On My Bookshelf: Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

The basic plot: There are two major plot lines in the text. One centers around Guglielmo Marconi and his experimentation with, and invention of, the wireless telegraph. The other follows the unhappy marriage of Dr. Crippen and his wife Belle Elmore.

Marconi is in his twenties when he begins to play around with electromagnetic waves, not really understanding the science behind it, much to the anger of other scientists focused on the same discovery. He faces challenges from his competitors as well as setbacks in the development of his invention.

Meanwhile, Dr. Crippen is practicing medicine in a time when homeopathic remedies are popular and science plays little part in doctoring. His wife seeks fame, but does not find it and spends most of her time spending her husband's money. Both husband and wife eventually find other relationships. The two plot lines merge when murder is suspected and the fugitives escape by boat, but cannot escape Marconi's technology.

Why I liked it: I like historical fiction so the writing style in Thunderstruck was right up my alley, non-fiction written as a narrative. I found the conflict of science versus belief in the supernatural interesting. It is crazy to think that a little more than one hundred years ago people's beliefs were so different. The detective work and chase of the murder suspects at the end of the book was fast paced and kept you turning the page (some of the science heavy parts dragged for me).

Classroom application: As the Common Core emphasizes literacy across the subject areas (students shouldn't just be reading in their ELA class), this would be a great read for a science class. As one half of the book follows Marconi's invention, you could read with a focus on his chapters, examining how his success relies on experimentation, largely trial and error and sometimes just luck. If you teach physics, your students could analyze the understanding of and misconceptions about electromagnetic waves.

This book could also be utilized in a history classroom as census-like information is given about the settings in the book, primarily London and the areas surrounding it.

Because the text is literary non-fiction, it is also a great text for use in an ELA classroom. You could use it to teach or review both fiction and/or nonfiction skills.

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of Thunderstruck for yourself, you can find it on Amazon here.\ Note: The Literary Maven is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

Successful Socratic Seminars: Help Students Prepare, Participate & Reflect on Classroom Discussions

For years I shied away from holding whole class discussions. Looking back, I'm not really sure why. Was I worried about releasing control of the classroom? Did I think my students wouldn't be able to sustain the dialogue? Whatever the reason, it just wasn't something I did in my classroom. Sure we discussed texts, but I posed all of the questions and called on students to respond.

When I started a long term substitute position last year, my co-teacher shared with me that students had particularly enjoyed a socratic seminar held earlier in the year and were hoping to have another. We planned to hold one at the end of our unit on Of Mice and Men.

As our unit drew to a close, we began to prepare for our classroom discussion. We wanted the discussion to be student led so we knew having students prepare meaningful questions ahead of time would be key to having a successful discussion. I created a simple graphic organizer to help students generate questions focusing on characters and literary elements from the novel. We gave students time in class the day before the discussion to begin working on their questions and allowed them to finish them for homework.

We decided to use a "fishbowl" format with an inside and outside circle to allow more participation
and prevent one or two students dominating the whole discussion time. This format also makes it easier to track the conversation because there are less students involved at one time. You can also include an empty "hot seat" that someone from the outside circle can jump into if he/she really wants to join the conversation. Make sure seats are arranged in a circle so that all students can see and hear each other equally. I made the mistake of leaving my desks in a rectangular shape and students at the ends couldn't hear each other.

Before the discussion began I discussed with students what they could do if someone asked "their" question. I also projected prompting questions on the board during the discussion to help keep the conversation going. You may want to review student names before beginning discussion, especially if its the beginning of the year. This will help with making sure students direct questions and responses toward each other and allow them to encourage silent students to participate.

I also set an expectation of students asking at least one of the two questions they prepared and making at least three comments in response to other students' questions. This expectation was to strongly encourage my quieter students to participate. My class sizes ranged from 20-30 students with 10-15 in the inner circle at a time, and each circle had 15 minutes of talk time. Depending on your class size and length, you may want to set different expectations. However, I find that it is definitely more helpful to set a specific expectation rather than just generally telling students they must participate. 

To get the conversation going, I asked for a volunteer to ask the opening question. For students who are nervous about participation, this is also a great chance to get "their" question asked and out of the way. Then I set the timer and sat back and listened. It is definitely tempting to jump in when conversation lags, but I managed to keep quiet until the two minutes warning, which is a final chance for any students who haven't participated yet to do so.

While the inside circle was holding their discussion, the students in the outside were responsible for tracking the discussion. This ensured that students were quiet, engaged, and actively listening to their peers. Before the discussion began, I gave examples of the types of comments students should be tracking; saying "I agree" without any explanation doesn't cut it. Having students track their peers helps me as the teacher. Even though using a fishbowl format cuts the number of students participating at one time in half, having extra ears means I don't have to worry about catching every single thing said.

After each round of discussion ended, the students in the inner circle reflected on their performance as a participant, a reflection that included both questions and a checklist of speaking and listening skills. If you do several discussions over the year, have students compare their participation and confidence in speaking. The students in the outer circle reflected on the conversation as a whole, which was another way to ensure active listening. They commented on points they agreed and disagreed with and noted students they felt gave a star performance.

If students struggle during your first classroom discussion, don't give up. More frequent practice will help build their confidence. Starting with online discussions using a tool like TodaysMeet can also make students more comfortable and incorporate the silent voices. If you want to further extend your class discussion, you could choose the best questions as future writing prompts or as short essay questions on an exam for the novel or unit.

You can find the resources I used to help students prepare, track, and reflect on our class discussion here.

Leave your tips and tricks for running a successful socratic seminar or other type of classroom discussion in the comments below.

For more speaking and listening resources:

#2ndaryELA Twitter Chat Topic: Standards & Curriculum

Brynn Allison, The Literary Maven & Kristy, 2 Peas and a Dog are hosting #2ndaryELA on Twitter every Tuesday evening from 8 - 9 PM EST. #2ndaryELA is a weekly chat for secondary English Language Arts teachers focused on a topic. Every Sunday, we will post the topic and questions on our blogs to allow you to prepare for the upcoming Tuesday evening's chat. Thank you to everyone who joined us last week and we hope that you will join us again.

On Tuesday, September 29, our #2ndaryELA chat will focus on standards and curriculum in the ELA classroom.

The Format:
8:00 Intros: What and where do you teach? Include a link to your blog if you have one. #2ndaryELA
8:05 Q1: What standards/curriculum does your school follow or use? Share a link if applicable. #2ndaryELA
8:15 Q2: What standard/concept from your standards/curriculum do you struggle to teach? #2ndaryELA
8:25 Q3: How is your planning affected by your standards/curriculum? #2ndaryELA
8:35 Q4: How do you ensure you cover all the required standards/curriculum for your grade?#2ndaryELA
8:45 Q5: Share a resource for your standards/curriculum that you find invaluable (book, article, blog post, type of technology, etc.) #2ndaryELA

The Directions:
1. Log into Twitter on Tuesday from 8-9 PM EST.
2. Search for tweets with the hashtag #2ndaryELA in the search bar. Make sure to click “All tweets.”
3. Introductions are for the first 5 minutes.
4. Starting at 8:05 (@literarymaven or @2peasandadog) will post questions every 10 minutes using the format Q1, Q2, Q3, etc. and the hashtag #2ndaryELA.
5. Respond to questions using the format A1, A2, A3, etc. with #2ndaryELA.
6. Follow any teachers responding and who are also using #2ndaryELA.
7. Like and respond to other teachers' tweets.

You can schedule your responses to the questions ahead of time using a scheduler like TweetDeck or HootSuite (but don't forget to use A1, A2, etc. and #2ndaryELA). Links are encouraged, so be sure to use a link shortener like tinyurl, bitly, goo.gl or ow.ly Just visit one of those links and paste your long link to shorten it for Twitter. Using images is also encouraged when relevant.

New to chats? Here are the rules:
1. Stay on topic & stay positive!
2. Please do not post or promote paid products unless specifically asked.
3. If you arrive late, try to look through other posts before beginning.
4. Feel free to just read, like, and/or retweet.
5. Always use our hashtag #2ndaryELA, including in your replies to others.
6. Make sure your twitter feed is set to public. (Also keep in mind that Twitter is completely public – that means students, parents, and administrators can and will read what you tweet.)

Be sure to spread the word to any teacher friends who might be interested in joining us as well. We look forward to chatting with you Tuesday evening!
Get caught up on past chats here:

Thinking About Going Back To School: My First Lesson in the ELA Classroom

I used to begin each year with short stories and teach basic literary terms: plot, setting, mood, character, tone, voice, point of view, etc. The short stories were classics, ones that the students and I both enjoyed, such as “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, “Thank You Ma’am” by Langston Hughes, and “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe. There was nothing wrong with what I was doing. It worked.

But then last summer, I attended the Philadelphia Writing Project, part of the National Writing Project. One of the key texts we read was Teaching for Joy and Justice by Linda Christensen (which I highly recommend) and it go me to thinking, what am I teaching for? Am I teaching so that students will learn these literary terms? Will it matter ten or twenty years from now if they can define tone? Am I teaching so that students will know the classics? Will it matter ten or twenty years from now if students read all 26 pages of “The Most Dangerous Game?”

I decided that the answer to both was no. I was teaching so that students could develop into strong, confident readers and writers and be prepared for whatever might be ahead of them in life. And as a ninth grade teacher, I was teaching so that my students would be engaged, so they would want to and continue to come to school (research shows that ninth grade is a pivotal year for success in and graduation from high school and I primarily teach ninth grade).

So last year I decided to begin the year with a writer’s workshop using coming of age poetry as mentor texts. In a writer’s workshop, students write on a topic of their choosing with heavy emphasis on the revision process. Coming of age is a relevant, high interest topic for 14 and 15 year olds, and poetry is a shorter, more accessible text. Struggling readers are not immediately turned off and its length lends itself to multiple readings, annotation, and close readings. I teach students who read three or four or sometimes five levels below their grade level so I don’t want them to shut down before I can begin to build their skills and confidence as readers.

The two poems I chose to use in this unit were "Hanging Fire" by Audre Lorde and "What For" by Garrett Longo. "Hanging Fire" is one of my all time favorite poems to use with ninth graders, especially African American girls, because the content is so relatable for them. "What For" is a very different perspective (six year old, Hawaiian narrator) but has great imagery. As students do a close reading of and annotate each poem, we discuss the poet's use of repetition, imagery, strong verbs, and specific nouns. As mentor texts, both of these poems include all of the elements we discussed and that I eventually asked students to include in their own writing.

After reading, the fun began! We brainstormed different age-related memories, first independently and then shared them whole class to spark students who might be struggling with ideas. Students selected their best ideas from their lists and began drafting their poems. I asked my students to complete their drafts for homework, but this year I will give them more time in class to work on it to ensure that all students have a draft to bring to the read-around the next day.

A read-around is just what it sounds like. Students sit in a circle and go around the circle reading their writing as other students give them feedback. Ideally every student will share what they have written, but last year I had many students who didn't because they were nervous or unprepared. You can allow students to select someone else to read their poem for them if that makes them more comfortable. You may need to model the type of feedback you would like students to give so that the comments are meaningful. Based on this feedback from peers, students then complete another draft of their poem. Often they hear interesting or effective things their peers have done in their poem and want to emulate some of those techniques. The read-around is just as much about being heard as it is about hearing others.


Finally, students complete a final draft of their poem. Students are graded based on their inclusion of the elements focused on in the mentor texts: repetition, imagery, strong verbs, and specific nouns. If students have all of these elements, they receive full credit and if they do not, they rework their poem until they do. If this sounds like I am going "too easy" on the students, remember what I'm teaching for. I'm teaching for my students to become strong, confident readers and writers and for engaging my students in learning. You can check out this lesson in full here.

I'd love to hear what you are thinking about starting the year with. Leave a comment and share what your first lesson will be and why.

For more Back to School ideas and resources:

You Oughta Know About...Designing a Close Reading

Close reading is not a new strategy, but seems to be a buzz word these days thanks to the PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers). If you think close readings aren't essential practice in any subject, think again. According to the PARCC, "a significant body of research links the close reading of complex text—whether the student is a struggling reader or advanced—to significant gains in reading proficiency and finds close reading to be a key component of college and career readiness."

So now you are freaking out because the PARCC is endorsing close readings (and they pretty much run the education world these days, along with Charlotte Danielson) and you aren't doing them and you aren't even sure you know how. Relax. All will be well. I will explain everything you oughta know about designing a close reading.

The first step to designing a close read is to pick a short, rich text. It could be a non-fiction article, a short story, a poem, or a page or two from a novel. It could even be a graphic or info graphic. The genre and type of text don't matter as long as the length is manageable, a page or two would be my recommendation, although there is probably a more specific research based length.

Even more important than keeping it short is the depth of the text. How do you know if the text is deep enough? The PARCC tells us students should be "engaging with a text of sufficient complexity directly and examining meaning thoroughly and methodically, reading and rereading deliberately. This attention to the text itself empowers students to understand the central ideas and key supporting details. It also enables students to reflect on the meanings of individual words and sentences; the order in which sentences unfold; and the development of ideas over the course of the text, which ultimately leads students to arrive at an understanding of the text as a whole." 

To break that down, consider the following questions: Would students gain better understanding and greater meaning from reading the text multiple times? Are there multiple possible interpretations of statements made by the author? Is there challenging vocabulary students would have to use context clues to determine the meaning of?  Can students identify a series of causes and effects? Are there enough details for students to determine a theme? Will students be able to make inferences or draw conclusions based on character description? Can the author's word choice be examined for meaning and purpose? For me, it's bonus points if the text sparks conversation or debate among students or leaves them wondering. If you aren't answering yes to many of those questions, then the text you are looking at probably isn't worth a close read.

Once I have selected a text worthy of a close reading, I think about the text-dependent questions I will ask that will require students to dig deeply into the text. Using an excerpt from "The Family of Little Feet," a vignette from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, I will first give some examples of questions that don't require true close reading or critical thinking (some non-examples) and then examples of questions that do.

Excerpt:

Do you want this? And gave us a paper bag with one pair of lemon shoes and one red and one pair of dancing shoes that used to be white but were now pale blue. Here, and we said thank you and waited until she went upstairs.

Hurray! Today we are Cinderella because our feet fit exactly, and we laugh at Rachel's one foot with a girl's grey sock and a lady's high heel. Do you like these shoes? But the truth is it is scary to look down at your foot that is no longer yours and see attached a long long leg.

Everybody wants to trade. The lemon shoes for the red shoes, the red for the pair that were once white but are now pale blue, the pale blue for the lemon, and take them off and put them back on and keep on like this a long time until we are tired.

Then Lucy screams to take our socks off and yes, it's true. We have legs. Skinny and spotted with satin scars where scabs were picked, but legs, all our own, good to look at, and long.

It's Rachel who learns to walk the best all strutted in those magic high heels. She teaches us to cross and uncross our legs, and to run like a double-dutch rope, and how to walk down to the corner so that the shoes talk back to you with every step. Lucy, Rachel, me tee-tottering like so. Down to the corner where the men can't take their eyes off us. We must be Christmas.

Non-example questions:

What caused the shoes that used to be white to now be pale blue?

Why are the girls excited?

How is Rachel different from the other girls?

While these are decent questions, requiring students to use comprehension skills and make inferences, they will not generate real discussion and they all have a "right" answer, even those that don't call for direct "facts" from the story. These questions also only touch upon the first three Common Core standards (#1 citing evidence/making inferences, #2 main idea/theme, #3 character development), all of which fall under the category of "key ideas and details."

Example questions:

What does the narrator mean when she says, "today we are Cinderella?" How would the meaning change if she said, "today we are Snow White" or "today we are Sleeping Beauty?" 

(standard #4 and #9, author's word choice and connecting ideas/themes between texts)

Why does the author decide to include the information that the shoes are a gift from a neighbor? Would the shoes have the same effect on the girls if they were already theirs? 

(standard #5 text structure)

How does the girls' view of themselves change when they put on the "magic high heels?" What evidence in the text supports this change? 

(standard #6 point of view)

These questions will generate discussion and have no one "right" answer as long as students can logically support their response with evidence from the text. These questions hit upon higher level Common Core standards with standards 4 - 6 falling under "craft and structure" and standard 9 falling under "integration of knowledge and ideas."

Want to read more about close reading and see more sample questions? Check out this article.

If you are a secondary teacher, check out my seasonal nonfiction close readings. Many of them could be used in a history class or even science class! My close reading on giving and the holidays is free, so grab it for next year or use the questions as a model for your own nonfiction close reading.

I also just posted these close readings for Of Mice and Men. If you are looking for an example of a literary close reading, click here to download one for Chapter One.

If you are an elementary school teacher, check out this post by Miss DeCarbo at Sugar and Spice. You can see some examples in her post and and follow her directions to download a free sample.  

Creative Writing 101: Point of View Retellings

You would never want to insult your students by having "little kid" books in your classroom library, even if you have students reading at that level. But is it ever okay to bring children's stories into the classroom?

My blogger friend Lauralee of The Language Arts Classroom wrote a post about using literary terms like characterization, mood, and point of view from children's books to teach high school students.

It got me thinking about how I use The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith to teach the literary term unreliable narrator. And that got me thinking about a fun creative writing assignment, having students retell a classic fairy tale or other well known story from an alternate point of view.

I use The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka for this lesson, but there are so many other choices: The Frog Prince Continued also by Jon Scieszka, Goldilocks and The Three Bears by James Marshall, and these collections of The Other Side of the Story. I haven't read any of the stories from The Other Side of the Story collections, but each story can also be purchased individually like Really, Rapunzel Needed a Haircut! and Seriously, Cinderella Is SO Annoying! I even learned that there is a term for this type of story, a fractured fairy tale.

I am partial to the Jon Scieszka books because they always have great illustrations. I scan the book and create a PowerPoint of the pages so that my students can read along with me. If you are having trouble getting your hands on one of these books, many of them can also be found on YouTube. I also saw some great Pinterest boards of other titles. There are so many possibilities.

Which story you choose to use as a mentor text is up to you. I recommend not sharing too many as not to limit students' choices when they choose a story to rewrite. After analyzing the differences in The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, I offer some suggestions of topics (including superheroes for those boys that think fairy tales are girly) and planning questions to help think about how students' stories would differ from the originals.

A few excerpts of my students' work:

Batman & Robin

After re-capturing the Riddler, Batman and Robin went back to the batcave. While in the batcave Robin was thinking over how his role as a superhero all started. 

(flashback) It was a cool summer evening the young adolescent was was defiling a strange automobile. Upon being discovered in his act of criminal activity the Batman appeared from the shadows. Young Robin looked in somewhat shock and surprised. He apologized to him but Batman was still unpleased with his actions. But none the less, the boy was ready to take off if things got hairy...

Cinderella:

I know you’ve heard about Cinderella and the glass slipper but I’m here to tell you the real story. I am Lady Tremaine, Cinderella’s “evil” step mother as they say. But, in reality Cinderella is a cruel person. I've tried my hardest to raise Cinderella but she’s been out of control every sense her dad's death. To start off, she stole money and jewelry...

Allowing students to retell a well-know children's story from an alternative perspective gives those students who struggle with getting started a starting point as well as a format to guide their writing, while still hitting all of the Common Core narrative writing standards as well as working on characterization and point of view.

For this and other creative writing activities, check out this engaging, common core aligned resource.

Common Core Writing: Wrap Up & Additional Resources

This is number ten and the final post in a series about my online course, Common Core: Implementing the Writing Standards. If you are looking to get caught up, check out:
Post #1: an overview of the writing standards
Post #2: the gradual release process and writing
Post #3: explicit teaching of writing skills
Post #4: argument writing
Post #5: informational writing
Post #6: narrative writing
Post #7: research and writing
Post #8: writing across the content areas
Post #9: assessing student writing

In this final post, I wanted to wrap up what I learned from the course and share a few additional resources to help you align writing in your classroom with the Common Core. As this was a series of ten posts, I will leave you with a top ten list of what I learned.

1: The Common Core standards are standard across grade levels; they just increase in complexity.
2: The gradual release process should be used with writing just as with any other lesson in the classroom to ensure students have ample time to practice before working independently.
3: Explicitly teach students even the most basic of writing skills because any gaps in knowledge will only continue to be a hinderance.
4: Argument is the most important type of writing and must be grounded in evidence.
5: Find great mentors texts on interesting topics to hook students when doing informational writing.
6: Narrative writing can be blended with nonfiction and research by writing historical fiction or science fiction pieces.
7: Practicing research skills is not limited to research papers and can be done with shorter assignments.
8: Schools should take a unified approach for teaching writing across content areas.
9: Assessment should be used as a tool to plan future teaching and students should be active participants in the assessment process.
10: Likely you are already doing parts of 1-9, but as you approach each type of writing, look back closely at the related standard to ensure that your lesson is truly Common Core aligned.

As you shift your teaching to better align with the Common Core, there are several valuable resources related to writing on the Common Core State Standards Initiative website.

The English Language Arts Appendix A reviews types of writing and related language skills. Pages 23 - 24 define the three purposes in writing: argument, informational, and narrative. Pages 24 - 25 explain why argument writing is so important as well as the difference between persuasive and argument writing. Pages 28 - 29 introduces teaching and learning the conventions of Standard English (grammar and usage). Page 30 has a graphic showing an example of the progression of a skill across grades. Page 31 showing the progression of all language skills from grades 3 - 12.

The English Language Arts Appendix B focuses on text exemplars and performance tasks, which will show you what kind of readings students should be analyzing in their writing. Page 2 discusses selection of text exemplars. Pages 4 -13 are a table of contents of text exemplars listed by grade band and by type of text: stories, drama, poetry, and informational texts for ELA, history/social studies, and math/science, and technical subjects. Excerpts of the listed exemplars are on the pages that follow.

The English Language Arts Appendix C offers samples of student writing so you can see what student writing should look like at your grade level. Samples are broken down by grade and the three purposes in writing: argument, informational, and narrative. Pages 3 - 4 are a table of contents of samples broken down by grade and the three purposes in writing: argument, informational, and narrative. Pages 6 - 107 are the samples, each with an annotation that breaks down how each piece meets the grade level standards, citing examples from the piece to support each point.

I hope you enjoyed this series on implementing the Common Core writing standards, and as always I would love to hear how you are implementing these ideas in your classroom.

Common Core Writing: Assessing Student Writing

This is number nine in a series of posts about my online course, Common Core: Implementing the Writing Standards. If you are looking to get caught up, check out:

Post #1: an overview of the writing standards
Post #2: the gradual release process and writing
Post #3: explicit teaching of writing skills
Post #4: argument writing
Post #5: informational writing
Post #6: narrative writing
Post #7: research and writing
Post #8: writing across the content areas

No matter what type of writing your students are engaged in, at some point you will have to assess them. Before you decide how you are going to assess them, it is important to be familiar with the different types of assessments.

You may have heard these terms tossed around in conversation, but were never quite sure of the difference. A baseline assessment is a diagnostic, which can be given at beginning of year or as each new type of writing is introduced. Formative assessments occur all year long and are a running log of students' strengths and weaknesses. Summative assessments are an end picture of proficiency of a certain skill set. These may be given at the end of a unit, or at the end of the course or year. Summative assessments can be standardized tests, cross-curricular assignments, portfolios, etc.

In this article about formative assessment, "The Bridge Between Today's Lesson and Tomorrow's," Carol Ann Tomlinson makes the following important points about using formative assessments in the classroom. Teachers should:
1. Help students understand the role of a formative assessment. It is a source of information and should not count as a grade.
2. Begin with clear KUDs. What should the student Know, Understand, and be able to Do? Your formative assessments should keep checking on that.
3. Make room for student differences. Formative assessments may allow some students to illustrate their knowledge while others write it out.
4. Provide instructive feedback that makes clear to students what they need to improve upon.
5. Make feedback user-friendly. Marking every error is time consuming and overwhelming for the student to read and process. Feedback should connect to the KUDs.
6. Assess persistently. Formative assessments can be formal or informal: a warm up activity, an exit ticket, observations while circulating the classroom, a thumbs up or thumbs down, etc.
7. Engage students with formative assessment. Let students use a rubric to assess their own work or a peer's.
8. Look for patterns. Look for clusters of student needs and plan ways to help each group of students move ahead.
9. Plan instruction around content requirements and student needs. Formative assessment should not be an end, but should lead to modification of teaching and learning plans, to designing instruction that's a better fit for student needs.
10. Repeat the process. Frequent formative assessments will help you to identify and track student growth.

In Tomlinson’s article, she says that “formative assessment…should be…the bridge or causeway between today’s lesson and tomorrow’s.” Formative assessment becomes the bridge between today's lesson and tomorrow's because while you may end a lesson with a formative assessment, like an exit ticket, that information should inform you as to where you need to start your next lesson. If all students are struggling, you may want to reteach the lesson, while if just a handful are having trouble, you will know to focus on that small group, providing additional practice and guidance.

For example, in a lesson on argument writing, I may end one lesson with students determining which of several examples is the best supported claim and giving an explanation why. If most students are successful, I will know they are ready for independent practice. If most students are unsuccessful, I may give more examples and do more guided practice before releasing the students to work independently.

While formative assessment is the type of assessment used most frequently in your classroom, you want to make sure your expectations for students are clear by using checklists and rubrics regardless of the type of assessment. Also consider the revising/editing tools you use to help students check off their checklists and achieve proficiency on their rubrics. You can read more about how I use checklists with my students in post #6 of this series on narrative writing.

You also want to keep students informed of their progress as writers through conferences. A great time to meet with students is during peer revision. While students are engaged in revision with other students, you can meet with one student without other students demanding your attention (they have someone else's!).

If, like me, you never have enough time in class for you to meet with everyone, consider having students use Google Drive to submit their drafts to you. You can then plan to meet with your neediest writers in person and provide comments to your other students using the comment feature. You can read more about how I use Google Drive with my students during the writing process here.

Next up: series wrap-up and additional resources.

Common Core Writing: Writing Across the Content Areas

This is number eight in a series of posts about my online course, Common Core: Implementing the Writing Standards. If you are looking to get caught up, check out:
Post #1: an overview of the writing standards
Post #2: the gradual release process and writing
Post #3: explicit teaching of writing skills
Post #4: argument writing
Post #5: informational writing
Post #6: narrative writing
Post #7: research and writing

As you have been reading my posts you may have been thinking, but I'm not an English teacher, does this all even apply to me? The answer is YES. The writing process for argument, information, research etc. should be the the same across the disciplines, only the content will differ (i.e. writing about the French & Indian War in history class, osmosis in science class, etc.).

English does have its own set of writing standards, separate from the writing standards for history/social studies, science, and other technical subjects, but they aren't much different. Let's take a look.

At the 9-10 level in English, Standard 2 is about informational writing: "Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content." At the 9-10 level in history/social studies, science, and other technical subjects, Standard 2 is also about informational writing: "Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/ experiments, or technical processes." Pretty much the same idea. In fact Standards 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10 are identical.

So why is this important to know? Again the writing process should be the the same across the disciplines, only the content will differ. Think about writing at your school. Do English teachers require students to follow the same process for writing research papers in their classroom as the history teachers do? Maybe your answer is "yes" (and that is awesome for you!), but your answer is more likely to be "no" or "I don't even know."

Once upon a time, there was common planning time built into the schedule for high school teachers in my school district. The first school at which I taught used the Step Up to Writing program to make writing uniform across our content areas. Each month, students were required to write an essay in each of their four core classes (English, math, science, and social studies). Each subject area took a week in the month so that students were not overwhelmed with four essays at once.

Step Up to Writing has many components, but the part we used across the board was a simple graphic organizer to help guide our writers. There is a lot of push back right now against formulaic writing and the five paragraph essay, but as Post #3 in this series discusses, struggling writers need explicit instruction and supports. Do you think you will get better essays from students who used a basic organizer like this or those who didn't? I think it is more than fine to teach students the formula first and then show them how they can expand and build on that.

So with this graphic organizer and writing an essay each month in every core content area, did all of our students become super star writers? No. Did we see improvement? Yes. I taught at a historically low performing school, with tests scores of proficiency at less than 15-20%. The year we began writing across the curriculum, over 50% of our students scored proficient or higher on the standardized state tests (and that is with a special education population of 25-30%). Wowzers! Big difference. And if my success story is too small for you, go back and read about New Dorp and their writing revolution in my third post.

Now you are thinking, Ahhhhh! My school doesn't do anything like this. But what you should be thinking is,  how can I get my school on board with this? One suggestion is if you don't know how other teachers are teaching writing in their content areas, find out. Ask other teachers what kind of writing students are doing in their classes, and what kind of process/supports they are using. You may be met with blank stares here. Remember that you as the English teacher are "responsible" for teaching writing. Other subject area teachers may not feel like it is something they should have to do or even know how to do.

Another suggestion is to find a teacher in a different content area to collaborate with: the American history teacher, the chemistry teacher, the music teacher. Come up with a list of topics from their content area and promise that you will teach the students how to write the research essay if the other teacher will help them with the research and understanding the content. Then tell other teachers about your success.

Or, get all of the English teachers together and decide as a department how you are going to standardize your approach to teaching writing. What will the 9th grade teachers focus on? How will the tenth grade teachers build on that?

The article, “Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum” describes four strategies that can make reading and writing across the curriculum more appealing for teachers who may resist it: 1) use low-stakes writing assignments; 2) provide multiple forms of feedback; 3) employ variety in texts and their presentation; and 4) employ a variety of levels of reading difficulty.

So if jumping into collaborating on research papers and longer writing assignments scares you, start smaller. At my most recent school, we incorporated writing across the curriculum by doing weekly constructed responses in all classes, in all subject areas every Wednesday. As constructed responses are a part of most standardized tests, your school may have a similar requirement (maybe not on the same day or with the same frequency). Compare the kinds/levels of questions students are given as well as the supports used. Once you are all on the same page with those shorter writing assignments, begin to plan for a unified approach on larger writing assignments, essays, research papers, etc. I am sure standardized brainstorming materials, outlines, etc. for use in all classrooms would be desired and beneficial for non-English teachers.

I developed these constructed response paragraph forms that could be used by teachers of all subjects and grades in my school. The first form is highly structured with sentence-by-sentence directions. The form has a blank space for students to fill in the prompt for whichever class they may be in, suggested transitions to improve the organization of their paragraph, and a self-check list at the end so students can evaluate their own work.

Giving students this “formula” for writing helped them structure well-developed paragraphs as they responded to texts in English, history, science, art, music, etc. This form also helped teachers of subjects other than English support students as they wrote.

After students become more confident in their writing skills, this second, less structured form can be used. Again the form has a blank space for students to fill in the prompt for whichever class they may be in. Instead of sentence-by-sentence directions, students are provided with a greater variety of transition words to choose from and a scoring rubric which can be used for self and/or teacher assessment. The rubric makes the writing expectations clear to students and makes it easy for teachers of any subject area to grade.

You can find all of my resources with constructed response questions (CRQs) here.

I would love to hear about how your school handles (or doesn't) writing across the curriculum. Next up: assessing student writing.

Common Core Writing: Research and Writing

This is number seven in a series of posts about my online course, Common Core: Implementing the Writing Standards. In my first post, I gave an overview of the writing standards. In my second post, I showed how the gradual release process can be used with writing. In my third post, I explain why it is so important that basic writing skills be explicitly taught, no matter the age or grade level. I then covered the three types of writing in the Common Core: argument writing, informational writing, and narrative writing.

Research is the focus of Common Core Writing Standards 7, 8, & 9. Can't you already hear the students' groans? "Not another research paper!" But a research paper is not the only way to have students practice their research skills. Let's look at each of the standards and activities you can engage your students in to practice research skills.

First, Standard 7 states, "Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation."

While selecting a topic for research may be easy for students, they often struggle with creating an appropriate research question. After reading a short article as a class, show students sample research questions to help them determine which questions are appropriate.

Ask students:
-Is the question too broad or too narrow?
-Does the question require inferences or analysis to answer?
-Is the question centered around a topic of debate?
-Does the answer require information from just one or multiple sources?

For practice, give students short articles on a variety of topics to create research questions. Post the student-created questions around the room. Have the students do a gallery walk using rubrics to evaluate each others questions. Collect the highest rated questions to use as exemplars when the students do write a research paper.

Then comes Standard 8: "Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation."

When doing any kind of research, students need to be able to select sources of information that are useful, relevant and reliable. To assess prior knowledge, ask students how they decide what sources to use when doing research. Review with students reasons what makes a source credible or not.

You can also share Wikipedia's protection policy with students, or if you create an account, you can even show students how they can edit an entry. Eek! So not reliable.

For practice, give students a list of websites on a similar topic, such as immigration or gun control. Ask them to visit the sites, noting signs that the site may or may not be credible, and make a decision about whether or not they would use this source for research. Allow students to work in groups at first and then independently.

And finally, Standard 9 states, "Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research." Let's say your students have been studying Shakespeare and you have asked them to write an essay analyzing theme in one of his plays.

You want them to include literary criticism as a part of their essays, but where to find it? Google Scholar is an excellent source for academic literature. Students will find articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions. You can read more about using Google Scholar here.

And remember, research writing does not have to happen in isolation. Research can be a part of argumentative, informational, and even narrative writing.

I would love to hear about how you help students to practice their research skills. Up next: writing across the curriculum.

Common Core Writing: Informational Writing

This is my fifth in a series of posts about my online course, Common Core: Implementing the Writing Standards. In my first post, I gave an overview of the writing standards. In my second post, I showed how the gradual release process can be used with writing. In my third post, I explain why it is so important that basic writing skills be explicitly taught, no matter the age or grade level.

My fourth and most recent post focused in on argument writing, arguably (oh, I am so punny!) the most important of the three types of writing called for in the Common Core standards: argument, informational (this post's focus), and narrative writing (my next post).

Informational writing, otherwise known as explanatory writing, communicates information accurately. This kind of writing has one or more, often interconnected purposes: to increase readers’ knowledge or to help readers better understand a procedure or process. You can read more a more thorough explanation in the Common Core's Appendix A (page 23).

Informational writing strongly ties in with Informational and Literature Standards 1 & 2, citing evidence from the text and providing an objective summary. Objective. Meaning no one cares what you think or feel. Somewhere in middle school or elementary school someone taught my students to start everything they write with "I think" or "I feel" or "I believe." I am constantly reminding them there is NO first person in objective writing. Connected to that struggle is stating main idea, yes still a struggle in ninth grade. Again, main idea has nothing to do with what you think or feel; it is based on the facts of a text.

One way I practice summarizing and stating main idea is with "money" summary sentences. Students are given $2 to write a summarizing sentence. Each words costs 10 cents and words like a, the, of, etc. are free. Students' goal is to write a summary sentence that "spends" as close as they can get to $2 without going over.

I practice with this set of four passages, perfect for the gradual release process of "I do, we do,
two do, you do," but you could also try this strategy with any text you are reading in class. Tying it in to money makes it fun for students while pushing them to succinctly communicate the main idea. As students share their money summaries, I constantly ask them to self assess: "Is that the big idea or just a detail? Is that objective or does it include your opinions?"

Once students have mastered a summary sentence or if I feel like that strategy just isn't working for some students, I will often use a second strategy for writing summary topic sentences. This is a three step method: identify the item (story/article) + a summary verb + finish your thought = summary topic sentence. The item, the title of the text, is given by the teacher and the summary verb is selected from a list, so the first two steps are low stress. The third and final part is what the student must come up with, the "finish your thought."

I provide sample summary topic sentences for students along with the list of summary verbs. Students then have four opportunities to practice with texts that they have read recently in class. You can assign the items or let students select.

Finally, students select two of their topic summary sentences to develop into full summaries. After your approval of their topic summary sentence, students will generate a fact outline. You may also want to check their fact outline before they proceed to writing their summary. I tell my students that their summary can only include the approved facts, no other ideas.

To get students excited about writing informational texts and to expose them to the features of effective informational writing, make sure your students are reading exemplary informational texts or "mentor" texts. Will they read boring stuff on standardized tests? For sure! So why subject them to boring stuff in class?

Mentor texts can and should be complex and difficult, but it doesn't have to be boring. All of the elementary school teachers out there are saying duh!, you should always use mentor texts, but this is a newer idea at the secondary level. For a great read on use of mentor texts (and even mentor sentences) at the secondary level, check out "Making the Most of Mentor Texts" by Kelly Gallagher. It's a topic that really deserves its own post.

Where to find great mentor texts? My go to place to find them is in magazines. I subscribe to a variety of magazines connected to my students' interests. I keep magazines in the classroom for independent reading and when issues get too old, they are always handy for collages or other projects. But before putting them out in the classroom, I skim them for articles I think might be good reads.

One example would be an article from a recent Sports Illustrated issue (in general SI has really strong writing, just keep that swimsuit issue out of the classroom), titled "Young, Gifted & Homeless." Anything about sports = 99% of my boys are now interested in reading, hooray! One of the article's strong features is its weaving of interviews with statistics, mixing narrative elements with fact. Another strong feature is the evidence of the author's careful research, drawing on a number of sources for information. After reading the article and discussing how it was written, students could choose their own topic to engage in writing, making sure to include those same features that made the mentor text effective.

I would love to hear about how you use informational writing and/or mentor texts in your classroom. Next up: narrative writing.