Alien Pedagogy

One of my colleagues from social studies heard good things about my class from students, so she asked if I’d let her observe my lesson. I said OK, and she was in my lesson by the end of the week.

This was a helpful process for me. Here’s why.

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I sent a lesson plan to my colleague that consisted of the unit and where this lesson fitted within it, the objectives, the assessments, and the instructional strategies. Finally, I gave her a heads up on the classroom culture and some routines that I thought might find useful.

The second after I sent the lesson plan, I began to reflect about how much I believed in the lesson that I’d created. Was it as good as I thought it was? Was it as good as it could be?

After coming up with a list of doubts, I sent another note of doubts that I had about the lesson and if my colleague could try to offer advice by the end of my lesson.

In the end, she got some ideas from my lesson and I got some good ideas and resources* from her.

I really find my PLN useful, but I recommend teachers to try to get observations going as much as possible in their schools. I should have a Chinese language teacher coming to observe me shortly after the Chinese New Year Break.

*We were reading Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, and as a social studies teacher, she was able to pass on some solid resources on the historical period.

The students in my mainstream junior English class have been given the opportunity to rewrite their essays. I have about fifty students in this group. Here’s what happened.

The initial essay was due on a Friday. 45 students submitted their papers on time. Those papers was returned on the following Monday.

(The late papers were submitted on Monday. I do not dock marks for late submission, but I don’t guarantee speedy feedback for late assignments. I always inform students of when I have scheduled time to read their work.)

Students were given until Friday to rewrite assignments. During the course of the week, I tried to incorporate essay writing skills into my instructional activities as much as possible. For example, although we were studying Frederick Douglass, one of the activities was to make an argument about whether Douglass could be classified as a realist. The purpose here was to revisit strong paragraph writing that incorporates textual evidence.

To resubmit an essay, students had to submit the original copy, a new copy, and a “note on what I’ve learned.” At least 40 students resubmitted their paper.

Marking these resubmitted papers is easier than we might expect. Most students indicate that they’ve tried to correct their grammar or else that they have worked on their argument. So instead of remarking the paper against the entire rubric, I focus on what the students tell me they have tried to learn.

I had about ten instances of plagiarism in this assignment. So far, those students have gone through their plagiarized ideas and have given credit to the original authors.

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• When I take this approach, I see a lot of benefits for the students.
• The next time I do something like this, I will try to give a model “note on what I learned.”
• Without consulting my gradebook, I’d guess that the original class average was around a C and is now at least a B.
• I try to envision a day when my formative assessment will be so solid that this process will be redundant.

I work very hard to help my students find books that they love to read. By the end of my second year teaching grade 9, I had a pretty reliable classroom library and a strong sales pitch. I regularly had ~100 books signed out by the end of the second year.

This year, I teach all of our juniors and the AP Literature & Composition course. The AP students read quite a bit, but the juniors have been more resistant. Things are finally starting to pick up.

The most popular authors right now are:

• Michael Crichton
• Conn Iggulden
• Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44

That’s it.

The juniors’ interests are so diverse that it’s been quite a challenge putting together a solid library for them. A lot of them love romance, a lot of them love thrillers, a lot of them love literature. A lot of them read SAT guides.

But after a semester of guided tours of my classroom library, a couple trips to the book store, and sharing the stories that I’ve been reading, I’m starting to see more reading.

I changed the routine in my grade 11 American Literature class this week.

Usually, I’d open every lesson with DEAR. However, I recently talked to another teacher who opens her lessons with “Do Now” assignments. The variety of tasks that she was able to give using this activity appealed to me. Here’s why:

• It can allow students to revisit and refresh earlier lessons (ex. write a compound sentence)
• It can allow students to recall prior knowledge (ex. quick writes)
• It allows me to take attendance while the students are learning, sort out classroom library returns, and talk to students before the lesson begins.

For the record, I have not abandoned DEAR. We still read as much as we used to, but the routine has now changed so that we can read at any point during a class, rather than always at the start.

And by the way, the students seemed to take DEAR for granted when we did it at the start of every lesson. Now when I say “we’ll finish this activity and then drop everything and read,” there’s a lot of enthusiasm.

By the end of this week, I will have met with each of the students in my grade 11 honors English class to discuss their essay writing. During this meeting, a grade will be determined to represent their essay writing skills according to the criteria that we have on our rubric.

Here’s what I’ve been doing.

Pre-Meeting:

In class, I discussed with the class the difference between giving the students a grade that represents their current ability rather than an average of their performance. Students were asked to come to the conference prepared to discuss their thoughts on writing, their thoughts on their writing, and an idea of what grade would best represent their abilities.

Meeting:

In the meeting, I try as much as possible to let the student speak about his or her abilities, asking only questions. Students that struggle to express their thoughts are invited to follow our essay rubric to guide their discussion. Before the meeting ends, the student and I try to represent his or her ability with a grade.

In Review:

• It’s too early to say what impact this has had on the students’ writing skills, but I have so far found this to be a useful and enjoyable process. Many of the students are almost at a loss to discuss their essay writing skills (though I have done reflective writing and class discussions with them) in a one-to-one discussion.
• Most students are quite honest about what score they should receive. It does help to be aware of the students’ abilities, which is quite a bit of information to keep in mind. Be prepared.
• Students that have the strongest essay skills tend to be the ones that are able to articulate their beliefs on essays in the most articulate manner. Correlation / causation debate: begin!
• Though I’d like to meet with all of my students, conferencing is a time-consuming process. I have been meeting with students outside of class, which has limited my ability to contribute to anything after school, during lunch, or before school begins. I know some teachers do these conferences during class time, which I would have to do before I could conference with my three sections of grade 11 mainstream English.
• This semester, I have represented all essay scores as the final grades determined during this conference. If I were to do this again, I would maintain a representation of the student’s ability to respond to earlier texts. What I mean by this is that although a student may have done well analyzing character in “Why I Live at the P.O.” he or she might have struggled to analyze symbolism in Lord of the Flies. Then again, perhaps a comprehension quiz would provide better evidence for a text-specific understanding.
• Several students in my class are more than ready to break free from the five-paragraph essay structure. This can be an awkward time (adolescence in writing?) in a writer’s development, and I have enjoyed talking 1:1 with students about where to go after the 5-P standard.

Is anyone else out there doing a variation of end-of-semester conferences?