How do we get students to take responsibility for what they are learning, rather than expecting us to help them every step along the way?

It's a hard question to answer because I believed that I never had to have anyone motivating me to do my schoolwork.  

But that's not entirely true.  There are many times (even now as an adult) that I act much like my students who would be on the "not taking responsibility for learning" list.  So I tried to find patterns.  Here's what I came up with:

1. When I feel as if my time is being wasted, I stop caring.
2. When the instructor proves to be incompetent, either in content knowledge or in adequate preparation, I stop wanting to listen.
3. When there is open disdain or resentment towards me/the class/the audience/the subject/the organisation, it shuts me down.
4. When I don't get enough time to process, I stop "playing school."
5. When I don't see the relevance to my life or practice, I tune out.
6. When I am personally overwhelmed by something wholly unrelated to school, I disengage. 
7. When I am not treated like a respected colleague and peer, I fight back or I give up.

Are those the reasons my students don't take responsibility for their learning?

I had to honestly ask myself these dangerous questions (and I encourage you to as well):

• Do I prepare enough to make it feel like class time is productive, rather than wasted?
• Do I present myself in such a way at to make students think I believe I know everything and am the sole/main source of learning in the classroom?
• Do I treat my students as peers in learning, rather than as passive recipients of knowledge?
• Do I give them enough time to process and reflect, and help them understand how what they're doing is relevant to their lives?
• Do I take good enough care of myself that I'm healthy and able to do my job effectively as much as humanly possible?
• Do I use my authority to shut them down?  Do I make them feel like they aren't as good as me because I am the one with her name on the door?

Sometimes, I do a good job.  Sometimes, I don't.

***

The thing I think Andrew and I haven't done well enough this year is helping students see the relevance of what we're doing, and how it is helping them learn important skills.  

We started this unit with these goals:

1. Introducing students to the technical processes they need for the class
2. Easing them into the flipped class part - how to watch video, how asynchronous instruction works, how mastery grading works, etc.
3. Familiarise them with the patterning strategy and why we use it
4. Making inferences based on evidence
5. Constructing a definition, both in narrative and informational writing
6. Collaborate with peers on a variety of tasks, and differentiate that from doing Group Work.

And these were our essential questions:

• What is a flipped class, and how does OUR flipped class work?
• What goes into a good definition, and how does that differ based on genre and purpose?
• What is the best way to collaborate, and how is that different from cooperative learning/group work?
• What is a pattern and how do those patterns build meaning in a text?
• How do you access meaning beyond the literal/surface level?

So those were great goals and essential questions, but none of the instructional design matters if I'm not creating a classroom where students are responsible for their own learning.

***

So I need to change.  These are my answers to my own questions:

• Do I prepare enough to make it feel like class time is productive, rather than wasted?

Most days, I am prepared enough to make it through that day.  But the last few weeks, we haven't been planned far enough ahead that I could LET students work ahead.  Which meant wasted class time.

• Do I present myself in such a way at to make students think I believe I know everything and am the sole/main source of learning in the classroom?

No.  I believe that I've presented myself as someone who is learning alongside them.

• Do I treat my students as peers in learning, rather than as passive recipients of knowledge?

Yes. I've even had days where students suggested doing something related, and we've changed the plan.  Some of those were the best days.  I believe that I have as much to learn from them as they from us.

• Do I give them enough time to process and reflect, and help them understand how what they're doing is relevant to their lives?

This is the one that hurts.  I think I give them time to process, but there have been times when I've cut off a discussion because we needed to move on.  I also haven't let them reflect enough to make meaning of everything we're doing.  I haven't convinced them that learning how to use a blog is useful.  I haven't convinced them that patterning is helpful.  This is the place I need to focus for the next unit.

• Do I take good enough care of myself that I'm healthy and able to do my job effectively as much as humanly possible?

I want to say yes to this.  I'm pretty sure Andrew would say no, that I'm not.  Working on it.

• Do I use my authority to shut them down?  Do I make them feel like they aren't as good as me because I am the one with her name on the door?  Do they feel safe, emotionally and academically in my class?

I think I'm doing okay on this one.  There is always room for improvement.


***

So here's what I've decided on why students not fully taking responsibility:

1. We are not always planned enough to let them work at their own speed.  We need to plan more so students can work ahead.
2. They don't understand why they are learning what they're learning.  We need to show them exactly what they're learning, because they are actually learning a lot.
3. They need more time to process, which means less synchronous work.  The end of this unit has been on collaboration, so a lot of it has been at the same pace.  But not all partners work at the same pace, so one group inevitably finishes early and another is still working after the bell.  This will change in the next unit.
4. They don't see how everything connects, or where it's going.  That was intentional, but I think it was the wrong decision.
5. They aren't reflecting enough on their own learning process and progress.  In the final assessment, there will be a reflection to help address this.

So in the next unit, those are our key focus areas.  If you have ideas that can help, please let us know!

Coming soon: our entire first unit with all the resources we used for six weeks of a high school English flipped class.  We will publish EVERYTHING.  For free.  We're really excited to share it - we're proud of what we've accomplished together in this unit.

There are a lot of people who will tell you that mastery grading won't work with English.

Andrew Thomasson and I disagree.  We're doing it, actually, and it's working pretty well so far.

Here's our video explaining the philosophy and basic principles of Mastery:

Our Mastery system is based in large part on an idea stolen from Jon and Aaron.  Here's our latest grade table:

In this first unit, we are assessing the following things for mastery:
1. Process of posting to their blog, accessing and using all their Google accounts
2. Making an inference based on evidence
3. Writing an essay that defines who they are through a transformational experience
4. Developing a project that shows mastery of a concept
5. Having a conversation with a group that shows their ability to come to a collaborative definition
6. Reading a text and finding patterns
7. Making meaning of those patterns to determine author's intent

Some of those are processes, and some are about content.  This whole first unit is built on the idea of Explore Flip Apply, and all of those skills and processes were developed throughout the unit in that way.  As an example:

Patterning
Explore: Students read a text and find any repeated ideas or patterns.  Discuss with group to find commonalities.

Flip: Students watched this video:

Apply: Students went back through the text and made meaning from the pattern we found but didn't explicitly trace in the video.  They had to have a group discussion with us to demonstrate that they understood the pattern and how it affected the meaning in the text.

We patterned several other texts in that way (some with a video, some with live in-class modelling of the patterns we found), and the final assessment will ask students to pattern a new text and make meaning of it on their own.

***

Now, we still live in a point-based reality.  So somehow, we need to give students points for getting to mastery.  The way we decided to make it work is to give students all the points for showing mastery, and none if they didn't.  At the end of the unit, the assessment is graded on a rubric, but all other strands are all/nothing.  So 20 out of the 55 unit points are graded on a rubric.  That means that about 1/3 of the unit points are in the assessment and NOT all/nothing.

If students get all the points for the classwork, the most they can get is an 85% - to get the other 15%, they need to complete the Blank White Page project work for the unit.  This is straight-up stolen from Karl Lindgren-Streicher.  Thanks, buddy.

The last thing to mention is the Behind Line.  That's the date on which work should be completed, but students are not "late" until the unit is over.  I don't think we'll take work after the unit is over, but we need to see how it shakes out before deciding for sure.  It's all based on the idea that students can work ahead, but not fall behind.  Often, we will still do synchronous work in class, so we want students to stay near the same point through this unit.  Again, we'll reassess later.

The students are responding positively to this - in fact, they've stopped asking about their grades now, and seem to trust that this is as straight-forward as we keep promising. The true test will come at the end of the unit.

The way Andrew and I have been teaching is new for our students.

It's new for us, for that matter.

It's not the Teacher Lectures and Student Studies the Textbook paradigm.  And our students really struggled with the transition.

So I decided to ask them what they were learning in my class.  We've been working on these three playlists.

I wasn't expecting much because it really seems like they weren't "getting it" and making the right connections.

Here were the results for the topic:

What are you learning in this class?  What do you think we want you to know/be able to do?


Wordle (all classes combined)

Original notes from the 1st period discussion:

Sorry it's not super legible.  The check marks indicate when another group said something that was already up there.

I'm really proud of them.  

They ARE learning! :-)

As teachers, we have lots of opportunities to think about, plan for, and look back on first days.  We're trained to think in terms of "starting strong" and told to "not smile until [insert fall/winter holiday here, depending on how strict you are]" - that if we don't "set firm boundaries" that we can "never be more strict than we are on the first day."

I think that's all crap.

Am I anti-structure?  No.  I think you'll find that beneath the seeming-chaos in my room, there is a definite order and structure to what's happening.  In the next few weeks, Andrew and I will be writing in depth about, and sharing all our resources/plans for our course.  There has to be order for the chaos to function effectively.  You will see a few of our resources at the end of this point so you have more of a framework to understand what our classes look like.

****

At one time, my ideal classroom looked a lot like an example from a Harry Wong book.  Students were conditioned (some would say manipulated) to perform actions by rote to the point that class runs without teacher guidance.  

It's funny how close the end result is to flipped class, while being on the complete opposite pedagogical scale.  In a flipped class, students take responsibility for their LEARNING, which leads them to use behaviours that make the classroom function seamlessly, whereas in a Harry Wong class, students take responsibility for their actions, which is supposed to make the learning function seamlessly.  

But what often happens is that students learn to act that way in one context, at one time.  How many students sit in a classroom like that and by the end of the year permanently morph into compliant, disciplined learners?  No, they go to the next class, and if the teacher has different structures, they start all over.  Even if the teacher is similar, at some point, they will be expected to do more than show up, take notes, and follow procedures.  And they won't know how to do it.

In a flipped class, the idea is that when you teach students the habits of mind, the skills, and the knowledge they need to be responsible for their own learning, they also start to learn that certain behaviours are more conducive to them reaching mastery, so they start regulating themselves without even thinking about it, in order to push themselves and their peers to learn more.  This is exactly what happened in my class last year - they went from unmanageable to self-managing.  In a matter of weeks.

So both Harry Wong and flipped class reach similar end results in terms of behaviour, but vastly different in terms of learning and attitude.  And if we really think about it, as educators, which should we value?  Should we value teaching students to be compliant, while explicitly managing their behaviour for them through the use of punishments and rewards?  

Or should we be teaching our students how to engage in the messy and beautiful process where making mistakes, failing, trying again, and finding their own way out helps them find not only what they were looking for, but something that is far more valuable: the ability to find, manage, curate, and create information in any discipline, situation, or venue?


****

As someone who values backwards planning, I like to start with my desired end result before I know where to begin.  If I want students who can think critically and creatively, who can build and use with skill a toolkit more vast than just the one used in my own discipline, and who refuse to give up when they fail, but instead reach out to find different solutions from the resources available to them, then starting the year with Harry Wong just won't cut it.

It's why I'm starting with Blank White Page, a project where students generate questions, then find answers to those questions.  They can work on their own, or with peers (from their own school or from three others around the country).  They can use any resources they can find.  They have complete freedom on what to study, how to study it, and how to demonstrate their knowledge.

It's why I'm starting with a video introducing not only myself, but Andrew as well.  Where we explain why we've decided to team-teach their class from 2,500 miles apart.  Where we model what it looks like to have your ideas become something better than you ever could have imagined.   

But most of all, it's why I flipped my class.  I don't know of any other way to teach students to be who and what I want them to be...no, who they NEED to be to succeed in the "real world" outside my classroom.

There are lots of things I want my students to understand about me and about the class on the first day.  But I'm not the centre of my classroom anymore.  If I stand up and talk about my rules and policies on the first day, then I'm still trying to be the centre.  I am communicating to them that what's really important is ME and them following MY rules, MY procedures, and fitting into MY world.  I am telling them that I have all the answers.

That's why I'm not going to talk much on the first day.  I am going to assess my students on the first day - who they are, what they know, what interests them, how they interact, what they expect from school, who they like/hate, etc.  I am collecting evidence and making inferences...which is exactly what I'm teaching them how to do in the first unit.  Because THEY are important.  And the end goal is for THEM to learn, to grow, and to succeed.  

I want them to see that NO ONE has all the answers.  That there will always be blank white pages ahead of them, and it is their job to find ways of filling them in most effectively.  I want their life to be a Blank White Page project - prompted by curiosity, driven by a constant search for answers, and always building towards becoming a life-long learner.

So as I plan for the first day, I ask myself if I'm backwards planning for that end goal.  Will our students walk away equipped with a toolkit that will transfer from the content taught in our class to the content of the rest of their lives?  Will they learn not just compliant behaviours, but habits of mind, skills, and how to be a critical and creative thinker?

****

First days are important, sure.  But what's really important is the LAST day, and thinking forward to One Day, when they leave our class and go on to whatever comes next.  The time when routines and structures are gone, and they are left facing their future.  Will they see something that is chaotic because they have no one imposing structure on them?  Or will they see a blank white page that is just waiting to be filled in and expanded and created?

I know which one I'd choose for them.





I linked to a few videos in the post, but here are some other resources for our first unit:
Mentor Mob Playlists for BWP and Strand 1
Video playlist for unit 1

I've been accused of being far too confusing in the past.  So I have an idea that started simply enough.  I'm sure it won't end that way.

But I also want to give you a lesson structure that, with slight modification will work below the grade level I'm teaching (11th-12th).  So here goes.

Objective: 
Analyse impact of author's choices in a series of related texts. Analyse common theme. Analyse word choice.  This is all customisable depending on what you want to do with it.

Common Core Anchor Standards:

1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.
   
4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.
5. Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.

Explore: 
Students are divided into groups (or if you want to make it simple but more time-consuming, have all students do all/most of the songs).

Read the lyrics to the song (and/or listen to it or watch it on YouTube if time/tech allows).  The inquiry question is some form of this:

What is the overall message in the song?  What language helps convey that message?

All of these songs make extensive use of figurative language to convey the theme/narrative.  Here are some songs that could work (substitute your favourite song or poem if you want):

Your Heart is an Empty Room or Title and Registration by Death Cab For Cutie
The Stone (full band) or The Space Between by Dave Matthews Band
The Cave or Roll Away Your Stone by Mumford and Sons
Ballad of Love and Hate or Weight of Lies by Avett Brothers

Then have the students mark up the text.  I use patterning.  You can use whatever you want.  You could even do it with them, so long as they draw conclusions about the inquiry question for themselves.  They can write their answers or do videos or talk in small groups...whatever floats your pedagogical boat.

After that, get students into groups with students who did different songs/poems.  Have them start making lists of similarities in the way the artists convey theme.   Hopefully it is here they will figure out that it's figurative language that make them similar.  Even better, they'll figure out something WAY more interesting than that connection (this always happens when I do this with students).

Flip:
If you are a content-video flipper, you could make a video with definitions of literary terms like this video. 

If you are a process-video flipper, you could make a video of yourself marking up a different song/poem and discussing the inquiry question to model the process.

Apply:
Have students find their own song or poem and complete the same analysis process on it that we did in the Explore phase.  I'd also have them do a process video of them marking it up, then I'd have two students trade videos and come up with ways in which their poems/songs were similar.

But here's the cool thing about the apply phase - you could have them do ANYTHING.  A creative project, write their own song with figurative language, whatever.  Application is the "fun" part in EFA.  

You could even have students define a literary device in a video/essay/blog post/project using their self-chosen song/poem as an example.  These would make awesome teaching videos next time you taught this unit.

More ideas of how to expand this lesson?  Post them as comments!

I've spent a considerable amount of energy this summer trying to figure out this difficult problem: How do you flip reading instruction, particularly in a self-paced, asynchronous mastery environment?  

I don't know that I have an answer yet.  But I have thoughts.  These thoughts were HEAVILY influenced by lots of people (yes...the usual suspects).  In fact, let me make that more explicit.  These ideas are not mine.  I can't claim them and I refuse to claim them.  They only exist because of the amazing people on Twitter who process with me constantly.  They only exist because of the webinar we had last Tuesday.  They only exist because of Andrew Thomasson and Karl Lindgren-Streicher.  Andrew said it better here...and that's how things tend to work.  I talk forever and in circles, and then he just puts it so simply and beautifully, in a way that is perfectly understandable and yet so profound that I just shut up and agree with him.

So I agree with him.

That being said...writing "we" instead of "I" just sounds weird.  So mentally, when you read "I" know that there are multiple "I"s represented in this amazing collective of colleagues.

I'm going to start by listing the general ideas, then I'll give specifics after the list.   This got really, really long.  And it's probably confusing to anyone outside my own head.  For that I apologise in advance.  

Guiding Principles
1. Flipped reading is more than "reading at home" and "talking about it in class."
2. Flipping reading requires way more creativity than flipping grammar or vocabulary or even writing, and it greatly depends on instructional context.
3. Flipped reading works better with shorter texts than with longer texts.
4. Flipping reading has to be about process and skill rather than content.

Explanations of those Guiding Principles

1. Flipping reading is not reading at home and talking about it in class.
This pops up every now and then, and I just have one thing to say:
How is it flipping when you're just following the commonly accepted instructional paradigm?  That's not flipping.  That's traditional.  

So stop saying that is flipped English...please?

You can read Troy Cockrum's thoughts on the matter here.

2. Flipping reading requires creativity and depends on instructional context.
The first part is obvious - the reason there are VERY few strategies for flipping reading is because conceptually, it's really difficult to get your head around.  It takes creativity, which is where the Explore Flip Apply model comes in (more on that later...and there are tons of entries if you look back through my post history).

The second part, about instructional context, is really important.  What will work with me at Redwood High School is not what worked at San Lorenzo High School, and it may not work in your school either.  I don't know.  You're the teacher, thus you're the expert on how to teach your kids.  I can only tell you what I do, and give you guiding principles for how to structure your units and instruction.

When I flipped Night last year, I made videos of myself reading the text.  We had Today's Meet live discussions in class as the videos played (basically, it allowed me to participate in the discussion and manage the room instead of trying to read + do all of that).  Then students compiled theme and figurative language examples in separate Today's Meet threads and on Edmodo.  Then we did a lot of writing and discussion questions.  We watched a lot of related documentaries and film clips to give context.  We discussed them all.  I had a few skills videos, but not many - probably because the skills were mostly higher-level and based on lower-level skills they had learned earlier in the year (either on video or back before the flip, by direct instruction).

I consider that unit flipped.  But a lot of people wouldn't.  This is why we need to come to a common understanding of what flipped English is and isn't.

It also leads to my next Guiding Principle:

3. Flipped reading works better with shorter texts than longer ones.  
Jessica McGrover lays out in this post why this is true.  When you're having students flip a longer work and go at their own pace, they will inevitably do what you want them to do and end up working at their own pace.  And you can't have discussions about the book unless kids are at roughly the same point.  Imagine trying to discuss the theme of fate verses free will in Romeo and Juliet when one student is in Act I, scene v (after R&J meet), another student just finished Act III scene i (where Mercutio/Tybalt are killed), and another student just finished the play.  Unless you explicitly give them permission to talk about the entire play (which "ruins" it for the student in Act I), you are going to have frustrated students and a flat discussion.  Which ruins the whole experience of collaborative conversation.

The plan I've got for my flipped classes this year is to have some strategies for flipping shorter texts, and some strategies for flipping longer texts.  

Read the second part of this entry here.  It was way too much content for one post.

Before I tell you about my exciting unit plan, I'd like you all to go read my friend Andrew Thomasson's NEW BLOG.  Follow him.  He may not have much there yet (he literally built it in a couple of hours today) but he is definitely an amazing writer.  Just sayin'.

On to the main post.

So I got my first REALLY GOOD IDEA about teaching the Essay and Exposition class to which I'm assigned this semester.

I was reading this awesome article.  If you haven't read it, go read it now.  

Thinking through all the typical "first day of class" activities, one thing I just can't NOT do is have them write something describing themselves.  But I hate the way I've done it in the past.  Either I give them a million guidelines and it sounds more like a shopping list than a "here's who I am" letter, or I give them few guidelines and they turn in five lines that describe their epic love for sleeping, hanging out with family, and video games.  

That's when it occurred to me that I could have them write an essay in the style of "Snapshot of a Modern Learner" as their "introduction letter" assignment.  Then this unit plan just fell together in no time.  It's based on a (slightly asynchronous) mastery model, and the bell schedule is M, T, F 55 minutes, and one 90 minute block day (either W or Th depending on the class).  

As always, please tell me what you think about it.  




Unit Plan in the Explore-Flip-Apply Model


Explore:
Students can put the article into categories like I just did (see the bottom of this post if you care to know how I analysed the text).  I will either:

1) Give them four categories (description of action/inaction, and description/antithesis of self).  I will then ask them to add one more category they see in the text to those four categories and justify their choice.

2) Tell them to find their own categories of language and justify why/how they see them developing in the text.

General "inquiry"-type questions:
--Which categories have more?  Why?
--Within the categories, what language patterns do you notice?  
--Why are those important?  
--How do they tell you about the author’s purpose?

They will then write that up into a textual analysis blog entry.

Flip Video Sequence:
1. Finding and analysing patterns/themes
2. Text preview/model conversation questions [for the three options of texts]
3. Essay guidelines for Snapshot of Me as a Learner

Apply:
--Students read another text and apply patterning to it.
--Students have a reflective conversation or write a blog post about the patterns in the piece (similar questions to the ones in the Explore phase)
--Students write their own “Snapshot of Me as a Learner” essay

******

So those are the activities and how they fit into the Explore Flip Apply model.  But I still needed to understand how it looked in a week.  So here's what I mapped out:

Unit Outline
Monday: explore activity (including textual analysis blog entry), first video as HW

Tuesday: debrief video and check for understanding.  The task in class is to read and pattern a second text, and then create an analysis similar to explore phase, so students who can do it on their own will do so (or they can self-select into groups).  Students who need more guided practice (based on my CFU or self-identified need) will work with me on [possibly an easier version of] the same text, with scaffolding along the way to help them prepare for the next activity.

At the end of class, we'll have a short discussion about the patterns they found, which will allow me to assess understanding and assign remediation as necessary.

HW is to watch text preview video and come to class ready with which text they are most interested in reading

Block day (90 minutes): debrief video and give out the text to students based on their own choice. Divide into stations/groups based on chosen text.  After reading and patterning, students will do one of the following:
1) pairs/small groups that have reflective conversations and film it (advanced) 
2) write a blog post about the text and comment on others’ posts, or 
3) re-watch the patterning video with guided analysis questions that will lead into writing reflective questions 

HW is to watch the video on starting their SOMaL essay (many students will probably finish early in class, and therefore will watch the video and start the essay that day)

Friday: debrief video and write essay in class. If students are not ready, they can continue the tasks from block day or work on their Blank White Page project.  If necessary, they can finish the essay over the weekend.


Required tasks for the week:
--Analysis of SOML article and one more short article (everyone does the same)
--Textual analysis blog post
--Watch three videos with CFU assignments (probably an embedded google form) 
--a third [student choice] text/pattern assignment and assessment [have a reflective conversation or do a reflective writing on the second text - students who need remediation may use the guided notetaking, but it won't give them the full 85% for the week]
--write a short definition essay (Snapshot of Me as a Learner)

Grading/Mastery:
If students complete all of that work to the required standard in the week, they get an 85% in classwork (if they fail to complete it to the standard, they will earn lower than 85%). 

To get the last 15%, they need to either 1) show at least "an hour's worth" of work on the BWP project, complete an additional task (like finding another model text and doing a reflective blog post/conversation) AND they must show excellence in the writing task.

The Snapshot of Me as a Learner writing task is on a mastery grading system.  They will not “pass” this unit until they get at least a 75% on the essay.  They can complete as many revisions as they wish, up until the end of the quarter (8-9 weeks).


Additional Texts I'm Considering for this Unit:
--Myth of Latin Woman
--The Key to My Father
--Sanctuary of School
--Mother Tongue
--Why I Want a Wife
--On Being a Cripple
--Why I Write (Weisel) 
--Fat
--Shrouded in Contradiction

All of these are from either Essay Connections or The Blair Reader, both of which are class texts.  I'd also love other suggestions, so long as they are readily available and around the 12th grade reading level (higher is preferable actually).

*******

I had one more additional revelation while I was writing this unit.  I don't have to have all the students read the same texts, because as long as I offer different choices in each unit, they never have to read the same text twice.  So if a kid reads "Mother Tongue" in this unit, when we do the "Politics of English" unit, they will just read another of the choices.  I just need to have the "Explore" text not be an option for any of the self-selected options in any unit.

If you want to know what that paragraph looks like at midnight, here it is for your enjoyment:

AAAAAHH!! I don’t have to use diff texts for diff units if there are choices every time!!

Yeah, I'm not all that grammatically correct past 11 PM I guess.  I forgot that was in there, until I was sharing a draft of this document with my good friend Karl, and he laughed at me.  To be fair, I'd laugh at me too.


*******

If you're interested in my textual analysis of the article, here you go!


Stylistic Notes about the Article:
[I left my own stylistic notes in because I thought it might help you understand my pattern system a little.  Sorry if they are unintelligible] 

Style: paragraphs have contradictions/parallels in them, all in present tense, except for when referring to what he “learned” in his history project; switches to imperative in the end (they MUST); the definition of himself is built implicitly throughout, but finally defined explicitly in the end (reverse pioneer - important defining language), becomes an argument at the end.  It really blends a whole lot of styles - narrative, observation, definition, argument and evaluation
Patterns: Santos/He is always the subject of the sentence; language of disconnection/connection, he thinks/they think/the reality is; mixing what is/isn’t “acceptable”, language of involvement but not creation

The thesis/antithesis in this article is interesting - maybe make a list of competing descriptions?

Linguistic Patterns in the Text:
These are the patterns I notice in the way the text is constructed.  These are literally just copied and pasted from the article.

HE DOES:
Santos sends approximately 125 texts per day. 
He sneaks his phone into his classes either in his book bag or his jacket and 
is online just about all day. 
He posts messages to Facebook during class. 
He looks up answers to definitions of words online. 
He checks sports scores, 
plays games, 
posts his location so his friends can find him easily, and 
streams music through an app on his phone.
Santos opens books and is frustrated when he can’t click on the words or pictures for more information.
Santos listens to his teachers lecture, feeling strange that he can’t pause, rewind, fast-forward, or have anytime access to the information
Santos often helps them when his teachers have trouble with technology or web tools
He knows how to bypass his school’s internet filter and often helps his teachers access Youtube videos to aid in instruction.
he can articulate every detail if you ask Santos what he DID for his History project, 
he recites the definitions to a couple of the words he defined.
Santos participates in school as if it were a giant check-off list
he is always DOING something
When he finishes one task, he moves on to another. 
He does okay, though
When Santos is assigned a big task at school, he goes home and creates a Facebook group around it. 
He shares what he finds on the topic with others and they share back. 
He creates his own opportunities for collaborative learning. 
Santos knows where to find information
he knows where information lives: everywhere
He is more likely to find and copy information without attribution
He learns about these things at night on his own.

HE DOESN’T:
Outside of school, he doesn’t separate technology from other activities. 
think about [technology] because it’s always available.
When asked to give an example, he falters. 
He’s not necessarily always learning at school,. 
His grades are better when he’s interested in what he is doing at school, and marginal when he’s disinterested. Unfortunately, that happens more and more often as he gets older.
He does not necessarily discern what information is relevant and 
he doesn’t necessarily know what he needs to learn from the information. 
he is not likely to connect ideas and create something new from it.

HE IS/WILL BE:
he is misunderstood.
he would be really good at developing Augmented Reality programs or designing nanocircuitry that would enable the creation of incredibly small computing devices
Santos is connected to kids in China, England, Germany, and Australia
he is translating the language with an online tool so that they can effectively communicate
He is connected to these kids because of a mutual interest in nanocircuitry. 
Santos is a good kid. 
Kids like Santos are reverse pioneers, navigating worlds that everyone older than them values. 
he is constrained by system frightened by “what ifs” rather than magnificence of “what could be.”

HE IS NOT:
Santos is not an enigma, 
His parents think he would make a good lawyer or doctor. Santos thinks. He told the Career and Technology teacher at his school what he was learning. The teacher handed him plans for a canned cardboard rocket project.
he isn’t thinking about distances or time when he interacts. 
Santos is not being adequately prepared for the world he will graduate into, at least in school.

HE THINKS (or other thinking tasks):
He accepts the role he has at school, like most of the other kids, and like most of the other kids, Santos thinks that school is largely a time machine.  
He leaves his world and goes back in time at 7:30 AM Monday through Friday. At 3:30 PM, he re-enters his world.
Santos recognizes that the topics he is really interested in are largely blocked/ignored at school. 
He thinks it’s funny that he goes to school to learn a few things that he will be tested on, but don’t really represent his current or future worlds. Santos believes he learns more outside of school than he does inside of school.
Santos knows that they are accountable for specific content, delivered in ways to help him maximize his score on state assessments
he stays up late at night to learn about nanocircuitry, w/a worldwide cadre of like-minded peers.
Santos knows that technology doesn’t move backwards

HIS TEACHERS:
His teachers can’t dismantle his reality to maintain comfort in their professional practice. 
His teachers are going to have to embrace all that modern learning means, though, act on it with purpose, and make technology as ubiquitous as a pencil. Right now, 
His teachers mean well, but Santos knows that they are accountable for specific content, delivered in ways to help him maximize his score on state assessments, which leaves little time for anything that would matter to him in a meaningful way.

Thesis: If kids like Santos will become the future innovators, then they need opportunities to innovate with the tools and technology of tomorrow, not yesterday.

So one of my biggest challenges in switching from my home of four years, San Lorenzo High School, to my new home, Redwood High School, is that I will now be in charge of planning my own curriculum.  I used to do that, but when I moved to SLz, everything was planned collaboratively.  It taught me a lot about scaffolding and structure, and I am SO thankful that I learned so much while I worked there.

But Redwood isn't just asking me to plan my own curriculum - they want me to plan curriculum for three different upper-division electives (for 11th-12th graders) at a college level.  Seriously.  Last night, I brought some of the texts I'm using over to my church home group, and everyone said something like, "That's for high school students?  I didn't read that until nearly the end of college!"

One of the biggest challenges is a class called Essay and Exposition.  It's not quite an AP class, but it's still the "best and brightest" in the school who sign up.  

That being said, I was reading a fantastic article by Mike Fisher, called Snapshot of a Modern Learner.  If you haven't read it, you should.

The basic premise of the essay is that the modern learner approaches learning differently than school offers it.  

That got me thinking...what if I had students read the article and then write a portrait of themselves as a learner in the style of Fisher's essay?

It serves myriad purposes:

• working on style imitation, which is a goal of the class
• it tells me about them and their own learning context
• it leads into the unit on definition essays

It also ties in nicely with my White Blank Page project and the goals of a flipped class.  I think part of why I'm freaking out about this year is because I want to have something planned out fully and I don't.  But I also know that personalisation is a major factor in my flipped class, and without knowing the students, I don't know what they need.  Those two competing forces have made my head a really unpleasant place the last few weeks (and I'm sorry to my friends who've had to hear verbalise the neurotic personality inside my head).

In fact, Crystal Kirch, Karl Lindgren-Streicher and I were talking about planning for the year last night on Twitter.

Planning for a flipped class is really, really hard.  And even more so in English.  I mean, I can prepare content (see: Thomasson and Morris Instruction), but I can't prepare for what they know and what they will need to know.  That is only compounded by the fact that I have a very vague sense of Redwood's school culture and student makeup. 

******

I'm not sure how this post descended into my own insecurities.  It probably has to do with the fact that, as a learner, I always feel like I should know more than I do.  I always feel like I am so far behind everyone else that I'll never catch up.  There are reasons for that (none are relevant for the purposes of this post), but it certainly impacts how I teach.  

I think I need to write my own "Snapshot of a Modern Learner" essay first.  

This entry will grow as students complete their final projects.  Here are two projects on how to understand new words you encounter when you read.  I didn't check the powerpoint before she presented, so there are some errors.  But overall, I'm proud of what she did. 

So I've been thinking a lot about Ramsay Musallam's Explore-Flip-Apply model, since listening to him being interviewed for the Flipped Learning Network's podcast, by fellow English-Flipper Mr. Troy Cockrum. Ramsay said that if English teachers could figure out an authentic inquiry model, flipping would get much easier, especially the E-F-A model he uses.

Here's the basic premise of Explore Flip Apply:
Explore - in this phase, you present students with a problem or question and they work to find the answer.  It could be a lab, it could be research, it could be a reading, it could be a video...but it has to lead students to construct knowledge and start building a schema for the topic.  Ideally, students would understand many of the concepts without the teacher giving them any information.

Generally, it starts with a guided question, like "What qualities create good non-fiction writing?"   An example activity for that question would be to have students compare samples of good writing and determine the qualities of good writing based on those samples.  

Flip - this phase can be just the flipped part in the traditional flip: record a video of your direct instruction and have students view it at home (or in class if that's more appropriate).  It can also be a spot/targeted remediation made that night, or it can be a pre-made video, or it can be an impeccably edited screencast.  In this phase, the focus is on the skills/standards/information students will need to fully understand the concept and fill the gaps in their constructed knowledge.

Apply - in this, final phase, students use the knowledge they have constructed along with the knowledge the teacher has delivered via video to work on a real-world problem.  In chemistry, this could be a similar lab as the explore lab, only with enough difference that students can compare and contrast, analyse more fully, or create a new situation to demonstrate their knowledge.  In the writing example above, you could have students write something that demonstrates all the traits of good writing, and then evaluate themselves or peers based on a rubric you develop (or even better, one that the students develop).  After this phase, you can assess and then reteach as necessary.

Ramsay Musallam also teaches AP, and sometimes adds a "train" phase before the apply phase where students get practice for AP-style questions.

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So that's the basic premise.  Right now, the EFA model makes sense in math and science, where there are ideas you can explore and concepts you can test that have lab/real-life applications.  English is a little harder.  However...

I think I may have cracked it, at least with one example. Using a skill-based inquiry question just ends up being lame a lot of the time (How can I write a good claim paragraph? is a skill-based question, and it's not REAL inquiry - there is a more-or-less "right" answer).  The best inquiry questions, or really, the only valid inquiry questions are the ones for which there is no one answer.  The really, really good ones are the ones for which everyone in class (teacher included) is interested in finding the answer.

So we need to base it on a theme or style issue that is evident in the chosen text (for reading standards) or essay skills/genres/qualities (for writing standards). 

Right now, I'm reading Rena's Promise with my kids, and we've already seen Anne Frank. So I was thinking about using that to build a framework for Explore Flip Apply. 

Here's what I came up with:

EXPLORE - What qualities do resilient people have? Can you make someone more resilient? How?

Either a text or video will work for this. I used Rena's Promise, and I had students read the first part of it (had I decided to use this for the explore phase before I started the unit, I would have given them a shorter portion of it - maybe even a short 2-3 page section). I also had them watch "Hero at 30,000 Feet" - a Derren Brown special, where he takes an "average" guy and teaches him to become more heroic and resilient.

I then had them come up with a definition for resilience, based on what the guy in the Derren Brown special experienced; I also had them look at what it takes to develop resilience in him. I had them do something similar with Rena's Promise and with Anne Frank - they found examples of when Rena/Anne (or others) showed resilience.

FLIP - This is where the skill applications come in. You could use almost any skill here, so long as it would give students the ability to complete the Apply task.

I would have separate videos, one for each skill:
--How to find and analyse a theme in a text
--Choosing the best evidence for a theme 
--Writing a claim paragraph using that evidence

APPLY - Here's where content (Explore) and skills (Flip) come together.  Students will take the skills of finding themes, using evidence, and writing it up into a claim paragraph to complete an essay that answers the essential questions and analyses the resiliency of Rena and Anne Frank.

Now, if students struggle in the apply phase, I can just respond to that directly by making a video to help in that specific area.  Today, students were having trouble doing an inquiry assignment where they tested out vocabulary strategies on a difficult text, so I just took my iPad and made a video modelling it.  I then had the kids who needed it watch it immediately.  It was SOOO much better than doing it 15 times over.  

So really, in English, Explore Flip Apply is a way of blending content and skill, with the content driving the inquiry, and the skill driving the flip phase.  I know that Ramsay adds in a Train phase after Flip to do some test question prep.  With writing and revision, that would make sense.  Grammar would also fit there - specific, targeted instruction in a particular skill that will be assessed on the final essay would be super useful.

*******

I felt the need to separate this out clearly using a barrier of asterisks because I know Ramsay isn't a fan of the mastery model.  But since I am using it (more or less) I thought I should add this.

The way I understand mastery in an English context is this:
Where a student starts makes ALL the difference. If a student starts at 4th grade standard, then my expectations are different than for a student who starts at grade level.  Improvement is more important than skill compared to an objective benchmark.  And you can easily show improvement on a 6 point rubric. 

Especially with writing, mastery makes more sense if you think about rubrics - if a 5/6 is proficient, then they just revise and revise until they get to proficiency. That's usually only a matter of one good, substantive revision after the first draft is finished. If they can't get to proficiency due to low-skill/below grade level starting point, then I adjust what mastery looks like to them. But with appropriate scaffolding along the way, and the intense differentiation afforded by the flipped model, that usually isn't an issue.

Now, I've been asked about gradebook for mastery, both here and on Edmodo, so I'll add this note: I would make one assignment in the gradebook for the first draft, and another for the final draft.  The first draft is always just credit/no credit because it's formative, not summative.  And grading the first draft sends the message that they are done with the essay, and no further action is required.  

If they choose to revise their final draft, then every new draft they turn in just raises their score in the entry for the final draft (I don't mind regrading things dozens of times - I tell them that if they'll take the time to write it, I'll make the time to read it.  Usually no student does more than two final drafts, so I haven't had to deal with that much).  

Making the final draft the only graded one pushes towards mastery because it requires students to always be thinking in terms of revision and forward progress.  I actually have a revision policy that means students can re-do any assignment (in a timely manner - within the unit, usually) for a higher grade, as long as they try their best on the original AND the revision.  Kids love that rule, and I've seen a culture of revision develop in my class that I think is really unique and special.

*******

So I still haven't figured everything out for this model, but I'd like to know what you all think.  And if you have better ideas or a way you use Explore Flip Apply in your classroom, let me know!