and students spend their time, both in and out of the classroom, as well as implications for how students may be able to collaborate with one another in the future.
Currently, this sort of real-time feedback is most convenient with GoogleDocs, but what if it could be extended to other types of projects and assignments as well? I saw a glimmer of this potential earlier in the week. Last Friday, my students submitted their rhetorical fallacy videos--projects they had completed in groups to teach their classmates about different rhetorical fallacies. I posted the videos on Google Classroom so that the students could access them easily. Three of the groups had made otherwise good videos, but had forgotten a key element of the prompt: explaining why each example they had shown was a fallacy. I encouraged these groups to add in explanations and re-submit by this Wednesday. I was pleased when all three groups opted to do so, and I simply replaced the old links on Google Classroom with the new ones that the students had sent me.
Of course, I had not caught these errors until the students submitted their videos on the due-date, and after catching the mistakes, the students had to go back to iMovie or other editing software to make their changes--platforms I did not have access to--but this would have been far more difficult to do two years ago without Google Classroom, and frankly, impossible to do five years ago.
I wonder if this is a glimpse into the future of education: ongoing projects and essays in which the teacher coaches the students through a constant stream of feedback, and perhaps even peers can coach one another, too. This may or may not be the change that is coming, and any change is bound to take time, but I do feel, for the first time, like we may be on the brink of a technological revolution in our schools and classrooms... and that is exciting!
Reading Steve Jobs' biography several weeks ago was a reminder of just how disruptive a technology the personal computer was in so many ways, fundamentally changing communication, the creation and distribution of media, and the sharing and availability of information. Just think of all of the fields impacted by these changes!
Curiously, the classroom remains essentially untouched by this disruption, even classrooms with one-to-one devices supplied by the school or BYOT ("Bring your own technology"). Classrooms still tend to be teacher-centered and organized in much the same way that they have been for the past century. Instead of turning the classroom on its head, computers have awkwardly settled into seemingly unbending classroom environments that are ill-equipped to use them to their full potential.
For all the disruption it has caused to so many other areas of life, the computer has failed to make a substantial difference to how education is done.
Perhaps the burden for disruption is now on those who design software and applications, since the hardware itself has not made the difference it should have.
Perhaps the disruptive technology has already arrived, and has simply not taken told yet.
Personally, I wonder if Google Classroom might be that disruptive technology. I was struck by a revelation this morning as I worked away in my quiet spot near the window at Tully's. My task on this cloudy Saturday morning was to virtually "drop in" on each of my students' unit one essays, which they began writing in GoogleDocs on Wednesday. GoogleDocs are nothing new, of course, but it used to be an unmitigated hassle to get an entire class of students to consistently write essays in GoogleDocs, much less share them with me, and then keep them all organized.
However, using Google Classroom, I simply created a template for the students, and when I posted the assignment, had that template go out to each student as their own editable copy. Additionally, Google Classroom organized the essays in an intuitive manner--no more searching through my Google Drive or my email to find a student's GoogleDoc: everything is right there in the assignment folder on Google Classroom. The teacher's draft of the essay is not due until next Thursday, and ordinarily that would be the first time that I would be able to read through what my students had written; my first opportunity to see how their introductions turned out, how their topic sentences and transitions turned out, how their support and commentary shaped up.
This morning, I am reading through my students' work for the second time. I read through their thesis statements on Wednesday evening and gave them feedback. Each thesis took five minutes or less to read and comment on. This morning, most students have their introductions completed, and again, reading and commenting is taking five minutes or less. Some students even had their essay open while I wrote my feedback, and began to make changes right away!
On Monday, I will workshop topic sentences with the students, and then take another pass through the essays that evening to give more feedback on the topic sentences that they come up with. I'll do the same with transitions on Tuesday and conclusions on Wednesday. By the time the students submit their teacher's drafts on Thursday, there should be no surprises--I'll know who is behind; who is struggling with what aspects of their writing. This will have two impacts on my reading of the completed teacher's drafts next weekend: 1) It will take me less time to read them since I'll have already been reading them in installments over the course of the preceding week, and 2) It will enable me to provide more substantive feedback about their content and logic, since I'll have already given feedback on the technical aspects of their writing and given them opportunities to revise.
Essentially, this technology is enabling me to treat revision as an ongoing process, as it should be, and not something that happens only in huge waves after each draft is submitted.
This, I think, is where there is real potential for disruption to the way we do education. The ability provide real-time feedback in a clear and efficient way that allows students to adjust and revise immediately has major implications for how both teachers and students spend their time, both in and out of the classroom, as well as implications for how students may be able to collaborate with one another in the future.
Currently, this sort of real-time feedback is most convenient with GoogleDocs, but what if it could be extended to other types of projects and assignments as well? I saw a glimmer of this potential earlier in the week. Last Friday, my students submitted their rhetorical fallacy videos--projects they had completed in groups to teach their classmates about different rhetorical fallacies. I posted the videos on Google Classroom so that the students could access them easily. Three of the groups had made otherwise good videos, but had forgotten a key element of the prompt: explaining why each example they had shown was a fallacy. I encouraged these groups to add in explanations and re-submit by this Wednesday. I was pleased when all three groups opted to do so, and I simply replaced the old links on Google Classroom with the new ones that the students had sent me.
Of course, I had not caught these errors until the students submitted their videos on the due-date, and after catching the mistakes, the students had to go back to iMovie or other editing software to make their changes--platforms I did not have access to--but this would have been far more difficult to do two years ago without Google Classroom, and frankly, impossible to do five years ago.
I wonder if this is a glimpse into the future of education: ongoing projects and essays in which the teacher coaches the students through a constant stream of feedback, and perhaps even peers can coach one another, too. This may or may not be the change that is coming, and any change is bound to take time, but I do feel, for the first time, like we may be on the brink of a technological revolution in our schools and classrooms... and that is exciting!
Friday, September 16, 2016
Standing at the Intersection
Giving my students time for silent, sustained reading has had the unintended benefit of giving me time for silent, sustained reading, too. I do walk around the library a few times to see what students are reading and to nudge the occasional student who has dozed off, but I figured that the best use of my time would be to model a love for reading to my students. And although my students only get one period of reading time each week, I get three :)
This week, I finished Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs. It was a fascinating read about a fascinating, mercurial and truly innovative man, but my biggest takeaway from the book was one of the goals that Jobs carried through his career. In his youth, Jobs was inspired by a quote he had read from Edwin Land, one of the founders of Polaroid. Land had emphasized the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of science and the humanities, a call which resonated with the young Jobs. Apple--and each of its products--was the result of Jobs trying to unite these two fields, and one of Jobs' desires, to his dying day, was that the products he helped to create would facilitate a closer marriage between science and the humanities.
Like Jobs, I was similarly struck when I read the quote from Edwin Land. The culture at CAJ has shifted in recent years, with more students pursuing higher levels of math and science. When I first started, classes like AP Chemistry and AP Calculus were populated by only a few of the most dedicated juniors and seniors, but this year, these upper-level sciences, as well as AP Biology, AP Physics and AP Statistics, are full classrooms.
More students than ever before are interested in pursuing careers in the maths and the sciences. When I first noticed this shift starting to happen a few years ago, part of me worried--what would become of English and History? Would I still be able to get my students to buy in even if they felt that the humanities were outside of their wheelhouse?
However, I am becoming increasingly convinced that what the world needs is engineers, doctors, chemists, physicists, statisticians, mathematicians and biologists who have a strong background in the humanities; who are able to communicate clearly and effectively in both print and in speech; who understand the interplay of history--culture, politics, and economics, and the bearing that this has had on science and technology; who have an aesthetic appreciation for the pieces of creation that they are studying.
Too often, teachers (and schools) construct a false dichotomy between different subjects, and especially science and the humanities. What if, in reality, neither were complete without the other?
Every spring, I assign my Humanities class to read excerpts from Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Carson, a marine biologist, was also an avid reader and writer as a child, and this unique intersection of gifts and interests led her to research and write one of the first, and perhaps the most popular, book about ecology that has ever been published.
As I watch more and more of my students graduate and embark on undergrad studies in engineering or various other branches of science, I cannot help but wonder: have I done my part to help them see the importance of the intersection between science and the humanities? Have I passed along my love for writing? Have I nurtured a love for reading?
The more aware of this I become, the more I can do to cultivate this relationship, and to equip my students to stand at this oh, so important intersection.
This week, I finished Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs. It was a fascinating read about a fascinating, mercurial and truly innovative man, but my biggest takeaway from the book was one of the goals that Jobs carried through his career. In his youth, Jobs was inspired by a quote he had read from Edwin Land, one of the founders of Polaroid. Land had emphasized the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of science and the humanities, a call which resonated with the young Jobs. Apple--and each of its products--was the result of Jobs trying to unite these two fields, and one of Jobs' desires, to his dying day, was that the products he helped to create would facilitate a closer marriage between science and the humanities.
Like Jobs, I was similarly struck when I read the quote from Edwin Land. The culture at CAJ has shifted in recent years, with more students pursuing higher levels of math and science. When I first started, classes like AP Chemistry and AP Calculus were populated by only a few of the most dedicated juniors and seniors, but this year, these upper-level sciences, as well as AP Biology, AP Physics and AP Statistics, are full classrooms.
More students than ever before are interested in pursuing careers in the maths and the sciences. When I first noticed this shift starting to happen a few years ago, part of me worried--what would become of English and History? Would I still be able to get my students to buy in even if they felt that the humanities were outside of their wheelhouse?
However, I am becoming increasingly convinced that what the world needs is engineers, doctors, chemists, physicists, statisticians, mathematicians and biologists who have a strong background in the humanities; who are able to communicate clearly and effectively in both print and in speech; who understand the interplay of history--culture, politics, and economics, and the bearing that this has had on science and technology; who have an aesthetic appreciation for the pieces of creation that they are studying.
Too often, teachers (and schools) construct a false dichotomy between different subjects, and especially science and the humanities. What if, in reality, neither were complete without the other?
Every spring, I assign my Humanities class to read excerpts from Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Carson, a marine biologist, was also an avid reader and writer as a child, and this unique intersection of gifts and interests led her to research and write one of the first, and perhaps the most popular, book about ecology that has ever been published.
As I watch more and more of my students graduate and embark on undergrad studies in engineering or various other branches of science, I cannot help but wonder: have I done my part to help them see the importance of the intersection between science and the humanities? Have I passed along my love for writing? Have I nurtured a love for reading?
The more aware of this I become, the more I can do to cultivate this relationship, and to equip my students to stand at this oh, so important intersection.
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