When I told my colleagues in the English department what I was doing - giving intense and personalised feedback on all major writing assignments over the semester - for my Essay Exposition final, they overwhelmingly thought one thing:

Those kids will NEVER read it.

As English teachers, we know how frustrating it is to read essays for hours, make thoughtful comments, and then hand back the papers that have only one letter students care about.  After they see the letter written in red at the end, they often discard the comments.

That was so foreign to me when I started teaching.  In high school and college, I was almost as interested in the comments as I was in the grade.  And I always read the comments first, and tried to figure out what the grade would be before I got there.

Why did the feedback mean so much to me, and so little to my students?  

So I did something drastic: I stopped giving them a grade on their essays.

I taught an Essay class where they never got a grade for a piece of writing.  I gave them credit for meeting the requirements, yes.  But never for the quality of their writing.  And contrary to what many people would think, I don't have all A's or F's in my class.  I have a pretty even spread, pushed towards the higher end - as expected in a class where students voluntarily sign up to take a class where they write dozens of essays.  I had one F (in the high 50's), two D's, a handful of C's and the rest A's and B's.

That being said, I wanted them to divorce grades from writing.  I wanted them to have the freedom to explore the topics and voices they didn't yet own.  I wanted to see the creativity they had, not the structure they had learned.

So what did they do when I gave them the intensely individual, focused and detailed feedback form?  The one that I spent 30-60 minutes on per student?

When I handed them back, there was several moments of near total silence.  They read what I wrote.  They shared with their group members.  They came to ask questions about what I wrote.  I didn't find a single feedback paper on the desks, in the trash, or on the floor in the hallway.

And not one of them asked about their grade.  

Instead, we had conversations about their writing.

One of the proudest moments of my career.

This is the second post from my Essay Exposition class.  This student, Leila, wrote a beautiful final essay on the purpose of school and what changes need to be made for students to be able to get the best possible education. 

It was a synthesis essay - they had to include vivid descriptive narratives (in italics) alongside their arguments.  Leila did a great job and I wanted to share her essay, unaltered (except for paragraphing to make it more readable on this blog).

Please leave comments - I'll pass them on to her.

**

Sitting down at my desk late at night - the once clear surface cluttered with textbooks, worksheets, and eraser shavings - I often contemplate, what is the purpose of all this? I imagine that in the inception of the concept of school, the creators had the best intentions in mind. 

The idea is amazing - to be able to engage in a worldwide sharing of knowledge we have come to known as teaching. 

They hoped to grow their community and world through education that would translate to scientists with great inventions, business leaders with wit and skill, and writers who scour the human soul and mind to expose our flaws and flatter our successes. 

They hoped to enrich the lives of the people for the better of the community, and everyone would benefit. 

After all these years, birthed from an idea that reflects true humanitarianism, where are we now? 

I see students showing disdain as they make their way to their hard plastic desk in Pre-calculus, and dragging their feet into their chemistry class, knowing an hour long lecture is imminent. I see this and I ask why: 

Why is it that these students don’t find beauty in education and learning? 
Why don’t they see the bright colors and the actions of molecules of a chemical reaction dancing around their head? 
Why don’t they marvel at the images that only the greatest writer can bring to their mind? 
Where are we guiding the future world when most of the student population shows such disgust for learning? 

Something has gone terribly wrong when the future CEO’s, doctors, and scientists dread the official institution of learning. Where is the inspiration? Our education system is plagued with insurmountable problems and no effective solutions.

The true purpose of school is to grow truly passionate people. The kind of people who look at a previously unsolvable, giant math problem with a sparkle in their eye. People whose lips curl into an excited grin when healing a patient back to health. People who gaze dreamily into literature and poetry, admiring the beauty in words that was carefully woven by the author. Any institution that does not inspire learning into the hearts and minds of students is one that murders education and is slowly killing the childish curiosity that lies within each of us.

The real flaws in the education system begin with its failure to spark the desire to learn in its students. The system as is must be mostly scrapped in order to grow true scholars who are worthy of the fantastic world they will be inheriting. The biggest problem nationwide with the system is the method of teaching ideas. All students have experienced first hand a teacher whom they grow to loathe after countless weeks of the same, boring instruction. Not really learning anything but instead cramming knowledge into their aching brain then releasing it into the air after a test. My experience with chemistry at this school has not been the best and it has been purely my personal love for the subject that I have cultivated myself that has kept me at it.

I remember walking timidly into class one morning only to expect that, yes, she was yelling at another kid again. Probably for no good reason. My 14 year-old heart beat rapidly as I passed the demon and scurried to my seat. The students on either sides blurred in my focused vision, extra peripheral details in the hope to make it to my seat without a snarky comment. I opened my notebook quickly so she could not pick on me for that fact and others rushed to do the same. 

I didn’t realize it then but now, looking back, she had us all truly under her thumb. It was like a dictator to her subjects, you didn’t dare to ask her a question. The powerpoint lecture droned on, and I found myself looking up at the periodic patterns and trends with awe and the bonding types with curious eyes but I realised I wasn’t really learning. The teacher would click to the next slide, read the bullets with slightly different words, wait for us to copy down some important words, and then move on. It was a rhythmic beating; click, read, copy, click, read, copy... and on and on. It was synonymous with the pulse of the clock, ticking away the chance for a valuable lesson. 

I imagine it was aimed to dig the concepts deep into our brains through some sort of repetition. No topic was ever explained and I can see how difficult it was for those who didn’t particularly like chemistry. I imagine they struggled with the lack of inspiration, the inability to ask a question for fear of the rage that would lash back at them. It was like a silent drowning. No student who wishes to understand should feel like this. Teachers must be people who enrich the learning process, who aim for true understanding instead of high marks on a standardized test. Questions should not be shut down because of a lack of “time” but instead entertained and deeply thought about for the expansion of our curiosity. Where will the world go when children are taught that questions are a nuisance and that they take time away from the “real” learning? This is something in the institution that must change. There is no way the children who are to handle the future can be trained with this low level of education. We must raise the standards of our teachers in order to get a higher level of knowledge and achievement out the other end.

Imagine sitting in English class, just like you have for the last 97 days and just like you will for the next 83. This class has become a rut, a routine, of reading a book then writing an analysis and then moving to a new book. The chosen material is boring and rarely stimulating, nothing you would have chosen on your own. There is no deep and beautiful language, no crazy cliffhangers that let you imagine, no real suspense that you used to enjoy in your personal reading. But there’s no time for that. You have hours of homework waiting for you at home, college research, SAT studying, ACT studying, summer internship applications, AP tests to start preparing for, SAT II Subject tests to choose and get ready for, Finals...It’s all too much. You find that this book in your hands is your only relationship with literature. 

It is believed by some that the behavior of a person is a collection of their experiences. One can be changed, be moved by a single book - even a single line. One’s whole life can be put into perspective by an incredible novel. An English teacher holds more power than they may know. They have the power to inspire, to change, to enlighten, but also to distress and to discourage. 


In my hands I hold Macbeth by Shakespeare. I know its reputation. It’s supposed to be one of the greatest pieces in literary history. It is by Shakespeare after all so it must be amazing, right? I open the old and cracking book to the right page and am completely blown away by the language. It is one of the most beautiful things I had ever read, but I only had a vague idea of what it all meant. And I felt that was what made it even more beautiful. I felt like the romantics felt, for the first time in my life - as a science geek - being perfectly fine with something I didn’t completely understand. My senses overwhelmed by the complexity in tongue, the meanings that drifted into my open mind that directly related to me. I felt the old worn covers between my fingers and felt like I was part of a long dynasty of readers who experienced this book, and each one in a different way. And that to me was absolutely incredible. 


But my romantic idea of creativity in personal analysis did not last long. My teacher called the class to attention and began writing Shakespeare quotes on the board for the class to “translate.” My eyebrows ruffled in confusion. I knew what I thought it meant, but was that was he was looking for? I stumbled over the first couple, almost missing the meanings completely. “To The Last syllable of recorded time,
 And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
 Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
 That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.” I see beauty in just that. There is no need to translate it into simple prose, it almost takes away from the loveliness. As the Macbeth unit went along, I got terrible grades on every single quiz because I couldn’t remember the color of Lady Macbeth’s robes or who Macbeth was directly talking to when he spoke a cryptic phrase in a room full of 3 others. I was so frustrated. So defeated. I vowed I would never pick up Shakespeare again for all the scars it had left me. 

English class should be solely about creating more worldly and intelligent individuals, capable of analyzing themselves and the world around them. Exposing them to ideas and never-before-seen literary masterpieces and asking them what they think.  Opening their eyes to new possibilities and making them passionate. We don’t raise a Hemingway by memorization of frivolous details. We don’t inspire a Bradbury by translating once beautiful, descriptive language into dumbed down prose. The English system must reevaluate its goals in order to breathe life back into the cooled coals of the curriculum.

Unfortunately for us students, the purpose of school is not always the reality. Instead our reality is clouded with the number one stress in a teenager’s life – grades.  I constantly find my head throbbing with a headache after looking at my slowly dropping grade in AP US History. My terrifyingly fluctuating grade in AP Chemistry. 

My fingers clutching the computer mouse as I slowly scroll down to the verdict of this week. Thousands of pixels rushing by my eyes, none bringing the reassurance that I so desperately need. Hoping that clicking refresh will somehow change the digitized disappointment. I sit in the dark at my desk, long past the bedtime my eyes and brain urge me to follow. My weak fluorescent light brightens a small circle on my desk, I feel like a fly, bound to that light for hours, even more glued to my computer screen now. The thought of a crabby college admissions officer looking over the few average marks and shrugging, throwing my entire life into the “meh” category. 

This is the ultimate driving fear. The fear that keeps me up at my desk into the late hours of the night. 

Working for a grade. A letter: A. 

It is as if all of my existence in the school system can be described in a single letter. Is that all I am? Is that all I can show to colleges about who I am as a learner? I find myself getting discouraged with a B grade. There is no reason to try anymore if it is impossible for me to get the A. No longer is there a drive to learn. I can see that most kids come to school for credit and credit alone. The drive is for the grade to get into college so we can drive to get more good grades to get into graduate school and to eventually graduate and get a great job. There is no desire to be worldly or philosophical. No pull to be the best there ever was. Just to make it to that next small step directly in front of us. Schools today do not stress the ideas of true educational success in making your own path, in being innovative and a great thinker. If you do not fit in with their system you are an “average” person, if not worse.

Can students really be assessed with anything  more humane than a scantron, or is everything merely black or white, true or false? In the face of a 1984-like classroom experience and unmemorable lessons on literature, what is expected to be left of the once curious child? I see a student beaten to the ground by the unfair system and although eager to learn, hindered by grades and inadequate teachers. 

For me, these changes would mean the difference between heart-wrenching stress and enlightenment. I would mean a teacher who encourages their students to explore outside of the classroom with internships and educational opportunities, not just what they need to know for the next test. 

I feel like my entire being revolves around my grades, they are what define me. And that is a sad and terrible way to think. 

I want to be much more than a one page resumé, and the key to that is reform to the educational system. 

Our children’s future - and sanity - depends on it.

I've always loved writing, but I haven't always been good at it.

And I've never been good at teaching writing.  I think that's because I never was taught how to write.  I was given writing instruction, sure, but the attitude of my teachers was that writing was something you just got better at when you practiced more.  They focused on helping me develop my ideas and not so much on how to structure those ideas so they made sense to the reader.

That might be giving them too much credit.  I don't remember ANYONE telling me how to write.  I do remember being encouraged to write on a variety of subjects in low-stakes assignments, but that was mostly in college English classes.

I also remember my creativity being discouraged actively, mostly in high school.

My high school grammar teacher (we spent half the year in literature, and half in grammar) would give us daily journals.  We had to write 20 lines, and the topics were things like, "Imagine sliding down a hill" or "What is a song you like, and why do you like it?"

So I decided to start writing an epic short story.  One that would incorporate the topic every day, but would be about this community of elves.  Ones that had mysterious adventures, like sliding down hills while composing their own inspirational tunes.  Where characters were developed and put in situations where they could be tested, or they could demonstrate their true nature.

After two weeks, she collected our journals.  I waited for her feedback anxiously, as I believed my Elf Soap Opera was my greatest writing achievement yet.

I still remember what she wrote at the bottom of the last journal entry:

This is not appropriate and if you continue to not write about the assigned topics, I will give you a zero on every one.  In fact, I will give you a zero if you even use the word "elf" in another journal.

I cared too much about my grade to push it any farther.  But it was just another event, in a long string of events, that convinced me that I needed to stop believing that people would understand me or see me for who I really was.

I got an A in that class.  But my writing didn't improve; in fact, my confidence as a writer dropped significantly, as a result of having a teacher who meant well, but couldn't see me as anything except a kid trying to get out of an assignment.

I never wrote on a creative topic again in high school.

**

I had forgotten about that until a student in my Essay class mentioned that he had done something similar and had a similar consequence for it.  He asked me what I would have done if he had done that for my class.  My answer was simple: I would have written him a comment that told him what I liked about it.  If it didn't meet the requirements of the assignment, I would ask that he make sure he did that next time.

This was in the context of a discussion about how writing instruction is done here at the school.  What my students said was that, at this level, there are just expected to know how to write already.  They said that, other than a few comments on essays and a grade, they hadn't had much instruction in how to improve their writing.  They knew how to write a five-paragraph essay.  But when asked to do a creative topic, they would completely blank out.

They started naming things they wished they could have had in their English classes:

• individual writing conferences, where they are given specific feedback on what to improve and how to deal with problems they struggled when writing in general
• freedom to write something without obsessing about a grade
• the ability to explore interesting ideas without worrying about how many sentences in a paragraph, or how many paragraphs were required
• instruction on how to take their ideas and make it work in writing
• help in developing and honing their voice as a writer

Basically, the exact same goals I had for them at the start of the class.


We did one-on-one conferences (took three weeks of class time), and when I asked them if that had been helpful (and worth the three weeks it took), they said it was probably the most helpful thing we did all semester.

I disconnected writing from grading.  Nothing they wrote for me received a grade (with three exceptions, which I'll talk about in a minute).  If they completed the assignment, they got 100%.  If they didn't complete it or it didn't meet the requirements, it got a 0%.  My theory was that frequent writing practice would build their confidence and ability, and that they had to stop seeing writing as a transaction; good writing evolves and develops, and the idea only ever grading first drafts is not attractive to me.  

Andrew Thomasson and I do a lot of writing together (like, at the same time in a shared Google Doc), so this has really helped me refine my theory on writing instruction.  We have written numerous guest posts (including one next week for the 12 Days of Dreaming project over at Educational Dreamer) and what we have found is that our first drafts suck.  Sure, they say what we think we want to say, but they never say what we NEED to say.  It takes a lot of refining (and often starting over altogether) to find the version we think represents us best.  If our first draft was published, it would be far less than mediocre, and not even a glimmer of what the final product ends up being.

I apply that principal to my students - some drafts are worth refining, and others aren't.  That's why the three assignments I am actually grading are:

1. The essay they chose to have a writing conference on.  Their task was to revise it after their conference, given the feedback and discussion we had.  I only graded it on the things I asked them to work on.  Most of the time, that was a bit of structure, a bit of organisation, and a bit of concept.  
2. The final essay, which is a synthesis of about 50% of the writing they did over the entire course.  It included short descriptive vignettes, which Andrew and I call an "Exploded Image."  It included making an argument and supporting it with evidence.  It included a narrative structure that used elements of a narrative toolkit we developed.  So in effect, I'm grading their ability to perform all those various tasks successfully, as well as their ability to synthesise the information.
3. Their analysis of their own voice and how it has developed in this class.  The assignment is here if you're interested.  It yielded some interesting results.  The reason I'm grading this one is that I want to see their analytical ability, as well as their ability to find patterns (another of the course mega-themes).

Those are the only assignments graded in a more traditional way.  The rest is credit/no credit.  My students told me that it was liberating to be able to write without worrying about points being deducted for a misspelled word, or an incomplete transition.  They also said it allowed them to try on different styles and experiment with ideas that aren't typically found in an "academic" writing assignment.  Some of those yielded the most successful pieces of the semester for my students.

As to helping them find their voice and develop their ideas, the way I did that was through a lot of discussion and feedback.  We wrote every essay in class.  During that time, I would work with individual students on how to best get across their idea and how to make it sound like their authentic voice.  We also had collaborative partnerships, where students would help each other by reading and making comments on ideas only - not on grammar or spelling or other mechanics.  Sometimes they would comment on structure and organisation, but mostly it was about helping the writer develop ideas.  We had discussions about purpose and audience, and how style influenced and was influenced by both the purpose and audience.  I showed them my writing, and they took it apart.  We did the same with some of theirs.

Here's what I didn't teach:

1. That writing should be a single draft activity, where we write something then move on to something else
2. That structure is more important than content
3. That the five-paragraph essay is valuable
4. That all genres of writing are the same, and use the same structures
5. That there are strict rules that all writers follow
6. That the most important thing is completion
7. That writing is an individual activity
8. That we should never experiment or try new ideas
9. That there are "right answers" in writing
10. That the teacher is the audience for all of their writing

I have the great privilege of teaching students who have a lot of training in basic essay structure, who have great vocabularies, and who have great academic behaviours.  Their struggles are more with anything that is different from what they are used to - they haven't been asked to be creative or collaborative much, unless it's in structured ways.

I know that this is probably more freedom than many teachers have, and that my students' academic background is much stronger than most.  But I also see that their writing at the beginning of the semester has improved dramatically.  They went from writing five-paragraph-style essays, and now have much more complex systems of organisation that will serve them well in college.  Their descriptive and observational writing is so much stronger, and vivid.  

And they feel something I never felt in high school: that their voice, what make them unique, is valued by a teacher.  That they can be themselves - even if that is something still in the process of being developed and refined.  That they don't have to worry about a grade and can take risks.  That they have peers who understand and support them, and will help them become better writers.

That their writing is, like them, a work in progress.

I've written about my 6th period class a bit in previous posts.  They've been doing projects on an area of humour that we have not studied together.  

Today, we had a study in contrasts.

The first group started presenting on Friday, but because of some administrative tasks, they weren't able to finish.  Their presentation was about stand-up comedy.  More on them in a minute.

The second presentation group covered ten types of humour, with some examples.  Here is what they did (see if you recognise it):

1. Gave a handout with ten definitions of types of humour (slapstick, parody, satire, etc.).
  
2. Read the definitions off the PowerPoint (exact replica of the handouts).  Around the third slide, they lost the audience.  When the audience started to recognise that the presenters did not fully understand everything they were teaching, the audience responded by asking questions.  It started with factual questions - does that include x? What does y mean? - and progressed to more chatter than actual questions.  The audience actually seemed frustrated to not be learning and resentful of the waste of their class time.

3. At this point, the group rushed through the last few slides so they could get to the videos.  They hadn't made them hyperlinks, so they had to manually copy/paste them into another browser window.  Several members of the audience shouted at them to do control-click.  They either didn't hear or chose not to listen.

4. When they finally had the video ready, they didn't give context.  Just pressed play.

5. Less than half of the audience was paying attention.  They continued regardless.

6. After the first clip, they asked students to write their answer to the comprehension question on the back of the handout.  They had only made enough for each group to have one.  So they told the students to do it as a group.

7. Then they showed a second clip and gave them a second comprehension question.  

8. As class was about to end, they just went back to their seats and told students to "turn in the papers or something."

Is it their fault that their presentation wasn't effective in teaching the students, or engaging their attention?  Not necessarily.  They haven't been trained in how to present information, and have been less than attentive for much of the semester.  

Their presentation was the first one from that class that was anything less than mind-blowing (like producing a comedy video, leading an improv workshop, analysing memes about Marin...all fantastic and very funny).  For a student presentation, it certainly wasn't bad.  Yes, they committed some presentation sins (technical problems, reading off the PowerPoint, not being fully prepared, not keeping the audience engaged, etc.) but they met the requirements set out in the assignment.  They are decent students who are just not terribly engaged in school, and despite having the freedom to choose an elective, ended up in one they enjoyed but didn't really connect to.

**

It had been so different with the first group.  When they finished, I was astonished to realise that they hadn't just learned the tools of humour analysis.

They had learned effective lesson structure.

They had unknowingly used Explore Flip Apply - the same structure I have used to teach them all semester.

I didn't tell them my structure, and so certainly never encouraged them to follow it.

But here's the lesson they presented:

Explore:
Students were directed to a bitly address that took them to a collaborative google doc.  The presentation group asked them to write a joke - any joke.  It didn't even have to be funny.  They watched and laughed as their classmates entered jokes anonymously (since it was a public link, they didn't need to sign in....an intentional move by the group to let people have the freedom to be experimental).

Flip:
The group then presented a few techniques used by stand-up comedians, such as timing, exaggeration, and exploration of the unexpected.  They solicited feedback from the audience to clarify their misconceptions, and posed a few questions to check their understanding.  They showed several clips (since they ran out of time, they assigned one as homework - the "Hot Pockets" Jim Gaffigan routine - best. homework. ever.) and asked the students to identify some of the elements used, as well as analyse their effectiveness as humour tools.

Apply:
Finally, they had students go back to the google doc and look at their own joke again.  They asked them to revise their joke to add some of the elements.  Then they asked students to come up to the front and tell their joke as a stand-up routine, and then asked the audience to analyse the techniques used.  Four students volunteered and shared, and several more would have shared had there been time.

Finally, we did our Seminar Assessment reflection questions (which they had helpfully included in their presentation, even without it being required), where the group listened to the feedback respectfully.  They even offered some additional materials to let advanced learners find out more.

**

They Explore-Flip-Applied a presentation, on their own.  And it was as (if not more) effective than what I've taught them.

So how is it that one group was so successful, and the other group wasn't?  

Was it because of the strength of the relationship built with their classmates through discussions, seminars, and collaborative group work?  Sure.  The second group spent more time checking Facebook on their phone than participating in class.

Was it having clear passion for the subject and an intense desire to communicate that to their peers?  Absolutely.  The second group were far less attached to their topic than the first.

Was it having the necessary toolkit of skills?  Yes.  The second group struggles to think critically and write effectively.

Or was it because the first group took responsibility for their learning, and had ownership, and the second group didn't?

I think that's the key point.  All of the other things were essential to getting them there - relationships, passion, skills - but when they took ownership and had pride in their work, they naturally gravitated to the instructional technique they had learned first-hand from me.  And while the second group learned something, it was the first group that had really been transformed.

This presentation wasn't just something they did.  It became who they are.

And they don't need a grade to prove they learned something.

Nor do I need a test to prove that I taught something.

And now that I have a fresh start coming in a few weeks, I'm afraid that I won't be able to repeat this kind of awesomeness.  It's daunting to see the final product and think about starting over.

But maybe next semester, there won't be a second group.

So in the comments of my Homework in a Culture of Fear entry, Kate Baker asked me to elaborate on how I teach a novel without punishing students for not having read it, but also making class meaningful for all students.

Here is how I've done it at the start of this new unit on Indian Country by Philip Caputo.

Problem:  
Getting students to read a long text (419 pages) in a short-ish unit (3.5 weeks) and not punishing them for being behind in the reading.  Giving every student the ability to complete the classwork to some degree, even if they are behind.  Focusing on the things that are really important from the novel, and not on the minutia that is unimportant.

Context:
A mixed ability 11-12th grade English elective that lasts one semester.  The course is American Literature I, and is one of many options for how to fulfill English requirements at Redwood High School.  Most students report struggling with assigned books because they are either being asked to read something they don’t relate to at all, or they are being Close Read’ed to death in class.  They have read one novel and one play for this class, and this is the final unit.  Nearly all students completed the reading for the last two units, but many reported not finding it super-engaging at times.

My goals for this unit:

1. Analyse and trace a variety of themes through a long, complicated text
2. Engage students’ love for reading
3. Examine the way war changes Chris and what the long-term ramifications are on his psyche and on the relationships around him
4. Discuss ways in which loneliness can be dealt with and ameliorated
5. Respond critically to a variety of passages that illuminate the motivations and desires of a character, as well as how those push them to interact with others
6. Make them see that there are certain things that just make us human and that we all share

Here’s the way this looked in class:
Tuesday (11/20 - 50 minutes): Quiz 1, review/clarify misunderstandings, time to read
Monday (11/26- 50 minutes)): Quiz 2, review/clarify misunderstandings, time to read
Tuesday (11/27- 50 minutes)): Activity #1, #2 and #2.5 with discussion of responses
Wednesday (11/28 - 90 minute block): Activity #3 to accompany Vietnam: A Homecoming
Friday (11/30 - 50 minutes): Activity #4-#5 and time to read

If you want to see the actual assignments with rationale for why they were created and what the purpose was, you can see them after the break.

I have (along with every educator on Twitter) been thinking about homework.  Its role in my classroom and in school in general.  Its function and purpose.  Its value, especially in how it fits into flipped learning.

Here is what I have observed in the eight years I spent teaching before Redwood:

• The only kids who do homework are the ones who are A) scared their grade will drop or B) have parents pushing them (and usually both are true).
• Homework is generally worksheet-y, even in English and Social Studies. 
• Teachers are frustrated that students don't do homework.  They continue to assign it and deal with non-completers in disciplinary ways.
• Students hate homework.  No matter the value or purpose or length or subject.
• Many students give up on a course when their zeros keep mounting from incomplete homework assignments.
• Teachers assign homework if students fail to complete the assignment in class.  Teachers assign homework to cover concepts they don't have time to cover in class but are in the standards.  

This last one is more controversial:

•  Teachers assign homework because they are more concerned about teaching Responsibility than teaching the student.  

Some teachers assign homework as an exercise in values.  They argue that in The Real World, we all have deadlines and we all need to learn how to manage our time.  We compare it to chores - something no one wants to do, but just as it is necessary to maintain order in your physical world, it's necessary to maintain order in your academic world.

At Redwood, most of those answers are still true.  The only one that's different is the first bullet point.  At Redwood, 90% of students do homework.  That's in a general class, not an AP or Honours level class.  They expect to get between 2-5 hours of homework a night.

But everything else is the same.  They hate homework, teachers assign it, and it's primarily about teaching Responsibility.  There is an added element of You Need To Be Ready For College (and I can't fit everything into our face-to-face time).

I stopped giving homework when I started working at San Lorenzo.  They wouldn't do it, and I started doing research on the effectiveness of homework as a pedagogical tool.

So when I went to Redwood, I spent some time reconsidering that perspective for one major reason:
        Students would do it, and all teachers expected it to be assigned.

I didn't stop believing the research that said homework was not helpful for learning retention, and often was more harmful than it was beneficial.  I didn't stop believing that students needed the evening to unwind, spend time with family and friends, and pursue hobbies or other interests.  

No.  I started to consider assigning homework because I was afraid of the consequences if I didn't.  The same reason most of my students completed their homework.

I got scared.  What if my colleagues thought my class was "too easy" without homework?  What if my principal accused me of subverting the culture of the school?  What if my students thought my class wasn't rigorous enough?

That is the world of fear many of my colleagues inhabit, and the world of fear that my students pass though, hoping that they will escape when they get to college.  It's the world of fear that keeps them up until 3 AM doing college application because they had so much homework they couldn't start it until 1 AM...and they are so afraid that they won't get in that it makes them angry, depressed, and more afraid.

It's the world of fear that causes good teachers to go against their pedagogy and pretend that they are just "fitting into the school culture."

And it's bullshit.

A classroom built on fear is a classroom that denigrates the importance of community.  A classroom built on fear lives in the reality of reward and punishment.  A classroom built on fear cannot produce students who are responsible for their own learning and who pursue learning from passion and not pressure.

And it's not the kind of classroom I want.

**

There has been a lot of talk on Twitter about how flipped classrooms without homework can't really call themselves flipped. 

Now, I have written about our definition of the Flipped Mindset before.  So you know that I'm not a Flip 101 adherent - instead of flipping lecture onto video and off-loading it from class time, I don't lecture.  Instead of using class time to do the kinds of practice (let's be honest: worksheets) many of the English teachers I know assign, I try to build interesting discussions, engaging projects, and close reading of texts.

So when you ask me if homework is required for a flipped classroom, my answer is an Emphatic No.  The REAL flip in my class is that I have flipped the responsibility for learning to my students, and made the place where my students seek knowledge much more broad and no longer confined to my ten pound inadequate dyslexic brain.

I used to spend a tremendous amount of time rewarding good behaviour and punishing bad behaviour.  I had charts and systems.  I had Good Students and Bad Students, and that was largely down to who could most closely match the definition of "good" I had in my head and tried to superimpose on them.  

But why were the Good Students doing the homework?  Did they see the relevance to their lives?  Did they genuinely want the knowledge?  Were they doing it because they liked me and believed in me enough to do what I asked of them?  

Or were they doing it because they didn't want the consequences if they didn't?

The whole point of the flipped class Andrew and I run is to get students to the point where they pursue learning for the love of it and work towards becoming an educated person.  Where they believe in us and know that we believe in them.  Where they see the work we assign is relevant, purposeful, and not excessive.

Where assignments are about mastery, and not a number or a letter.  Where responsibility is developed over time, not as the result of turning in an assignment on time.  Where the Good Students are the ones actively engaged to the best of their ability at that time.

Where there are no Bad Students.  Only students who haven't Got It Yet.

**

So we don't give much homework.  The only major exception is that we have assigned students reading homework for the novel we're reading.  Now, we read parts in class, and often give them class time for the purpose of reading.  But many students prefer to read at home, as they have done their entire educational career.  And it's my job to be flexible and listen to my students.  If they use class time well, and want to read at home, I can deal.  After all, it is all about them.

However, I work really hard to make the reading "homework" not be about Teaching Responsibility or about reward and punishment. 

I work on igniting their passion for the story by creating engaging activities that draw them in, rather than punish them with zeros on reading quiz after reading quiz.  We're reading Indian Country by Philip Caputo right now, and this is what seems to be working:

• I give them assignments that make meaning from the text in a way that gives every student a way of completing it, regardless of where they are in the novel.  
• Every day, I spend a little bit of time talking about something in the section they read or the section they will soon read.  Today, I told my kids that there were two...disturbing...scenes with a woman and a bear.  And it doesn't end well...for either of them.  The one kid in class who had read ahead laughed knowingly.  And ten kids tried to read the book instead of watching the video about the Vietnam War.  
• At the start of class, I ask who made progress in the reading the night before, regardless of where they are in the novel.
• I gave them the power to control when the reading is due.  They named the Final Deadline, which is when we take that section's quiz.
• The quizzes I give are revisable and low stakes.  On the last one, I asked students to trade with someone who was roughly in the same place they were in the novel (so if they were on page 100, they shouldn't pair up with someone on page 3).  Then I had them add to or correct their partner's answer.  That gave them the time to critically think about each question, figure out if their partner answered correctly, and then add to their thoughts.  Many of the questions were opinion questions, so I had them add a personal note to their partner to encourage community.  
• The grade they get on the quiz isn't really important, because it's all formative assessment.  So there's nothing punitive - in fact, the only score they get is a point in the gradebook for completion. They will have to have read to complete the essay and project, and they will need to know enough to participate in discussions.
• The quizzes I give are often verbal.  That way, they can actually hear their classmates answer the questions, and they get to clarify misconceptions.  More repetitions=more practice.  

That list is how I justify asking students to do reading at home.

Because if I can't make a list like that, I shouldn't be assigning homework.  Here are my questions for you to consider in relation to your homework policy:

1. Is this something they absolutely must do or they will not be able to pass my course?  If it is, isn't it important enough to make sure they have the time, space, and assistance in class that they need to complete it?
2. Is this something that I value so much that I would complete it myself? If it isn't, do I really need to assign it?  If it is, am I willing to do it on the same schedule as my students?
3. Am I giving this assignment because I'm afraid?  Am I afraid of what people will think if I don't give homework?  Am I afraid that my students won't take me seriously if I don't?  
4. Am I giving this assignment because I failed to teach something adequately?  Is it fair to punish my students for my failure?
5. Am I giving this assignment to teach something other than the content?  Is it fair to be teaching values rather than content?

**

So that's a really convoluted way of saying that I think carefully about any assignment I give students that requires work outside of class.  I think about what my goals are, what my students need, how to make the work relevant for them, and how to show them what being responsible for their learning looks like.

And if, once in a blue moon, homework is required, I give it.  

I urge you to have the same conversation with your colleagues, your students, and with yourself.  Don't let the culture of fear push you to do something that is not good for your classroom community.

And if you have more suggestions for how to make reading homework (or any homework really) work in a flipped class, or other thoughts about the Great Homework Debate, please comment.  I love the dialogue that has already come from this subject.  And it's good for all of us to examine our practice, be reflective, and adjust when necessary.

And yes, leaving a comment is your homework assignment.  Don't make me put you on the Bad Blog Reader list.

This wasn't planned.

In fact, I'm still not convinced it's an amazing idea.

But this week, I handed gave the reins to my 6th period class....for content, instruction and assessment.

I realise that I may be completely insane.

It started with some collaborative brainstorming on topics, questions, methods, and texts they wanted to study.  Then each student chose a group and topic and started planning their own content to teach their peers.

I didn't even constrain it to humourous topics. But they are so invested in the course themes that the topics they chose were nearly all comedic; they ranged from writing original comedy, stand-comedy techniques, political satire, musical comedy, and improvisation workshops.  Half the class will be producing comedy films and then having the class analyse it closely.

Here were the requirements:
1. Choose a topic/question to cover and choose a group
2. Research and/or create the content/text to be shared
3. Prepare to lead a class discussion (in any format that we've used or practiced)
4. Give students a writing assignment of some kind (in any format)
5. Assess learning
6. Reflect on the effectiveness of their lesson

These units start next Friday.  I can't call them presentations.  A presentation means a bad powerpoint, nervous students, lack of engagement.  These already have a hell of a lot of passion behind them. 

Today I couldn't get the computer lab, so I just said:

This class period is yours.  If you need something from me, I'll be here.  But you guys are in charge.

I expected an argument, or at least a wasted period.  But here's what happened:
They all looked at each other, silently. Then,
Cipriana: Let's watch Workaholics!  It's an hour before Thanksgiving break.
Alexander: No, that's not the best use of our time right now. We need group time to work some stuff out.
Pierre: Wait guys, can we go around and say what we're going to be covering so there's no repeats?  Okay, Chelsea, what are you guys doing, and who is in your group?

They then went around - while the rest of the room was silent - and talked about their concept.  After every group gave their idea, other students expressed how excited they were for the ideas. There was not one group that didn't get a "wow, that sounds cool!" at some point.  The two groups that were a little similar had a quick negotiation to figure out how close their proposals were.  Then they checked in with me about it.

There was one undecided group - they came up and talked to me about their ideas, and with VERY little prompting from me, they came up with a great (slightly scary) question: When it comes to humour about race, where is the line, and why is that the line?  

We talked about how to frame it so it would make the best possible discussion.  And they left really excited.

**

I gave them the keys to the car, then I got in the backseat.  And instead of crashing into a pole, they immediately navigated hairpin turns with dexterity.

I do think they'll run into issues at some point, and will struggle to present their lesson effectively.  But they'll figure it out.  All of us need to make mistakes to learn how to be better.

**

And here's the meta part...or maybe just the uncomfortable part of all of this. 

This week has been overshadowed by a friend of mine being attacked for something she wrote on her blog.  In an entry devoted to asking for help to deal with a frustrating issue common to all of us who teach in a public school - unmotivated students - she was attacked with more logical fallacies than the cable news networks had during the election coverage.

The issue?  Her statement that her students don't know how to learn math.

They don't.  And I think the person most capable of making that judgement - their math teacher - is the one who should make that assessment.  Not some strangers on the internet.

Students DO, however, know how to learn in general, but learning academically and learning in general are different.  We are always learning.  But not everything we try to teach our students is something to which they will connect and in which they are interested.

There are lots of things that I didn't find interesting, but that I'm glad someone pushed me to learn at some point.  Here are a few of those things:

• How to solve for variables in Algebra
• Techniques for creating different effects in painting 
• French vocabulary
• Word derivations/roots/etymology
• Names and locations of every country (and its capital) in the world
• Hundreds of Bible verses 
• Medieval literature and how to analyse the sources that compose a text
• How to actively listen
• How to take notes and make note cards for an essay/presentation

And you know what?  I still know how to do those things.  Even though I wasn't passionate about any of them, because I had the academic ability to learn, I had the skills needed to transfer that knowledge into my memory.

I also have a freakish ability to find something interesting in ANYTHING I study.  My friends in college were absolutely shocked when I gave them the advice I used: Find an angle that is interesting and use that for your essay topics.  They looked at me like I was smoking crack.

That's when I realised that what I do naturally is not what everyone does naturally.

Learning is innate.  But academic learning?  That's acquired.  Some of us are lucky to have acquired it young.  I did.  And I am the exception, not the rule.

We don't go to school to learn how to love playing or eating or sleeping.  Those are things we all can find passion for or joy in.  We go to school to learn how to learn things we wouldn't normally choose to learn.

And we do that because there are some things that are valuable enough to ask everyone to learn them.  That's why the Common Core Standards movement is so important - it cannonises the knowledge we as a culture think is essential for all students to learn.

So what happens when the school system is broken?

You get students who are in 10th grade and have acquired the ability to learn in an academic context.  Students who may master video games, but struggle to write a coherent sentence.  And some people would say use the video game to teach sentence structure, or just don't teach the sentence structure and hope they'll just "get it" over time.

But is that really serving my students well to not teach sentence structure - at least holistically?  Is it a good use of my face-to-face time with my students to use video games to teach sentence structure?  Why would I spend time having them learn something with me that they could do on their own?  Why would I not give them individualised instruction that meets them where they are and them pushes them forward?  And I think that doing that kind of instruction well - where you infuse passion into subjects that aren't natural pairings - is time-consuming and rarely effective.  It just ends up being a little condescending to try and squeeze the names of Pokemon characters into paragraphs that have students practice sentence revision.

I also come from a pretty unique background.  I was homeschooled for 7 years, spanning the late 80's and early 90's, which was the Unit Study era in homeschooling.  We did one on the Pilgrims.  I remember planting a garden, making corn cakes, and creating a replica of the Mayflower.  

And that's it.  I didn't take out of that unit any more knowledge about gardening, cooking, or history than I brought into it.  And I fell years behind in math because math "never fit" with the unit studies, and I wasn't motivated to learn it on my own.  That is one of my biggest regrets.  

Am I saying that it's impossible to do that kind of curriculum well?

Obviously not.  The project my students have started would indicate otherwise.  I believe that student-driven content can be very powerful.

But there are reasons that my project will be successful.  And a lot of it has to do with what we've already learned (not all of which they found interesting), and a lot has to do with what they brought into the course from previous learning.  

This will be successful because my students:

• can research information and find reliable sources
• synthesise and analyse information with depth and clarity
• use technology to compile, organise and present information effectively
• have academic conversations that they run without my help
• can stay on task and focused on the end product

And most importantly, they:

• KNOW HOW TO LEARN

Now, because I have kids at the top of their educational game who are highly skilled and motivated, this wouldn't work with every class.  And it wouldn't even work in some of my other classes.  They don't have the skills they need.  And some of them don't want to build those skills.  They want the grade.  They want to just "get it over with" so they can move on.

So it makes me uncomfortable to, on one hand, turn over a class to a group of students capable of making it a success, and also to acknowledge that they are pretty unique.  For the past eight years, I've worked in schools where this never would have worked.  And yes, I tried.  And it's always been a massive failure.

This is what I think:

Passion + low skills = low effort and/or low quality

Passion + low skills + motivation = variable results (see: Freedom Writers Effect)

Passion + skill + motivation = high effort and high quality

The harsh reality of the state of public education is that not all students come to us prepared or motivated.  Can we help those students?  Absolutely.  That is what my friend wanted: help figuring out how.  And instead of help, she was bullied, harassed, and attacked.  So she is taking her passion and skill and hiding it so she can avoid being attacked further.

One of the meta-lessons of this issue is that passion doesn't make up for a total deficit of skill.  The people attacking her have no lack of passion.  But they also don't seem to understand how to have a respectful dialogue, nor engage in a discussion of the issues and avoid going after her personally.

I sincerely hope that, eventually, everyone will be taught the skills they need to be able to pursue their passion.  And I hope that eventually, every person could be like the students in my 6th period: skilled, motivated, self-directed, responsible, and extremely passionate.

If the world was filled with people like that, it would be a pretty amazing place to live.  It's certainly a pretty amazing place to learn.

Here's what they don't tell you when you're flipping in a highly-student centred environment:

It doesn't feel like you're teaching them anything.

For me, that's incredibly off-putting.

Even when I was doing video more often (the very short-lived Flip 101 days), I felt like I was teaching something.  But changing over to a classroom where I do very little "sit up front and talk" or even very little "watch this video and take notes" means that I often go for days without delivering information.

For the last few weeks, I've been doing the following things:

--helping students curate their work (14 writing assignments in Essay Exposition, 10 in Language of Humour) on playlists on MentorMob.  I wish we had thought of this early.

--individual writing conferences with my Essay Exposition (SAX) students, where they choose one assignment from their portfolios and we discuss what their purpose, audience, tone, and intended effect.  It's been great to work with them so individually and really talk in-depth about their writing.  I think my Language of Humour class will be next.  I just wish they didn't take quite so long...

--analysing a text (The Crucible) through a variety of lenses: psychological, historical, and thematic, through Socratic Seminar, and essay and a project (recreating the Crucible in the modern day)

--evaluating texts that are not typically thought of as narratives (like Derren Brown's amazing work) through discussion and essay

--working on a project that will not only teach my SAX students how to do research and write persuasively, but will help them take action to fix a problem in their own community.  Pretty excited about how it'll turn out.

None of that really involves direct instruction.  Other than giving tasks and having conversations, I'm not "teaching."

I guess it's time to re-define what we mean by teaching.

An exchange on Twitter with another teacher facing an impending observation reminded me that at some schools, the list of activities above is actually much more what they're looking for than the old definition of teaching. 

While I have so many amazing things happening in my classroom, my evaluation still includes a piece on direct instruction; in that, I feel like I'm taking a small step backwards.

And maybe that's why I still don't feel like I'm teaching: my school (and students) still define teaching as "what teachers do at the front of the room, talking constantly, as students take notes."

So how do we redefine teaching in the post-flipped world?

So I made a weird decision.  I decided to teach the Crucible without having students read the actual text.  Because the importance of that text is less the text and more the themes and patterns.

The core of this idea is from Andrew, Karl and me.  But we need help making it more awesome.  Please comment with any ideas or tweaks you may have.

Here's the outline of the project:

1. Watch the Crucible (streaming on Netflix!).  Generally discuss the play/plot.

2. Ask students to consider and have a Socratic Seminar on two questions:

• What motivation could you have for framing your best friend for a serious crime they didn't commit?
  
• How would you go about convincing people that your friend, a person well known for being upright and honest, had committed this crime?

Their answers were awesome, by the way.

3. Consider and Seminar about the three basic views of human nature/goodness:

• We are born basically good but can be corrupted
• We are born basically evil, but can be good
• We are a tabula rasa, and our influences are what determine our goodness

Discuss students' own view of human nature as well as the view of human nature as presented in The Crucible.  Give examples to support claims.

4. Watch documentary about Salem Witch Trials and the history/cultural influences going on in Salem.  Discuss/Seminar these questions:

• How does that view of human nature influence the judgements we make about the characters and situations?
  
• How does that affect how we perceive the entire event?  Is it an aberration or an inevitability?  Is it because of the cultural crucible presented in the documentary?

Here's the final product:
A video, essay or multi-media project that does this:
Using your assumptions about human nature and the impact that has on your view of the Salem Witch Trials, consider how the conditions could be created for this to happen again.  


Construct that scenario.  And since accusing people of witchcraft is currently out of fashion, what crime is likely to replace it (but keeps the same connotation and impact witchcraft had in Salem)?


Class context:
This is a class of mixed 11th and 12th graders, who are fairly proficient at technology and research, and can work together and collaborate extremely effectively.  They have learned how to do close reading, how to collaborate on Google Drive, how to create and upload videos to YouTube, etc.

We have access to a computer lab with brand new MacBook Pros, with both OS X (Mountain Lion) and Windows 7 on them.  I can stretch this project into next week, but I'd like it to be done by Friday, 7 November.

If you have suggestions or ideas about this, please post them here as a comment!

Last week, I wrote about the struggles Andrew and I are having with our Flipped Classes.  We have several plans underway to deal with those issues.

One is to talk to people smarter than us.  There's a great chance that some of that conversation will end up being in a video we can share publicly. 

One was to start, or prepare to start, new units, none of which we had ready beyond a vague description and texts.   The overwhelming nature of the number of preps we have that are totally brand new, along with the sheer number of students (I have 155! I've never had that many! I now know all their names...after six weeks!) means that grading and planning are really overwhelming.  More on that in a bit.

But the Real Change needed to happen with us.

For Andrew, we instituted more structure.  Instead of giving students self-paced work time, we put routines in place and drew it back to only semi-self-paced.  The desk arrangement changed.  The new unit was put on hold until we could make sure students had learned all the things they needed to learn in the first unit.

But my Special Skillz are in implementing routine, structure, lesson planning, and classroom management.  So we worked to get those in place.

For my students, it was mostly about me and the personality I wasn't allowing to show in the classroom.  I realised just how little the kids knew about me.  That may not seem like a big deal, but in a flipped class built on collaboration, it was killing everything I was trying to do.

Just how much that was affecting my students became clear when I did a simple activity with them.

I wrote a short memoir this summer, and part of it was based on describing photographs in a way that built a narrative.  So I pulled a piece of that as a model for an activity my Essay Ex class was doing.  I didn't tell them it was mine at first.  I was shaking I was so nervous about it.  If it hadn't been for Andrew, I would have never shared it.

And they had nothing bad to say.  They said it was beautifully written and the imagery was great, and that it showed depth of emotion.  And I was scared to death to tell them it was mine.  It felt...weird.  When I told them it was mine, they were taken aback.  I could tell that even that small thing raised my ethos as a writer, and made me a Real Person instead of a benevolent taskmaster.  Several students, for the first time ever, stayed behind to talk to me after class and ask about the picture I had written about.

*****

For many reasons, sharing my personality with my students is not something I do much of anymore.  Sure, I joke with them and show genuine interest in them and give them advice when they ask for it.  But they don't know much about my personal life.  I love them, and they like and respect me.  But they don't know where I went to college, why there are posters and art from South Africa covering the walls of my room, or why I occasionally wear an migratory engagement ring on various fingers. 

And that's not good enough.

That's not how I started my career.  I'm not saying I told them everything in my personal life, but I did tell them stories, and shared my own hopes, dreams, aspirations, etc. with them.  

And when that didn't go down well with certain people at my first school, I was forced to reevaluate how much I told students about myself; as a result, I retreated into a persona I didn't much like - a Sage on the Stage, who could answer any question...as long as it wasn't personal.

And now that I've reevaluated again, I can see just how much all of that was really hiding - people told me I was "too close" to my students and I was so afraid of that being true that I made it Not True. 

I'm not saying that our job is to air our issues in front of our students (nothing bothers me as much as a teacher who forces their stories on bored kids who are pretending to listen intently so they can check Facebook instead of doing class), but they need to know us and invest in us personally.

One of the things I am most grateful to have learned from Andrew is that relationship is the centre of everything we do.  Our work together is built on a solid foundation of friendship, and without that friendship, we wouldn't be attempting something as crazy as team-teaching from a continent apart.  And one of Andrew's many Special Skillz is that relationship is the heart of his classroom.  He is an amazing creator of classroom community.  His students love him, and you can feel that in his classroom, even just through Google hangout.  He makes them feel valued, cared about, and respected.  And he doesn't do it by becoming their BFF or talking about his personal life ad nauseum.  

He is just himself.

And his encouragement (both to share my writing with my students and in general) and friendship has taught me so much about how to build community in my flipped class.  It's not the same as when I first started: at 21, I didn't know exactly what was over-sharing and what was under-sharing.  I didn't know how to be myself and be their teacher.  So I just stopped being myself just in case I accidentally "did it wrong."

And Andrew has taught me how to do it right.

And you know what?  When I changed, my class changed.  

Now, my students have always been intrinsically-motivated, high-achieving, genuinely fun kids.  Which just proves how much I am the problem.

And here's the most amazing thing:  I just so happened to find someone who had all the Special Skillz I lacked, and who lacked many of my Special Skillz.  And we just so happened to both have the same educational goals.  And we just so happened to decide to throw in our lots together before we knew just how much we needed each other to become better teachers and better people.

And we just so happened to start to model in our own lives exactly what we want for our students: a collegial partnership that gives you what you need, even when you didn't know you needed it.  A collaborator who is good at everything you're not.  A friend who is not scared to tell you the truth, even when you really don't want to hear it.

I had no idea how isolated and lonely teaching had been until it just wasn't anymore.  

****

Now, I'm not saying we have things figured out.  It's a long road, but I feel like we've finally stopped searching for the trail and have found purchase, not only on A trail, but on the RIGHT trail.

And we had some absolutely amazing days in class.  Here's a brief description of what we're doing in each class, with some links.  As always, take and use, but please credit Andrew and I if you do.


SAX Playlist
(that's what is sounds like when you say Essay Ex too many times, short for Essay Exposition)
Students read three atypical narratives: 1) How to Become a Writer (fiction), 2) Under Water (creative non-fiction), and 3) In the Ruins of the Future (expository).  They found repeated words, which we developed into pattern groups, and used those to analyse the features of a narrative.  They are now preparing for a seminar on the questions (available on the playlist in the documents that go with each text).  Then they will look at some descriptive/observation narratives and do the same.  It will culminate in them writing their own atypical narratives.

Language of Humour Playlist
We finished reading most of David Sedaris' book Me Talk Pretty One Day, and watching several episodes of South Park to determine how comedians take something that is Not Funny and turn it into Very Funny.  We watched Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail and blogged about how they used the toolkit we developed.  Each class did an inquiry unit to figure out what made something funny. (3rd period 6th period)

Now, we're reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and comparing it to the Radio Drama to figure out how characters are created in different mediums.  We will also read Good Country People and figure out how to create vivid, funny characters.  They will end the unit by writing a narrative with vivid, funny characters, and will translate it into two different genres to show how genre shapes a text.


American Literature Playlist
We just started Their Eyes Were Watching God.  A book I had never read before.  Or taught.  But that Andrew LOVES.  So far, we have been focusing on two things: literal plot and the role of women in the novel.  Andrew and I did our first close reading on video, where he talks intelligently and I smile and nod a lot.  I love teaching this book because it's something that Andrew is genuinely passionate about and that came out in the video for sure.

I also have recorded myself reading (not that I'm great at it) so students can get used to the dialect used.  All those videos are in the playlist.   At the end of the unit, students will be analysing characters in the novel in a full-length literary analysis essay.  We will also be doing a Socratic Seminar fairly soon to discuss the view on love and marriage and sex in the text,


If you made it this far, well done!  I'm not sure how I end up writing so much every time, but there's just so much to talk about.  I really, really love what I do.

Other cool stuff I'll write about eventually:

• all the guest blog posts we've written lately and have coming up
• visiting the Twitter HQ and working with a committee to help the local PBS affiliate come up with best practices for using technology in the classroom
• the webinar we're doing for Mentor Mob about collaboration
• the upcoming Flipped Class Open House
• presenting about Blank White Page at CVCUE with Karl Lindgren-Streicher and Andrew (Andrew virtually, of course)
• getting to go to NCTE's national conference in Vegas with 5 members of my department
• ideas for flipping novel units, now that we've actually started doing it
• profit?