Week 23: A New Approach to Developing Reading Comprehension

This week, my school started the first round of SBA testing, which meant we were on a different schedule every day of the week. Meanwhile, my students had just started reading The Great Gatsby the week before, and I had to figure out a way to keep the momentum rolling despite losing time to testing. I also wanted to find a way to put more work on my students' shoulders without having to assign them multiple chapters to read for homework. In other words, I wanted to have them reading in class, but I wanted to get them to do actual work with that reading, because we all know that if you simply tell students to read silently in class (or to read in groups or to follow along while you read), some of the students will pay attention while the rest of the students will: a) work on other assignments, b) fall asleep, c) try to sneak out their phones to check __________ (insert name of any social media app here), or d) all of the above. In the past, I have read or had the students read and:

1. told the students to take notes.
2. stopped to ask the students questions that they then answered in the "Think-Write-Pair-Share" method.
3. asked the students to come up with questions that they then answered in the "Think-Write-Pair-Share" method.

All of these methods work, and they do promote engagement and help students understand a text, but... I wanted to do something different. If you've been following my blog, you know we recently came out of a unit on The Awakening, during which I did a lot of options 2 and 3, and I didn't want to just keep doing the same thing over again.

Therefore, I decided to adapt a method from Inquiry by Design originally intended to be used with short (expository) texts. The method asks students to identify "difficulties" in the text they are reading and to use those difficulties to construct meaning collaboratively. What I like about this method is that it levels the playing field; it allows - and encourages - students to admit they don't understand everything they are reading and to talk about the parts they don't understand. 

In the past, in order to lower the affective filter for my ELLs, I would tell my students to not worry too much if they didn't understand everything and that I wanted them to try to focus on what they did understand. This is all well and good if you understand enough of the text to piece together the story or the theme, but what if you really don't understand anything, as some of my ELLs sometimes tell me in exasperation? And what happens if you think you understand everything, but you really don't? And what am I teaching my students - that they should just ignore things that are difficult for them? How horrible. You can see why I felt a need to change my ways.

I started by recording myself reading all of Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 on my phone. I wanted an audio recording for a couple of reasons: 1) using the recording would allow me to walk around and watch my students follow along with the reading, which is something I can't do very well when I am actually reading out loud, and 2) the recording helped me figure out how I wanted to chunk the text because I decided that I would stop the reading approximately every 5 minutes. (Why 5 minutes? Because it wound up being about 4 pages of text. Also, it wasn't too short where I felt that I was making the reading too choppy, and it wasn't too long where I felt the kids would start to lose focus.)

In class on Tuesday, which happened to be a day where I had about 85 minutes with my 1st period class, as opposed to my normal 56 minutes, I explained to my students that I wanted them to focus on difficulties; I wanted them to follow along with the reading and pay attention to anything they had trouble with or anything that confused them for whatever reason; I told them that if they had no difficulties, then they were not reading very well because even the best readers have difficulties. I told them that they didn't have to worry about writing anything down while we they were listening to the recording, because I would give them 3 or 4 minutes at the end of the first chunk to go back, re-read, and write down their difficulties.

We read the first chunk. I gave them the time to silently look back over the pages we'd just read and to write down their difficulties. Then, I gave them another 3 or 4 minutes to discuss their difficulties with the person sitting next to them. On the next page in their notebook (after the page where they were writing down their individual difficulties), I wanted them to write down anything that they both thought was difficult and why they found it difficult. Essentially, in their discussions, they were filtering out some of the difficulties because they were working through what some of them meant, thus leaving them with only the ones that they couldn't figure out together. 

We worked through all of Chapter 2 in this manner. We were left with about 10 minutes at the end of the period during which I asked students to share out some of their difficulties while I compiled a list of class difficulties. At the end of first period, this was our list of difficulties:

• Who is Dr. Eckleburg?
• Why is Gatsby in West Egg? Is he really getting money from family?
• The description of Dr. Eckleburg
• Why does Tom get angry when Myrtle says, "Daisy?"
• Why was Myrtle upset about her husband borrowing the suit?
• Why don't the women make a big deal when Tom hits Myrtle?

As you can see, this list comprises some of the most important issues in Chapter 2 - many of the issues I would have asked my students about if I had used my old reading method. However, the beauty with this list is that it was entirely student created. They were reading carefully enough to pick out these issues, and they understood that these issues were somehow important in relation to the rest of the book. 

The following class session, I started by having the students try to figure out one of these issues in their table groups. I told them they should look back in their books and that they could also use their phones to help them look up anything they wanted to look up. Again, I gave them 3 minutes. I told them that if they figured one difficulty out completely, then they should move onto another difficulty. 

After the 3 minutes were up, we discussed these difficulties as an entire class. I just asked the groups to share out what they found. Even though some of the groups discussed the same difficulties, each group was able to add something to the discussion; by the end, they figured them all out, and we were ready to begin reading Chapter 3. 

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Ease of use: It took me a little while to figure out exactly how to do this, but once I did, it worked fine. Also, the students didn't seem to have any trouble with it, once they understood the process. I did have to walk around the room the entire time, encouraging discussion, but other than that, it was a very easy method to implement.
Would I use this again: I used this for reading Chapter 3 as well, and I think I am going to continue using this method throughout the novel.
Downsides: It takes time. I was blessed with the block period that first day because we were able to finish the chapter. When we read Chapter 3, we started in class, and I told the students to finish for homework, looking for difficulties as they read; it worked out fine, but it would've been better if they'd been able to do it collaboratively in class.
Applications: Reading fiction or nonfiction texts in any subject area. Inquiry by Design uses this approach with shorter texts, about 4 or 5 pages long, but if you chunk a longer text like I did, it works just as well.
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UPDATE: 

As the unit progressed, I transitioned from having students read with the recordings to having students read out loud in their small groups. I assigned each person in the group a number - 1-4 - based on where they were sitting in the group, and I would roll a die to determine who was going to read. If I rolled a 1-4, then the person with the corresponding number would read (i.e., if I rolled a 2, then person #2 in each group would read). If I rolled a 5, then I would just choose a number. If I rolled a 6, then the students were allowed to choose in their groups who would read. 

When they read this way, I would have the person read out loud for 3 minutes. Then, I would give the groups 1 minute to discuss what they read and determine difficulties. I changed from the reading time to only 3 minutes, since only 1 person in the group was reading during this time; I didn't want the reader to go on for too long and have the other group members disengage. 

I would also use the numbers and roll the die when I asked the groups to report out difficulties to the class. 

Week 18: Fiction Jigsaw

At CATE 2015, I attended a session presented by Daniel Reynolds on postmodernism. Reynolds gave us a number of strategies and resources for not only reading postmodern texts but also for teaching in a postmodern way. One of the strategies he mentioned was the jigsaw. (For information on how to "jigsaw" your classroom, go here.) He asked the crowd what types of texts we traditionally use with jigsaws; we mentioned nonfiction texts, texts that we just need to "get through," texts that help provide background knowledge for our students, etc. Reynolds explained that we typically jigsaw pieces of nonfiction because there isn't usually a story line those texts follow, and since there's no story line, we don't have to worry about our students missing something or not understanding something by only reading the piece that they are assigned. If we jigsaw a fictional piece, we are playing with the order of the narrative, much in the same way that many postmodernist authors play with the order of their narratives. (In fact, Reynolds told us about a book called The Unfortunates by B.S. Johnson, which was published in 1969. It is a "book in a box" - all of the pages come, unbound, in a box, and you can essentially read them in any order you want.) On the handout he gave us, Reynolds noted, "This approach pushes into stark awareness for students how meaning is constructed, and how we understand plot, characterization, and other literary elements as steps in a process of meaning making." While I was sitting in the session, I immediately decided to use the jigsaw with The Awakening.

I'll be honest ... I have actually used the jigsaw with fiction during my student teaching with The Crucible; it didn't go very well, and I felt guilty when other teachers espoused strong opinions about how students need to read texts in their entirety and not in bits and pieces. Now, however, I have a new rationale behind the method - it is a postmodernist approach! It's perfect, especially since I am having them read "A Rose for Emily" soon after finishing the novel, and my students always have difficulty with the fact that the story isn't told in chronological order. Also... and, again, I will be honest... I am getting really bored with The Awakening because we have been reading it for so long! It is just over 100 pages, and we have been reading it since the beginning of February! If I am bored, there is no doubt in my mind that my students are bored. We need to finish this book, and we need to do so as quickly as possible.

I introduced the strategy Monday right after the conference. In groups of four, each student read a different chapter and then was responsible for teaching that chapter to the rest of the group. At the end, the groups were to write a one-sentence summary on what happened in all four chapters. By coincidence, my student teacher used the strategy again this past Tuesday and Wednesday in much the same way for a lesson she needed to videotape for her school. Her jigsaw got the students through chapter 28 out of 39. Toward the end of 2nd period on Wednesday, one of my students told me that he really liked doing the jigsaw because meeting in the "expert" group to hash out the details of his chapter helped him to really understand what happened in that chapter.

Wednesday afternoon, I had a decision to make: we could keep plowing ahead and take another week and a half to finish the novel, or I could use the jigsaw on a larger scale to finish the novel by the beginning of this coming week. I opted for the latter.

At the start of class on Thursday, before I even explained what we were doing, one of my students asked, "Ms. Lewis, why do we keep doing that jigsaw thing? Is it because we need to finish the book?" I smiled and, as always, answered honestly, "Yes, we are doing it to help us finish the book. However, it is also a postmodernist approach to reading because it forces you to read the plot out of order. Do you remember how in your project on postmodernism you learned that postmodern authors often play with the sequence of events?" He did. "Well, the jigsaw does that same thing. Also, it will help prepare you for a story we are going to read called 'A Rose for Emily,' in which the events are not told in order." He nodded. The rest of the class nodded. I introduced how we were going to jigsaw the rest of the book.

In my classroom, my students are sitting in groups of three or four because I often have them work in groups. In 1st period, I have ten groups, so I assigned each table group a chapter between 29 and 38; these table groups would become the expert groups on their assigned chapter and would report on their chapter to the rest of the class. I told the groups to read silently. Then, when they finished reading, they were to begin working on a poster, in the form of a Frayer Model, that should include the following information:


On Thursday, students read and began working on the posters. Yesterday, after their vocabulary quiz, they told me they wanted to keep working on their posters. (!) I will give them about five minutes to finish on Monday, and then they will "teach" their chapters to the class. During the presentations, I am going to force my students to practice their listening skills by telling them that they are not allowed to write anything down while the expert group is presenting. However, after each presentation, the students will be responsible for writing down notes on the chapter. (I don't want them writing during the presentations, because then they will just copy what's on the poster, which doesn't help them internalize the information.) At the end of all the presentations, they will write a 3-5 sentence summary of what happened in chapters 29-38. Then, on Tuesday, we will finish the book together.
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Ease of use: Honestly, the jigsaw is very easy to implement once you have a text you want to use, especially if that text is already "chunked" for you. The most important thing is to make sure students understand what they are responsible for.
Would I use this again: Yes. This isn't a strategy to use all the time, but in certain scenarios, it can be very valuable, especially in getting the students to work together.
Downsides: The students don't actually read the entire text. (Not all of them got to read the part in which Edna finally kisses Robert!!! I still feel a little bad about this...)
Applications: As Daniel Reynolds explained and as I've illustrated, you can do a jigsaw with fiction as well as nonfiction. The website I linked at the top of this post - The Jigsaw Classroom - gives detailed instructions on how to use the jigsaw in your classroom.

Week 16: CATE 2015 and the Stand-Up Quiz

CATE 2015

Yesterday, I was in San Jose, CA for the 2015 CATE conference. It was a whirlwind of a day, flying up and back in about 12 hours. At the conference, I presented on the PostSecret project that I do with my students. I was a little nervous - more about whether or not all of the technology would work than actually presenting - but it wound up going really well!

Thank you to all those who attended my session. I have been playing around with the PostSecret Universe app today. I came across this video. I don't know why, but when I saw it, I felt the need to share it with you. It exemplifies the connections that are possible and the lives that can be saved through PostSecret and the people of the PostSecret community. If you have any secrets dealing with suicide, you should consider showing this video to your students.

If you didn't attend my session, but you are curious about the project, here is the presentation. If you have questions about how I use the project in my classes or about implementing the project with your students, please just ask. I encourage you to try the project and make it work for you and your students. In fact, here is a secret from the new app with a very interesting idea for a class project...

If you have never attended the annual CATE conference, I encourage you to do so in the future. It is a gathering of English teachers from all across California (and sometimes other states as well) who come together to talk about all the good things they are doing in their classes. For an English teacher, it is one of the few conferences that feeds your soul and makes you excited about returning to the classroom the following Monday. Next year, the conference will be held in Costa Mesa (Orange County), so hopefully a few more of my colleagues from Fallbrook High School will be able to attend; it would be wonderful if we could get a Fallbrook cohort together to attend these conferences regularly. 

Stand-Up Quiz

Okay... so back to what's going on in my classroom... 

At the beginning of this past week, I decided I needed to change my Monday vocabulary routine in ELD 2. Usually, I would give the students their vocabulary worksheet (here's an example) and then go through a presentation in which I gave them the part of speech, definition, synonym, and antonym for each word. Most of the time, I would leave the synonym and antonym portion of the presentation blank and, while presenting, ask the class to think of a synonym and antonym for each word. While this worked, as you can imagine, it did not engage the entire class. I would have one or two students who would shout out words while the others sat and stared blankly at the screen. (This is not an easy activity for students in ELD 2 because of their limited vocabulary.) A couple of times, I tried to make it into a game and had my TA keep track of how many words each student came up with, but I wasn't really satisfied with this approach. I needed to do something, but I also didn't want to completely abandon our routine. 

As I was preparing for class on Sunday evening, I decided I would go through the entire presentation and only give them the part of speech and definition for each word, and then I would have the kids work in groups to come up with the synonym s and antonyms. "Perfect!" I thought. "This will ensure that each kid is actually thinking. But how then what do we do? How do they share out?" I'll admit that I didn't come up with a solution right then; I decided I could just figure it out in class the next day.

In class, I told the students about the change, and they did not protest. I gave them the information I had for them and then had them turn their desks into their groups. I expected to see them all start working immediately, but they just sat there. Even after I told them to get to work, gave them permission to use their phones, and handed some of them dictionaries, most of them still just sat there staring at their vocabulary worksheets. Only one group really started working as I had expected - each student began looking up the words, they discussed different options for synonyms and antonyms, and they made sure each group member had the words they chose; they talked to each other and helped each other just like you would expect any group to do. The other two groups (yes, there were only three groups because I only have thirteen students in the class; ridiculous... I know...) just sat there. After much prodding, one or two students in each of those two groups began looking up words and writing down information, but the students who began working didn't talk to their other group members about what they were doing; they just worked as if I hadn't told them to work in a group at all. 

I walked around. I prodded. I encouraged. I assigned tasks. I thought, "Maybe they just don't know how to work in a group..." But then I realized that I had had them work in groups a million times prior to this, and they had not had any problem doing so. I honestly have no idea what the problem was, but it was painful to watch. Tomorrow, I think I am just going to split up the words, assign a chunk to each student, and then have them share what they come up with at the end to their group; I would prefer that they come up with the synonyms and antonyms together, but... it just did not work for those two groups. If you have any suggestions to get them working together, please, please, please let me know.

Anyway, once they all finally had a synonym and antonym for each word, I wanted them to share out, so we could discuss them, and I could check to make sure they actually understood the vocabulary word. I decided to use the stand-up quiz to do so. This is a strategy that I have only used once or twice in my time as a teacher, but it was a go-to strategy for our former ELD 1 teacher. I always liked the strategy; I just never remembered to use it. Basically, you have the entire class stand up, and then you start asking them questions. When a student correctly answers a question, he/she (or his/her group or row, depending on how you want to structure the quiz and how many questions you have) may sit down. (Since my class is so small, I only let the individual who answered sit down after volunteering to give me a synonym and antonym for a word.) You keep asking questions until everyone is sitting down. 

Even though the group work did not go well, this went beautifully! The strategy was exactly what I was looking for. All of the students were actively engaged; they were raising their hands to give me words; they were checking their papers to make sure the words they had were correct. So, while I still need to re-think how I get my students to work in groups on this assignment, I am definitely going to make the stand-up quiz a staple in our vocabulary routine. (And I will probably try to start incorporating it into my English 11 classes, as well.)
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Ease of use: The stand-up quiz is on of the easiest formative assessments to include in your instruction. You can prepare questions in advance, or you can just come up with them on the spot. You don't need any extra space in your classroom, like you do for an activity like "lines of communication" or "inside-outside circles", since the students can just stand at their desks. Easy, easy, easy. You just have to remember to do it...
Would I use this again: Yep. As I said, I am going to start doing this on a weekly basis. (I may even do it more often than that.)
Downsides: You need to have something that holds the students accountable once they are sitting down. If you do an impromptu stand-up quiz, you should tell the students to write down the questions and answers (or something along those lines), so they don't tune out once they are sitting down.
Applications: You can pretty much do this with any topic in any subject area. I did this with synonyms and antonyms for vocabulary, but you can do it with anything you want. You can do it with questions from all levels of Bloom's taxonomy. You can do it with math questions. You can do it in P.E. You can ask questions, or you can ask the students to demonstrate some skill. It is one of those wonderful strategies that is applicable almost anywhere. 

Week 15: Differentiation with Google Forms

I had just begun taking full advantage of the differentiation powers of Edmodo when I decided to switch over to Google Classroom. From the start, I was disappointed by the fact that Google Classroom did not allow me to put my students into small groups, like I could on Edmodo, and thus assign each small group a different assignment (or a different version of the same assignment); however, I was able to do virtually just that using Google Forms.

On Monday of this past week, my students were working on revising their writing. In order to effectively differentiate my instruction to best meet the needs of my students, I needed to split them up. When I was reading their original assignments, they naturally fell into five separate groups based on how they did on that assignment and the areas they needed to improve upon. The original assignment was to write three paragraphs summarizing and responding to an article. The five groups were:

1. Students who understood the argument and purpose of the text and just needed to make minor revisions to their writing.
2. Students who partially understood the argument but needed clarification on the purpose of the text before they could work on revising their writing.
3. Students who misinterpreted the argument based on something else that was mentioned in the article. It was obvious that these students understood some parts of the article, but they missed the big picture. These students needed to figure out the argument and the purpose before they could revise their writing.
4. Students who had trouble understanding the article. Their writing was very unclear and mixed up. They needed to work on understanding the article and then on making a clear point with their writing.
5. Students who had not completed the original assignment.

As you can imagine, each group needed individualized instructions. Rather than having each group wait patiently as I gave instructions to the other groups, I decided to use Forms to help me give the instructions and walk the students through some of the information I needed them to understand before they could start revising their papers. That way, I could focus on walking around the room and helping students individually and/or in small groups in dissecting the article and/or in revising their writing as opposed to wasting my time giving instructions.

Before assigning the form, I had students move so that they were in those five groups. I did this in case they wanted to work together and help each other AND so it would be easier for me to address common problems and questions to each group.


Here is what the form looked like on the students' end:

Page 1 of the form

The page students were taken to if they clicked on Group 1.

The page students were taken to if they clicked on Group 2. If they selected the wrong purpose, they were taken to a page that told them to re-read and try again. Once they got the correct purpose, they were told to start revising.

The page students were taken to if they clicked on Group 3. If they selected the wrong argument, they were taken to a page that told them to re-read and try again. Once they got the argument, they moved onto the same question on purpose that Group 2 was taken to directly. After understanding the purpose, they were told to start revising.

The page students were taken to if they clicked on Group 4. After correctly identifying the argument, they were given a sentence frame to help them write the argument in a clear sentence. Then, they were walked through identifying the purpose. I put them in a separate group, so that after they got through understanding the argument and purpose, I could sit down with them and focus on helping them clearly express their thoughts on paper.

The page students were taken to if they clicked on Group 5. This walked them through reading the article and identifying the author's argument and purpose. At then end, they are provided with a graphic organizer to help them with their writing that the other students received originally in print.

Here is the entire form if you want to click through it to see where it takes you.

And here is what the form looked like on my end:

Page 1 of the form - Notice that next to where it says "Multiple choice," I checked the box, "Go to page based on answer." This is what allowed me to direct my students to different pages and questions. I had to create those other pages and then come back here to specify where I wanted my students to be taken.

Here is another example. Once I had this question made, I could duplicate it if I needed to use it somewhere else by clicking on the icon that looks like one piece of paper on top of another piece of paper in the top right-hand corner; the copy would still direct students to the appropriate places. Notice that I also checked the box for "Required question" down at the bottom. This ensures that the students can't get away with skipping the question; they have to select an answer before they will be allowed to move on.

I had to insert one last page (which I just called "Last page") at the very end of my form. None of the other pages connect to this page, but for some reason, some of the other pages would not function properly without it. I am guessing this is just a glitch in the Google Forms software, but, for now, be advised that you may need to do this.

I will admit that I was up late on Sunday night setting up this form, but, when Monday rolled around, it made my life so much easier than it would have been if I had not done so. As I said above, I was able to assign this form and have my students start working while I wandered around, helping the students who needed it most. It was awesome. 

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Ease of use: If you are just getting used to Google Forms, I suggest you practice and play around making forms until you feel you have mastered the basics before you attempt doing something like this. It isn't that it is extremely difficult (Forms actually makes it quite easy) - it's just that there are a lot of little kinks that you may need to work out. Also, you need to make use of backward mapping for this. You need to have an overall vision of what you want your students to accomplish before you start so that the way you create and link pages makes pedagogical sense.
Would I use this again: Yes. The wonderful thing (and also horrible thing) about the Internet is that nothing ever really gets deleted. I've created this form, and I can use it whenever I want. I can also duplicate the entire form, so that the pages are still linked, and just tweak the questions and answers to fit whatever it is I want it to fit. Or I can create an entirely new form from scratch. The possibilities are endless.
Downsides: As I mentioned above, there are kinks that need to be worked out. Once you've created your form, you need to go through it, clicking on every possible answer, to make sure that it actually takes you to the place you want it to go. Don't rely on the fact that it says it will take you to a specific page, because it might not if you don't have a random last page of if you didn't click on of the right boxes. You need to test it before you can use it in class. That being said, once you've made it and have tested it, it and all future copies of it should work.
Applications: Differentiation! All teachers know that we are supposed to be differentiating in our classes, but we can't always figure out how to do it effectively, especially because you don't want one group doing nothing while you are working with another group. This helps because you can give the students more individualized instructions, and you can even build the re-teaching right into it! It's awesome. 

Week 2: TextHelp Study Skills (Google Add-on), Group Thesis Writing on Mini-Whiteboards, and Re-Teaching Plagiarism

Texthelp Study Skills (Google Add-on)

Texthelp Study Skills is a Google add-on that is basically a fancy highlighting tool. The thing that makes it really is that, after you are done highlighting a document, you can click "Collect highlights", which then creates a new document with just your highlighted material. When I showed this feature to my students, a collective "Whoa..." swept the room, and some students even applauded me. 

In order to install it, all you need to do is open up a Google Doc, click "Add-ons", select "Get add-ons...", search for "Texthelp Study Skills", and then click the "+Free" button to install. You can only use it in Google Docs, so your students will need a Google account in order to take advantage of it. (If your school doesn't provide GAFE accounts for your students, I highly recommend you have them create gmail accounts. This way they can create a professional email address (so you don't have to worry about getting emails from addresses such as "whataredrugs420"), and they can have access to all of Google Drive.)

When using this add-on in class, I had to play around with my directions and what I wanted my students to do in order to make the most out of the highlighting tools. First, I chose an article I wanted them to read and pasted it into a Google Doc. Then, I came up with instructions that would walk them through using the highlighting tool and highlighting their document. I decided to highlight some of the information in the directions because then, when students collected their highlights, the highlights would be organized underneath each specific direction. Here is what I shared with my students, here is an example of a highlighted copy, and here is the collected highlights document generated from the highlighted copy.

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Ease of use: As I mentioned, the directions took some figuring out on my part. However, in terms of students actually using it, they got it after I showed it to them once.
Would I use this again: Yes, especially because I really like that I don't have to make a million copies of the different articles I want my students to read. I actually had students read 2 different assigned articles using this method. Then, I had them search for another article to read using the same method. (Here is the assignment for when I had them find their own article.)
Downsides: Everything is digital, so for students who prefer reading on paper versus a computer screen, this isn't a good tool. For this reason, I wouldn't recommend it for texts longer than a couple of pages.
Applications: Active reading for any short text (informational texts, short stories, poems, etc.)

Group Thesis Writing on Mini-Whiteboards

Using mini-whiteboards in class (especially in my class) is definitely not a new concept, nor is group-writing; however, group-writing ON mini-whiteboards ... Man! Why didn't I think of this sooner???

Usually, when I have my students group-write, I give them a big piece of butcher paper, I make each student use a different color, and I tell the students that I want to see each color equally in the final product. The problem? They are writing in markers on butcher paper, which doesn't really promote revision, because despite what I tell them about writing in pencil first, they never do, which means when they make a mistake, they need to cross it out with marker, which makes the poster look bad, so then they ask for a new piece of butcher paper and have to start all over again. 

With whiteboards, when students make a mistake, they just erase it and start over. Writing on a whiteboard feels less like a project, so students are more willing to write things down and take chances than they are when they are writing in marker on butcher paper. 

But the best part? I was walking around from group to group the entire time, telling them they needed to revise, asking them what they thought was wrong with their current thesis, and giving them suggestions for how to improve their next draft; I didn't give them directions for the next step until they had a stellar thesis. When they work with the butcher paper, it is as much of a hassle for me when they have to start over as it is for them, so I when I check their work, I don't make them revise it if it is decent. I usually collect the posters, read through them that day, and then give them fresh paper the next day to fix their mistakes. With this process, kids go through 2-3 revisions over the span of a couple of days and still usually come away with less than an A+ product. However, with the whiteboards, each group went through 4+ revisions in the span of one class period and walked away having written an A+ thesis. 

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Ease of use: This is extremely easy to implement in the classroom. I literally just passed out whiteboards and markers, told the students I wanted them to write a thesis on the assigned topic, and then they worked for the entire period while I walked around helping them. It took absolutely no prep time other than the 5 minutes that I spent what I was going to do in class that day. (I don't usually recommend only planning for 5 minutes, but in this case, it worked out.)
Would I use this again: Yes! Now I just need bigger whiteboards, so they can write entire body paragraphs on them...
Downsides: In theory, if you don't have mini-whiteboards, that would be a downside. However, you can just put a blank piece of paper in a page protector, and it works almost just as well as a whiteboard. I got all of my whiteboards for $1 each at Big Lots; you just have to be on the lookout for deals like that, and you need to buy at least 10 of them when you come across those deals. Other than that, there are no downsides.
Applications: Writing instruction and revision (plus all the other millions of applications for mini-whiteboards in the classroom)

Re-Teaching Plagiarism

Last week, my students turned in a piece of process-writing, which I graded quickly in order to get back to them this week, so they could write a similar on-demand assignment. (I had a 5-day turnaround on the essays, which is my fastest turnaround time ever.) This was really my students' first big process-writing assignment, and even though we worked on them for an entire week (not to mention all of the prep work we did throughout the unit leading up to the assignment), I had 5 students who plagiarized parts of their assignment. 5 students! I will usually have 1 or 2, at the most, who cheat on this first assignment, but 5??? 

I was shocked, annoyed, frustrated, angry, and a whole slew of other adjectives... not just because so many students had cheated, but because I really drive my policies on cheating and plagiarism home during the first week of school. On the second day of school, I have students complete a worksheet on cheating and plagiarism, which we then discuss as a class and students keep in the front of their notebook, along with their syllabus, for reference throughout the rest of the year. I also have them take this plagiarism test because it does a really good job of explaining what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. On top of all of that, I repeatedly tell the students that I will catch them if they cheat - even if they have never been caught before, I will catch them. 

Usually, when I come across a plagiarized essay, I confront the student, fill out an honor code violation form, and give the student a zero on the assignment, as per school policy. This time, however, I decided to do things a little differently, mainly because none of the essays were 100% plagiarized - they all had plagiarized sentences woven into their own writing. I realized this was a teachable moment, and if I simply proceeded as I usually did, I would lose that moment. 

I confronted each of the students after class, but instead of just telling them the consequences, I told them they had to come in at lunch that day. When they came in, I made them get on a computer. First, I made them look up the definition of "plagiarism" (mainly because one of the boys was really mad and didn't think he had done anything wrong). We talked about the fact that plagiarism is both stealing someone else's words and stealing someone else's ideas. Then, I had them highlight all of the portions of their essays that were plagiarized. I explained to them how to include citations in order to avoid plagiarism, and I told them I wanted them to revise their essays and turn them back into me by the end of the week. Also, I decided to give them partial credit on the assignment, as opposed to a zero. A zero would have brought them all down to ~40% in the class, which then would've caused them to give up completely for the rest of the semester. By giving them partial credit, they are all still passing; this way I ensure they don't lose hope, and I also (hopefully) ensure they never plagiarize again.