Week 6: SparkNotes Reading Quiz (aka, How I Finally Beat SparkNotes!)

I have finally outsmarted SparkNotes! Throughout my career as an English teacher, SparkNotes has been the bane of my existence. Don't get me wrong... I appreciate SparkNotes as a study tool, and I even used to use it myself when I was trying to find a specific event in a book. (At this point, however, I've read books like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Great Gatsby so many times that I don't have to reference SparkNotes anymore to find anything because I pretty much have the books memorized.) I tell my students at the beginning of the year that SparkNotes is fine if they are using it to help them understand what they read in the book. In the cheating activity that I do at the very beginning of the year (which I mentioned in an earlier post), I even go over the appropriate use of SparkNotes:

Scenario: For homework, Ms. Toone asked her students to read and take notes on Chapter 1 in Of Mice and Men.

1. Joey did not have time to do any of the reading. Instead, he just copied down some notes from SparkNotes.
1. Is this an example of cheating? Why or why not?
2. What should Joey have done instead?
2. Maria completed the reading and the notes. However, she wanted to make sure she completely understood what happened in the chapter. Therefore, she went to SparkNotes to make sure she didn’t miss anything. She added a few items to her notes, in her own words.
1. Is this an example of cheating? Why or why not?

I do all this because I want my students to see that they need to actually read the assigned books, as opposed to just reading SparkNotes. I also warn them that I will catch them if they are just reading and taking notes off of SparkNotes (which they never believe even though I always have a TA who I previously had as a student in English 11 the year before, sitting in the front of the class, nodding his head in agreement as I am telling the kids I will catch them because he has first-hand experience with this). No matter how much I emphasize this point or dock students points when I see that they are just copying notes out of SparkNotes, I have never completely succeeded in getting them to read.

Last year, when I started implementing the single-question reading quiz, I told my students that they would not be able to answer the quiz question if they didn't actually read and only looked at SparkNotes. In a previous post, I mentioned how I have been using that method this year with Huck Finn; however, I occasionally slip up. 

Last week, my quiz question on Ch. 16 from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was something along the lines of, "What was the bad luck in Ch. 16?" I knew that SparkNotes gave the students one answer, but the real answer was that Huck and Jim missed Cairo and the Ohio River. Even though I had resolved to not accept the SparkNotes answer, I didn't stick to my guns in 1st period. Why? I don't know. But I definitely kicked myself for it when 2nd period rolled around, especially when I heard students talking about how they had just read SparkNotes. When I overheard this, I mentioned to the class that that answer was only worth partial credit. I saw the kids look at each other because they knew they'd been caught, but I also knew that this wouldn't deter them from doing the same thing in the future. I needed to think of something.

Then it hit me. I could use SparkNotes as the quiz itself in order to force my students to read. In other words, I decided to copy the summary from SparkNotes and then asked my students to tell me something that happened in the chapter that was not included in the SparkNotes summary. Why had I not thought of this sooner?!?

The next day was Thursday. I had to be out on Friday for professional development, so I told my students that there would not be a reading quiz until Monday. I warned them that they would not be able to answer the question if they only read SparkNotes. Some of them looked at me in disbelief, but I reiterated my point; in fact, I told them I could guarantee that they wouldn't be able to answer the question if they only read SparkNotes. 

When Monday of this week rolled around, I was ready. As soon as my students walked in the door, I passed out their quiz. They looked at it, and some of them laughed nervously because they hadn't taken my warning seriously. That day, I had 5 kids in 1st period and 6 kids in 2nd period who failed. I continued to give the same type of quiz every day this week. By the end of the week, I only had 1 or 2 students in each class who failed. (The kids who fail still have to read and write the 1-page summary, due by the end of the period, just like I mentioned in a previous post.) I knew I'd won when one of my worst SparkNotes offenders asked, "Are you going to do this all the time now?" "Yep." "Oh..."

Have I succeeded in getting my students to read? For the most part, yes. I am sure that some of them are still finding ways around actually reading and are perhaps just memorizing random facts from the chapters assigned. However, the thing that I love about this method is that it forces everyone to read a summary of what they read the night before at the beginning of class. This means that everyone - even the kids who didn't  really do the reading - are now at least somewhat prepared to participate in a discussion on the book. It helps the students review the important points of the chapter(s) and serves as a jumping-off point for the following activity.
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Ease of use: This is the easiest quiz you can imagine! If you can copy + paste, then you can do this. 
Would I use this again: Yes. I am going to do this forever. I love this. Okay. Maybe not forever, but I will do this for as long as it seems to be working... or perhaps until I don't need to do it anymore because my students are finally actually reading...
Downsides: As I mentioned above, I'm sure some students are still figuring out ways around reading, but as of right now, this is the best weapon I have. Also, and this is kind of silly, but I was used to just telling students to take out a half-sheet of paper and writing the daily quiz question on the board; now, I have to remember to make copies in advance, which is not always easy for me to do...
Applications: Reading quizzes on any novel that has summaries written on SparkNotes (or shmoop or any other online forum, for that matter). 

Week 5: Writing a Rhetorical Précis in ELD 2

Over the past couple of weeks, my ELD 2 class (comprised of 9 students from Mexico and Guatemala who have been in the country less than 2 years) was reading and working with the last text in Unit 1 of their textbook. We use the Edge curriculum, and the units are arranged to build certain skills throughout the unit, preparing students to close-read a grade-level appropriate text at the end of the unit. To give you an idea on how long it takes my students to read the stories in the text... we have been in school for 3 months; I meet with my students for 112 minutes every day; they have only read 7 stories (none longer than 5 pages) since the beginning of the year, and I am completely okay with that. I have been working a lot with my students on getting them to read the texts on their own and understand what the texts are saying. We've worked on skills like making predictions, clarifying meaning, summarizing, and analyzing the text. I often read a story to them and then have them go back and read the story again in small groups of 3. Since this is my first year teaching ELD 2, I was surprised at first by how long everything takes, and I was constantly postponing activities to the next day. Now, however, I am much better at estimating how long it will take my students to do something. 

We began working with the story "Ambush", this unit's close-reading selection, during the 1st week of November. First, I had students make predictions about what the text would be about. Then I read it to them, stopping every so often for them to summarize what had just happened. We worked through this together, because I wanted to give them a strong foundation for what was coming next. 

After we finished the story, I gave them another copy of the story, complete with reading questions, which I printed from the Edge website. This time, I had students read the story in their groups, underlining and circling important ideas in the text and answering the reading questions as they went. I will be honest and admit that I did not love all of the questions included on the printed copy, but what I did like was that many of the questions forced the students to go back into the text a third, fourth, or even fifth time in order to figure out the answer. 

When I first looked over the worksheet version of the story, I thought, "Well, I can have the students write a summary of the entire story after we read it," because I have been working A LOT on summarizing and getting the students to put their writing in their own words, instead of just copying lines straight out of the text. Since I also teach English 11 with both fluent English speakers and English Language Learners, I see most of the students who have come up through ELD 1, 2, 3, and 4, in my English 11 classes. I am always extremely frustrated when I have an ELL in English 11 who still is trying to get by with just copying lines straight from the text. I vowed to myself that, even if I accomplished nothing else, I would be happy at the end of this year as long as my ELD 2 students can write a summary in their own words.

In any case, as I thought about what I was having my students do, another idea struck me: they are getting pretty good at writing summaries; why not take it to another level and have them write a rhetorical précis? This year, the English department at my school has been focusing on précis writing with all of the English 9-12 classes, so I figured it would be a good idea to introduce my ELD 2 students to it now in order to prepare them for it next year in ELD 3/English 9. 

If you have ever taught a rhetorical précis to high schoolers, you know that it forces them to think more critically about the subject matter than a typical summary. You probably also know that it takes kids a little while to actually become proficient with writing a rhetorical précis. For these reasons, I decided I had to be very careful with how I presented the information and structure to my students. 

The first thing I did, after my students finished reading through the text and answering all of the questions in their reading packet, was break down the information one more time. I had students answer the following questions:

• Who is the author?
• What is the genre?
• What is the title?
• What is the date the text was published?
• What is the main idea?
• How did the author show us the main idea?
• Why did the author write the text?
• What is the tone of the text?
• Who did the author want to read the text?

You'll notice that my questions hit on all the components of the rhetorical précis: author, genre, title, main idea, purpose, tone, and audience. I did this before I even presented the rhetorical précis to my students. I wanted them to have it, so they would be able to use it when it came time to write the rhetorical précis. I also didn't want to confuse them too much by introducing the rhetorical précis first and then going back to find this information in the text. 

Next, I gave them the first of a series of worksheets, which I adapted from the worksheets provided by Lauren Jones, our Department Chair, that we used with the kids in English 9-12. The worksheet is a CLOZE note-taking guide, which walks students through what a rhetorical précis is. (Here is a version with the words filled in.) At the bottom of the worksheet, I included 2 samples that I wrote based on 2 stories we recently read in class. I chose to do this instead of including the samples Lauren provided us with or finding some random samples online because I thought that by writing about familiar stories, I would help my students see the structure and understand what a précis is. (Basically, I lowered the affective filter by using material they were comfortable with.)

After we worked through the first worksheet, I gave them a second worksheet that broke down the structure of each sentence; I also gave them each a box of colored pencils. (At this point, the kids were pretty tired, so they perked right up when I handed them those colored pencils.) I walked them through underlining the different requirements in different colors and locating those requirements in the sample sentence. For example, the first sentence looked something like this:

1. Sentence One:  Name of author, genre, and title of work, date in parentheses; a rhetorically active verb; and a THAT clause containing the major argument or thesis in the text.
1. Saki, in the short story, “The Open Window” (1914), suggests that we should not believe everything we hear.

Once we finished the 4 sentences, I had them work in their groups to underline the sentences in the précis at the bottom of the page, and I wandered around from group to group, helping them.

Now that they (somewhat) understood what a précis is and its structure, I gave them a third worksheet, which provided them with sentence frames to help them write their own précis. When I gave them the worksheet, I asked them to turn back in their notebooks to the page where they wrote down the information on the story, "Ambush". I then pointed out to them that the information they had already written was what they needed to use to fill in the different parts of the sentence frames. At this point, one of my students rolled his eyes and said, "Ay, Miss ... that's all? It's too easy!" I laughed to myself and wished I could have gotten his reaction on video to show to some of my students in English 11 who are still struggling. I told him, "Yep, that's all! It is easy!" And I was reminded of how my mother used to tell me, when I was only a few months old, "Daddy's at work right now. He's teaching Calculus. Calculus is easy," with the hope that I would grow up to believe that Calculus was easy. I am happy to share (and gloat) that when I did take Calculus, I got an A. There was something to my mother's madness that worked with me; a teacher herself, she worked on lowering my affective filter in regards to Calculus from very early on; she told me Calculus was easy, so when I took Calculus, it was easy. Now, for my ELD 2 students, writing a rhetorical précis would be easy, not only because I had told them it would be, but because I'd thoroughly prepared them for it.

What happened next? My students wrote! They filled in the sentence frames, with a little help and encouragement, and then transferred their writing onto a separate sheet of paper, where they wrote their 4 sentences as 1 cohesive paragraph. After they finished their final draft, I had them trade papers and work through underlining the different parts, because I wanted them to read each other's writing and see that they had, in fact, included everything they needed. 

Since I was out on Friday for professional development, I decided to let my ELD 2 students watch a movie (the first movie they've watched all year). I left Up with the substitute, along with copies of this worksheet. I figured I could get away with letting them watch a movie, as long as I had them write a précis on it afterwards. I'll see how it went when I meet with them on Monday.
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Ease of use: Was it easy to get my students to write a rhetorical précis? Yes, actually it was. However, that is only because they were completely prepared for it. If I had just given them the sentence frames and asked them to fill them in, they probably could have done it, but they wouldn't have understood what they were writing or why they were writing it. By breaking it down this way, I am convinced I could get just about anyone to write a rhetorical précis.
Would I use this again: Yes. I will actually re-use some of these worksheets when I have them write a précis later on. Also, next year, when I introduce the rhetorical précis to my English 11 classes, I will probably break it down more like I did for my ELD 2 students.
Downsides: As my students were working, I noticed that some of the sentence frames (particularly the one for sentence #3) were not the best. However, as a starting point, they worked. Also, I realized I am going to need to work with my ELD 2 students on determining the lesson or theme of a text, as opposed to the main idea of what happened in the text. 
Applications: Teaching students to write a rhetorical précis, or breaking down any new piece of material, for that matter.
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Did the process work? Yes! Are my ELD 2 students completely proficient at writing a rhetorical précis? No, definitely not. However, they have a very strong foundation on which to build their skills in the future.
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In other news, I learned last week that I will be presenting at the 2015 CATE conference! If you are an English teacher in California, I strongly encourage you to attend. Registration is open until December 1st. 

Week 4: Follow-Up From Last Week & Holding Students Accountable

Last week, I wrote about how I was trying to hook my students into reading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I was only assigning reading in class, and I was letting the kids choose their reading strategy. At the time, it seemed as if things were going well. Unfortunately, when I returned after the weekend, and after having a sub at the end of the previous week, I discovered that, to my dismay, quite a few students had not read what they were supposed to read in class with the sub. I don't know if I chalk this up to the fact that it was Friday, that it was Halloween, that there was a sub, or a combination of all of these. I don't, however, blame the reading strategies. Why? On Thursday of this week, I had my students write their journal as a reflection of their chosen reading strategy. The topic was: "Reflect on your chosen active reading strategy. How's it going?" When we debriefed the journal after the students wrote for 10 minutes, the majority of them said that their strategy was working well for them. Interestingly, the majority of them have chosen to take notes in their notebook, which is what I would have forced them to do, if I had forced them to do something. The funny thing is that since they got to choose to take notes, instead of being told they had to take notes, they are all, for the most part, actually taking notes! Win. Win.

I realized that that part of what I was doing was working for the kids, but I still didn't have them 100% hooked into the book. On Monday, one of my few avid readers came in and told me the book was killing her. She said she'd tried to read the chapter and put what Jim was saying into modern language, but she couldn't; it was too hard. I thought to myself, "Oh man, if I've lost this student, I am definitely going to lose the rest of them." I needed to figure out what to do. I also needed to speed up our reading and start assigning homework. I came up with two solutions.

Solution #1: Holding Students Accountable

My first solution was that, if I needed to assign homework, I needed to hold students accountable for doing the homework. In the past when I've assigned reading homework, I'd follow-up the next day with a 1-question quiz right at the start of class. I tell the students that the quiz will be really easy if they read. (I make sure that the question can't be answered if the students simply looked at SparkNotes.) I also tell them that the point of the quiz is for me to see if they read, so if for some reason they can't remember the answer to the quiz question, they can write me something else that proves that they read. I make each quiz 20 points, and it goes into the "Tests & Quizzes" category in my grade book, which is worth 25% of their grade. This is enough to get the kids who care about their grades to do the reading. In order to get the rest of them, I would tie the quiz scores to some incentive at the end of the unit - something like, "If you don't pass X number of quizzes, you will have to do X at the end of the unit." This still never worked as well as I ever hoped, and I realized it was because it wasn't immediate. The kids didn't care right then about having to do whatever I told them they'd have to do later on. 

I realized that the punishment needed to be immediate, and it needed to be worse than doing the reading for homework. (For those of you who are familiar with EEI, I realized I needed to "raise the level of concern.") Therefore, I decided to make all students who failed the reading quiz do the reading in class that day and write a 1-page summary, which would serve as their ticket out the door stole. (This is a method I stole from Emily Toone, another English teacher at Fallbrook High School who is currently working as our ELL TOSA.) When I introduced this to my students, I asked them why they thought I was doing this. One student said it was because I was mean, but the rest of them understood it was because I wanted them to actually do the reading. 

Did it work? For the most part, yes. In my 1st period class, I had about 5 students out of 38 who didn't do the reading and had to write the summary; in my 2nd period class, I had about 6 students out of 36 who had to write the summary. With my previous method, I usually had about 1/3 of the class who wouldn't do the reading, so those numbers are much better. I am hoping that the number of students who don't do the reading will decrease over the next week, because the kids who had to write the summaries were pretty miserable when they realized I was serious. ("Yes, you really have to do this." "Yes, it really has to be a page." "Yes, you will not leave until you give it to me.")

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Ease of use: You have to have some time built-in in order to be able to check the quizzes right away and determine which students need to write the summaries. I just have my TA's check them quickly while I am explaining the next activity. Then, I wrote the names of the students who failed the quizzes on the white board and told them they needed to write the summary instead of doing the next activity. Aside from making sure the timing worked out, it was really easy.
Would I use this again: Yes; I am going to continue to do this throughout our unit. If it goes well, it may become my go-to method for what I do every time I assign reading for homework.
Downsides: As I mentioned above, it means the students who write the summary miss whatever you are doing in class, but honestly, they wouldn't have gotten much out of what we were doing in class since they hadn't done the reading.
Applications: Holding students accountable for homework assignments.

Solution #2: Creating a "Glossary" for Jim's Slang

With the strategy above, I got my students to read for homework. Now I needed to make sure they could understand what they were reading when we weren't reading together in class. While I was putting my son to sleep on Wednesday night, it hit me. If I gave them a glossary for Jim's slang, then they would be able to reference it while reading in order to help the understand what Jim was saying. Then I thought, "Wait a second... if I just give them a glossary, half of them won't even look at them, and it won't really help them to be able to figure out what they're reading when they come across words that aren't on the glossary... I need to make them make the glossary! I need to make them do the work!" Then I fell asleep, since it was Wednesday night and putting my son to sleep involves me holding his hand and falling asleep on the floor next to his crib. 

The next morning before school, I created this worksheet, which I copied and gave to my students on Friday. (The reading they had to do on Thursday was a chapter in which Huck and Jim weren't together, so I didn't have to worry about them not having the glossary before Friday.) Here is an example from the worksheet:

1. “No, sah - nuffn else”

1. sah = sir
2. nuffn = nothing

Translation of line: No, sir - nothing else.

I included the line in addition to the words I wanted them to translate, so the students would be able to use the context clues in order to help them translate what Jim was saying. I figured this would be a good idea because it would help them be able to dissect the language on their own later on in the text.

I gave the students the worksheet after their vocabulary quiz on Friday, and they worked on it in their table groups, with a partner, or individually. Overall, they seemed to get it. Even my ELLs were successful with it. Now, the test is to see if they actually use it. (But, I suppose, even if they don't use it, they've done the worksheet, which has helped to build their skills at using context clues to understand the words that aren't written in standard English.)

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Ease of use: Really easy. In the future, I think I will give my students this worksheet before we even start reading the book.
Would I use this again: Yes. See above.
Downsides: None.
Applications: Helping students become independent readers. :)
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Stay tuned for next week... I am going to attempt to get my ELD 2 students to write a precis!

Week 3: Giving Students Choice in Reading and Hooking Kids into Huck Finn

This past week, I started Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in my English 11 classes. Now, I know that there are two camps when it comes to Huck Finn, and I must admit that I am in the camp that LOVES Huck Finn. 

I first read the book when I was in third grade and was going through a phase in which I had to read all the "old" books on my bookshelves that my parents had read when they were little. Even though I didn't entirely understand it at the time, I enjoyed the adventure of a young boy being able to travel down the Mississippi River without a care in the world. (Like I said, I didn't really understand it at the time.)

When I was in 10th grade, I had to read the book again in my English class. It was actually the first book we read that year, and I was excited because I'd already read it and knew I liked it. I will be completely honest: if I hadn't already read and liked the book, I probably would have hated it as a result of reading it in 10th grade. Why? My teacher (we will call her "Mrs. F") didn't really do anything to make it interesting, and she never called on me when she asked for volunteers to read. I quickly became disengaged in class and read to myself, instead of following along with her monotone voice or the other students she picked to read. What's more is that when Mrs. F handed back our essays on the book, she told us that she'd graded them really "hard" and that we should be happy if we got a "B". We were Honor's students, so this worried us, and we all prepared ourselves for the worst. She wandered up and down the aisles of the classroom, handing back our papers; when she got to me, she looked at my grade and, before giving me my paper, said, "Writing's not your best thing, is it?" I was shocked. I managed some retort along the lines of, "Well, I just don't like to write about what people tell me to write about," as I grabbed the paper from her. When I looked at my grade, I was left dumbfounded. I had gotten an 80% - a B- ... As I watched her shuffle on toward her next victim, I shot laser beams through her back. She had just told us to be happy with a B, implying that not many students earned B's, and then she insulted my writing even though she'd given me a B-. What??? As I said, if I hadn't already liked Huck Finn, I'm sure I would've hated it after this experience.

This event (coupled with another similar experience I had in 8th grade) paved the road ahead of me, leading me to become an English teacher. I loved reading, but I hated my 10th grade English class. In deciding to become an English teacher, I thought to myself, "I don't want my students to have to go through what I went through. I want them to love English." Now that I have been an English teacher for 7 years, this is still what drives me. I have succeeded with some students, but I always feel the need to do more. (I know it is impossible for me to make every student love English, but I can try, can't I?)

The first unit of the year was The Crucible, a book I'd read in the same 10th grade class and hated. I had shied away from it in the past for this very reason. However, I wanted to challenge myself this year. I re-read the book over the summer, and I actually liked it! I found myself getting wrapped up in Abigail's lies and rooting for John Proctor to expose her for what she really was. If you did an informal poll of my students to see how many of them liked The Crucible, most of them would tell you that they hated it. Even though most of them understood what was going on, I still feel that, as an English teacher, I failed.

Now, I've had quite a bit of success with Huck Finn in the past, but I still usually wind up with about a 50-50 split of lovers and haters. My goal this year was to try to get more of the students to love it, because, as we all know, they are more willing to learn and to take risks if it is with subject matter that they are actually interested in.

In the two weeks leading up to our unit on Huck Finn, I stumbled across two blogs that helped me solidify my plans for the unit. The first blog was "How do you keep students engaged with a class novel?" by Jen Roberts. In this blog, Roberts explains how she tricks her students into reading The Great Gatsby on their own. She explains that she starts out by reading in class and making sure the students really understand what's going on. Once she has them hooked into the story, she starts assigning reading for homework. I have done this in the past with Huck Finn, but I definitely did not do this with The Crucible. I tend to fluctuate between: "But they won't read if I assign it for homework!" and "But they need to read outside of class!" Roberts' argument was: "They won't read if I assign it for homework IF they don't like it. If they are already invested, then they will read." When I was teaching The Crucible, I was in the "But they need to read outside of class!" phase, so I pushed them through the book instead of drawing them into the book. I decided to go back to how I used to do things with Huck Finn and begin by reading together in class.

The other blog I came across was "Start a Reading Revolution: Flip Your Class With Blogs" by Brian Sztabnik. While I am not quite ready to employ all of his methods in his "flipped" classroom (though I may be later in the year), what I decided to try was the idea of choice and allowing students to pick an active reading strategy which works best for them. Sztabnik explains that his students "must read actively, but get to choose their method: index cards, post-it flags, bullet points in their notebooks, etc." Usually, I force my students to take Cornell Notes while they read. Do I really believe that taking Cornell Notes is the best method of active reading? No. Actually, I, myself, prefer to highlight and write in my book. So why do I use Cornell Notes? Honestly... because my AVID students need Cornell Notes. Horrible. I know. Furthermore, I've had a lot of frustration with asking my students to take notes while they read because it doesn't actually force them to read the book - they can very easily go to SparkNotes, read the summary of the assigned chapter, and take their notes from there (despite the fact that I warn them not to do this and catch them when they do (see last week's post)). Therefore, I decided, "What the heck? My AVID kids can still take Cornell Notes, and everybody else can do what works best for them."

When I introduced this to my class, I told them they could take notes, they could use sticky notes, they could use note cards, they could buy their books (gasp!) and highlight and write in them, or they could download an e-copy of the book for free to highlight and take notes on. I also told them that if they had some other method, that was fine, too; they just needed to be doing something. One of my students said, "But I read best by doing nothing." To which I replied, "That's the problem. You need to do something." I am still making the students who aren't taking notes in their notebooks write a one-sentence-summary of each chapter in their notebook, just so I can give everybody points for whatever they're doing. A girl asked if she could just write the summary at the end of each chapter; I told her the point was to have her reading actively, and if she just writes something at the end, then there is no guarantee that she is stopping to think and reflect while she's actually reading.

The results? Well, we are only a week in, but so far, my students seem to be enjoying the book. When we read the first couple of chapters together, they laughed when Huck offered the gang Miss Watson to kill, and I thought, "I've got them!" I think I am going to give it a few more days before I actually start assigning chapters for homework. Like Jen Roberts, I want it to seem accidental; I want to be in the middle of the chapter, so they want to go home and finish it on their own. Will I be able to pull it off? Only time will tell...
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Ease of use: This is extremely easy to implement. You just have to be willing to go slow at the beginning. You need to be okay with the fact that you will spend an entire week (or more) reading about two chapters in class every day.
Would I use this again: I'm stuck with it right now. When I am done with the unit, we will see, but so far, I like it.
Downsides: Grading is going to be tricky. I told the kids I am going to have to be able to see what they're doing, but that means I am going to actually have to look through their books if they are using sticky notes. I don't have all of that figured out yet, but that's okay. Also, we definitely won't have time to read the entire book in class. I am going to need to figure out the sweet spot in terms of how much reading to assign for homework once I get to that point. I am a little worried about Veterans Day and Thanksgiving, but hopefully, I will have the kids completely wrapped up in the story by then... We'll see...
Applications: Any novel unit. Or, if you go with the bigger idea of "choice", any lesson, ever.

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.

Week 1: Peardeck, Google Docs Websites, Peer Reviews with Google Forms, Newsela, and Going "Sarcasm-Free"

This week, I am pleased to report that I actually tried out quite a few "new things" in my classroom!

Peardeck

On Monday, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a follow-up session to the Google Summit in Coronado on October 4th and 5th. During the session on Monday, one of the other teachers presented on peardeck, a Google App that allows you to present directly to your students' screens and easily facilitates in-the-moment formative assessments. (For a brief tutorial on how to use peardeck in your classroom, check out this video.)

Due to the fact that I was in the meeting all day, I didn't have a chance to submit the copies I needed for Tuesday before the deadline. Normally, I would have resigned myself to either changing my lesson plan or sneaking down to the copy room to make the copies myself; however, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity for me to try out peardeck! Luckily, I had reserved the Chromebooks all week because my students were working on argumentative essays in relation to The Crucible, so I didn't have to worry about not having a device for each student.

I made a short 4-slide peardeck that allowed me to walk my students through the rubric for this assignment. (We'd already gone over the criteria with other activities throughout the writing process, but I wanted to emphasize that, for this particular essay, I was going to focus my grading on only 4 of the 10 criteria because I wanted to use this essay to make sure they understood including the opposing viewpoint and addressing the opposing viewpoint with a counterargument.) For the purpose of the activity, peardeck was extremely helpful. I was able to easily present the information I needed to, while keeping the students involved and engaged. More importantly, I was able to use a formative assessment to see whether or not my students understood which criteria they would be graded on, and the best part was that I could IMMEDIATELY address any misconceptions my students had! It was awesome! In the words of my 2nd period TA: "This is the coolest thing I've seen in a long time."
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Ease of use: I'm pretty sure my 90-year-old grandmother could make a peardeck (if I showed her how, of course).
Would I use this again: Absolutely!!!
Downsides: I don't think that access to technology is an issue, because kids can access peardeck on their phones. If not every student in the class has a smartphone, that is actually better because it then forces them to group up and collaborate! Win, win! The only downside I can see (and this almost happened to me) is that in the even either the WiFi goes down or their is some kind of glitch with Google Drive, you won't be able to use it. However, this is the case with most technology, so I don't really see it as a deterrent.
Applications: Any formative assessment ever.

Google Docs Websites

With the project I mentioned above, in the past, I had my students create physical newspapers, and I even gave them extra credit if they made them look old. (You know, because the kids always have a lot of fun burning the papers and dying them with coffee, and I always enjoy having my classroom smell like burnt coffee for a few days after the projects are due.) This year, I decided to give them the option of turning the newspaper into a website, because at the Google Summit, I learned how extremely easy it is to turn a Google Doc into a website. 

Okay. I guess I shouldn't say I "learned" it at the Google Summit, because I was always aware that that was a possibility, but I had never really thought through what I would use that feature in Google Docs for. But now, I was thinking about it, and I realized that since I was forcing my students to type their essays in Google Docs and peer edit them in Google Docs, then I might as well also give them the option of publishing them in Google Docs instead of forcing them to print them out, cut them up, and glue them together into a newspaper. 

When I presented the project to the students, I mentioned to them that they would have either option and that I would show them how to create the website later on. Well, that day wound up being this past Wednesday. After I walked my students in 1st period through the process of creating the website (i.e., opening Google Docs, clicking on "File", and then clicking on "Publish to the web...", all 5 groups in the class decided to go that route instead of creating the traditional paper copy. 3 out of 5 groups in 2nd period created websites as well. 

Here is a student sample. You will notice that the formatting isn't great (nor is some of the writing), but considering this is the first time they put together a website, and they did so in 1 day, I don't think it's too bad.

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Ease of use: My 90-year-old grandmother could definitely do this, and I don't think I'd even have to walk her through it. (I would just have to write down step-by-step directions for her.) 

Would I use this again: Heck yes!

Downsides: A student in 1 of the 2 groups that created the actual newspaper was worried about organizing her group and getting all of the pieces together to glue into the newspaper. I told her she could just do the website, but she told me, "But that's too easy!" So, I guess it's not great for the really kinesthetic people who need to make things with their hands. 

Applications: Student or staff websites. Actually, this is a great place to start for teachers who want to make a website but have no idea how, because, for this, if you can create a decent looking Word document, you can create a website; it may be extremely basic in appearance, but it will be a website, nonetheless.

Peer Reviews with Google Forms

On Thursday, I had my students peer review each others' newspapers. In the past, I've done similar activities through surveymonkey, but since I never want to have to pay for anything I don't absolutely need, I am stuck with a limited version of surveymonkey which only allows me to make surveys of up to 10 questions and doesn't allow me to download a spreadsheet of the responses. With Google Forms, I can make forms with as many questions as I want, and, what's more, the information is saved in a spreadsheet right in my drive! How cool is that???

Now, I have made and used forms before, so that wasn't new to me. The thing that was new was that I made 3 forms - one to review the a group's newspaper, one to review a specific article in that newspaper, and one to vote on the best newspaper in the class - and (now here's the kicker) I linked them so that students would finish one form and immediately be directed to the next one! (Okay. I'm reading what I just wrote, and I can see how that doesn't really seem that cool... just trust me - it's really cool.) Basically, you can customize the end message that students get after they submit the form, so you can use that message to give them instructions on what to do next.

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Ease of use: I don't think my grandmother could do this. You have to be somewhat proficient at creating forms to do something like this. However, there are plenty of YouTube tutorials out there on creating forms, like this and this. There is definitely a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it's a piece of cake (specifically, 7-layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting). 

Would I use this again: Yes. The beauty of Google Forms (and anything Google, for that matter), is that once it's made - once you've struggled through it one time - you can click "File" + "Make a copy...", and you automatically have a new form that is exactly the same as the amazing form you just made. If you don't want to get too crazy with forms, you can make some general form that you can use on a regular basis, like this, and then you never have to make another form for all eternity, or you can go crazy with forms and tailor them to your every need. (I think I am falling in love with forms...)

Downsides: I will be honest: I ran into 2 problems when I did this with my class. The first (which I'm sure many of you can already guess) was that I had some students submit the first form and then close the tab without reading the message directing them to the next form. Then, I had to individually send students the links to the other forms because they didn't read the instructions. (Sigh... there's always a few in every class, aren't there?) The second problem was that, half-way through 1st period, I decided I wanted to make separate forms for 2nd period because then I would have a separate set of spreadsheets with the results from each class. Since I was rushing to copy and re-link the forms during the passing period, I, of course, messed up the links, and the forms for 2nd period wound up being out of order. The first few students who worked through the form on reviewing the newspaper were taken directly to the form to vote on the best newspaper; at the end of that form, they received the message, "Congratulations! You are done! :)"; thus, they thought they were done, even though they had not yet reviewed the a specific article. (I guess I just should have been happy that they were reading the directions, unlike the students in 1st period.) To solve this problem, I turned to tinyurl, created bite-size versions of the original URL's, and just wrote them on the board and posted them on our class page on Edmodo. Like I said above, I would use this again; I think the process will get smoother as both I and my students get more comfortable with it.

Applications: Forms seems most valuable as an assessment tool - whether you are using it to assess your students or you are using it to have your students assess each other or even you. If you get really crazy with forms, you can create quizzes that will take students to different questions, depending upon their answer to a question (kind of like a "build your own adventure" novel). This seems a little complicated for me right now, but I may try it out in the future.

Newsela

Newsela is a website that presents current events in a range of lexiles. Basically, you can choose an article, and then you can adjust the lexile depending upon your (or your students') reading level. Since I have my ELD 2 class complete current events on a weekly basis, I decided to create accounts for them with Newsela. 

I thought that my students would be really excited when I showed them the site, because they often have trouble finding articles that they can understand; however, the truth is that they didn't really understand what Newsela was or what I was showing them. They just thought it was another site that they could use to find articles for their current events. After re-teaching and walking them through adjusting the lexile of an article, I saw a few light bulbs turn on. However, we will see if, in the long-run, the students actually make use of the site. 

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Ease of use: For a teacher, it is extremely easy because you just have to create an account, and then you can access all of the articles. Getting the students logged in, however, is a little more difficult because you have to create the class and then give them a code. Once you're in, it is really easy to find interesting articles and adjust the reading level.

Would I use it again: Yes. I am going to continue to encourage my ELD students to use it. 

Disadvantages: In my experience, anything that requires students to create an account and log in is immediately at a disadvantage because it means the students actually have to remember their usernames and passwords. Fortunately, it is easy to reset student passwords, but still... I don't really see why you have to make an account in the first place...

Applications: Current events (obviously). You can also use it to assign students specific articles. Some of the articles have quizzes for students to take when they are done reading, so that's pretty cool.

Going "Sarcasm-Free"

Let me start by saying that this will be an ongoing effort on my part. It went pretty well this week. I did speak to the student I originally offended; he actually approached me the next day in class and apologized for taking my comment so seriously. He said he actually appreciates my sarcasm, but he was just having a bad day. Nevertheless, I am going to stick to my word and continue on with this effort. 

I will admit that I did tell a student his hat looked stupid. I wasn't sarcastic; I was completely honest. I felt as if it was my responsibility to tell this student that he looked absolutely ridiculous, because he thought he looked really cool. (The problem was that he has a mohawk, and he put his hat on on top of his mohawk... so his hat was sticking up a good 4 inches from the top of his head...) When he asked some of the girls in class what they thought, they admitted that it looked stupid. Therefore, I don't really see this as being "mean" to a student, since I was really just helping him out. 

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Ease of use: It is actually really difficult for me to not be sarcastic. One of my students asked me why I always look so stressed out. I asked him if I look stressed out when he is asking me a lot of questions, and he said yes. I really had to bite my tongue because this is a student who always asks A LOT of questions - most of which he could probably figure out for himself if he just tried. I had to refrain from making some sarcastic response, and, instead, I was as honest as I could be with him, without insulting him. I told him something along the lines of, "There are a lot of very needy students in this class, and sometimes it is difficult to answer the same question multiple times. But it's okay, because I'm glad that you are all asking questions."

Would I use this again: Yes. 

Downsides: None, actually. Yes. I am not as funny anymore, but isn't that worth it, if I'm not insulting my students? I think so. And I still think I'm pretty funny. 

Applications: Life. I had already removed sarcasm from my personal relationships outside of the classroom. Now, I think I just need to work on taking it out of my interactions with my colleagues...

So It Begins...

As a teacher, I make a lot of mistakes. I make little mistakes that nobody notices. I make big mistakes that I have to flounder through and play off. When I make these mistakes in front of my students, I try to admit to them, in order to model that it is ok to mess up, that is is impossible to do everything right all the time, and that the important thing is to learn from those mistakes and move on. 

Yesterday, I made a big mistake. I insulted a student. And it wasn’t just a sly, underhanded remark that nobody heard; it was a witty interjection that half (if not more) of the class caught and chuckled at. 

My students in English 11 have been working on writing editorials and letters to the editor, with partners. The idea is for them to work on incorporating the opposing viewpoint and addressing the opposing viewpoint with a counterargument in order to strengthen their overall argument. They are all working on Google Docs, and in class on Monday, I had them share their essays with me, so I would be able to monitor their progress.

When I went through the essays on Monday night, I was not surprised by the fact that many of the students had little to nothing done, despite the fact that they had had the entire class period to work that day (not to mention time on Friday and over the weekend). One of the students with very little done was Burt*, who I also have in my zero period online English class because he is making up English 9. Burt is an extremely bright student with a passion for drama, but, when it comes to actually getting his work done in class, Burt has a lot of room for improvement. I’ve spoken to him in the past about this, and I always get the same story - “You don’t need to worry about me, Ms. Lewis. I’ll get it done.” And then I wait. And wait. And wait.

In class on Wednesday, the students were sharing their essays with their partners via Google Docs. They were each on ChromeBooks, and they were supposed to be reading their partner’s essay and commenting on it. As I was looking over another student’s work, I heard a girl say, “Burt, where are you going?” in reference to where he was navigating on his screen. Before I even had time to think and stop myself, “Nowhere” slipped out of my mouth. I had just said Burt was going nowhere, and I had said it out loud, and a lot of students heard me and laughed. 

I registered what I said, but, as Burt is usually game for such banter, I didn’t feel too guilty about it. I also didn’t apologize right away, which was an even bigger mistake than saying it in the first place. I had just modeled to my students that it was okay to bully Burt in my classroom. Big mistake. 

At the end of the period, when I was back at my desk, I saw that Burt had replied to a comment I’d left on his essay the night before. The comment read, “The comment you made actually really hurt.” BIG MISTAKE.

I looked up in time to see Burt slipping out the door, with a dejected look on his face. The usually confident young man had turned into a sullen teenager because of something I had said! Me! The teacher who vowed to never say anything mean to her students! What had I done? 

When I got home after school, I stumbled across a phenomenal blog written by Grant Wiggins about a veteran teacher who shadowed 2 students for 2 days. One of the takeaways from the experience was that, if the teacher could go back in time, she would have made her classroom a sarcasm-free zone. I read this and immediately knew what I had to do. I emailed Burt an apology explaining my comment and why I was worried about him; I also told him that I would attempt to no longer say anything mean to or about my students, and I wanted him to hold me accountable to that. 

So, this is one of my new things for this week. 

I’ve started this blog as an experiment. Every week, I am going to try to do at least one new thing in the classroom. Not something that nobody has ever done before - that would be ridiculous - but something new for me and my students. Sometimes, I will focus on strategies; other times, I will focus on technology; other times, I will focus on more personal goals.

At the end of each week, I will blog about how my new thing went for that week - what went well, what went horribly, what I can improve upon, what I will do differently next time, etc. I am hoping that I will be able to keep my teaching dynamic and engaging, but I am also hoping that you will be able to learn something from this as well. Since I will be trying out all kinds of different things and telling you what works and doesn’t work, I hope that you will be able to use my experiences to help guide the decisions you make in your own classrooms. 

I would also like this blog to serve as a dialogue between educators around the country (and possibly the world). If you have questions for me, please ask! If there is something you aren’t sure about, but you’d like me to try, let me know. I will do my best to incorporate your suggestions into my teaching (within reason, of course - I am an English and English Language Development teacher, so I won’t take off-the-wall suggestions that aren’t applicable to my subject area).

*student's name changed for privacy