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Adjusting our essay expectations

November 13, 2008 By Leave a Comment

I’ve just returned from a great department meeting. A major topic of discussion was the essay and our expectations around that for each grade and level.

There were a few things about our conversation that encouraged and even inspired me in my work:

We were actually having a conversation about essays.

I know that for some teachers in some schools, talking about the sacred essay with an intent to alter expectations for it is simply not an option. I am grateful that I work with a team, and a department head, who are willing to review topics like this.

We all agreed that the five-paragraph essay can be over-used.

One of my colleagues described Grade 11 students who became anxious when she suggested that a topic might be better addressed in seven paragraphs instead of five. Another spoke of senior students asking for handouts to complete an essay.

Our consensus was that we will introduce the five-paragraph essay format in Grade 9 only, and explain that it is a crutch we are providing. Thereafter, fill-in-the-blank handouts and forms are going to be avoided, as many of us have already been doing.

We all agreed that we will use a greater number of alternate assessment tools.

The Ontario Curriculum has changed, and Media Studies now occupies one of four strands. (The other three are oral communication, reading, and writing.) With this shift, we agreed that we need to be introducing more multi-media projects as tools for assessment rather than relying on the essay to do so much.

In very practical terms, we sat down and hammered out the minimum number of essays and other standard written projects that we will expect from each level. This allows us to achieve some consistency across courses. (For example, all of the Grade 10 Academic students will complete a minimum of one essay and one persuasive piece, regardless of who they have as a teacher.)

All in all, I’m pleased with the progress that we made together in this meeting. I’m also relieved that I don’t have to try to extract 6 essays out of my Grade 12 students next semester.

Filed Under: Assessment, Writing Tagged With: ,

Lesson Debrief: Ender’s Game

June 3, 2008 By 4 Comments

At a Literacy Committee meeting last September we were discussing the OSSLT (what else would an Ontario literacy committee discuss?!). During our conversation our Vice Principal suggested that our Applied level Gr. 9 English students should work with a novel that appeals to boys, our stereotypical reluctant reader crowd. “Some fantasy or science-fiction novel,” she said. “That’s what these students read.”

I couldn’t agree more. After some discussion about options, our department ordered a class set of Ender’s Game. Thank goodness. It’s been a great classroom experience.

Over the last month we’ve drawn pictures of the Battle School (encouraging students to visualize what they’re reading), writing imaginary emails from character’s perspectives (helping students recognize perspective and appreciate author’s choices), writing news articles (enabling students to extract major plot events and re-order them), and writing an essay (yep — a five paragraph one, much as I shudder at the thought).

We’ve been busy, but the class was completely hooked. They were completely quiet while we read the novel together. For those of you who regularly teach Gr. 9 Applied students, you’ll know just how special this experience has been.

What Worked Well

  • Ender’s Game is an excellent book to read aloud. My wife and I read it to each other about eight years ago, and were up until the early hours of the morning doing so. It’s that kind of book.
  • Science fiction is appealing to Grade 9 boys, and this particular novel has strong female characters with whom girls can relate. It helps that the main characters are all children and adolescents.
  • Sharing personal visions of the setting – the Battle School and the Battle Room in particular – through discussions and drawings was fun for students, and it helped them to see both the differences and commonalities in their individual visions. This was a good launch point for discussing how reading involves “filling in gaps” and creating pictures based on the author’s word choice.

      • What Needs Work

      • This is yet another unit that I wish I would have done earlier on in the semester. A month-long unit that centres on a novel feels too big for this time of year. But the question is, what type of unit would work when the weather is beautiful enough to distract all of us from learning?
      • The Cyberbullying WebQuest was a bit advanced for this group.
      • The five paragraph essay. I ended a unit that students enjoyed with an activity that students hated. I feel like I tainted the whole experience for them. On the other hand, perhaps the fact that the novel was so enjoyable saved the essay experience from being complete torture for them.
          • Filed Under: Assessment, Books, Lessons Tagged With: , , ,

          Literacy program success (sort of)

          February 14, 2008 By Leave a Comment

          A couple of days ago I decided to use computers in my after-school literacy program just to liven things up a bit. After reading about an extreme case of using gizmos for their glam factor with disastrous results, I felt a bit uneasy about my new decision. Was I going to compound the challenges surrounding this program?

          Nope. It worked. Like a charm. Today’s literacy program was about as successful as any two hours of class after a full day of lessons can be. I was directed to a great OSSLT preparation site for the students, and most of them more-or-less happily spent two hours there. The novelty of using computers for something like literacy preparation worked.

          I know that this novelty is going to wear off quickly, so I will resist the temptation to design every activity from here on in around online practices. But after the relative success of today’s program, I’m certainly going to integrate many more online activities into the program.

          Filed Under: 21st Century Skills, Assessment, Literacy Tagged With: ,

          Shifting our educational culture

          February 13, 2008 By Leave a Comment

          I share Will Richardson‘s questions about changing our culture:

          So, it comes back to what is to me at least, the big question these days. Not how do we help teachers get their brains around these tools in terms of their own personal learning practice (which is still hugely important), but how do we help schools and districts to begin to reshape their culture around learning in more collaborative, connected environments? How do we get to the point where we’re not just seeing individual teachers and classrooms make the shift, but where we are seeing schools as a whole beginning to shift as well?

          As facilitator of a program intended to help students prep for the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test(OSSLT), I am really feeling the tension between what I’ll call ”multiliteracy” and “conventional literacy.”   In my regular courses, my goal is to support student multiliteracy because (a) it is in line with curriculum expectations, and (b) I think that students who can only read and write text on paper are not going to be functionally literate in our society.  However, students’ literacy levels are formally determined by a standardized test that is based on conventional literacy.

          (Before I go on, I’ll just say that I am not opposed to standardized testing, because I value the aggregate information that is available from it.  More on that another day.)

          I am wondering, though, if there is another way to handle the testing — a way that is culture-shifting.  Some of the concerns that I have with the current testing approach are:

          • Students write using pen and paper.  For some, this is not their most familiar communication medium, so they are disadvantaged.  (Clarification:  I’m not advocating a text-messaging test.)
          • Students write in the same format every time:  a news article and a five-paragraph essay are the essential written components.  These are limiting forms.
          • The same format every year means that our regular courses are being tailored more and more to meet the expectations of the literacy test.  Hours of class time being spent learning the specifics of writing a news article.  I wonder how often students will have to write a news article in their futures?

          I don’t have any solutions, just questions right now.  How can our education system shift its culture to embrace multiliteracy?  Can standardized testing be adapted to support a new culture of collaboration, or is it fundamentally incompatible?  As I prepare for another literacy support session, how do I make this most helpful for students:  do I teach them to write the test, or do I teach them to read and write texts?

          Filed Under: Assessment, On My Mind, Writing Tagged With: ,

          Assessing student blogging

          February 5, 2008 By Leave a Comment

          A colleague of mine once asked me how I assess the blogging component of my course. I didn’t have a ready answer, because I have been using blogging mostly as an opportunity for students to write in an environment that may be more interesting to them than pen and paper. Assessment has been largely confined to a form of a participation mark — anyone who commented on a post received marks.

          I think that assessment can be more meaningful than this, but I am limited by the structure that I have chosen for student blogging. I am giving them a very constrained taste of the blogging world by asking them to comment on posts that I make on the class website. Evaluating on a comment-by-comment basis is not realistic.

          What I am planning to do within this structure is to evaluate blog comments much as I do their almost-daily “ThinkBooks” or reflective journals. I won’t dive into every entry in a students’ ThinkBook, but I will check to see that they have at least engaged each topic. And the final culminating activity for the semester will require students to re-read their blog comments and ThinkBook to write and reflect on their own learning.

          Konrad Glogowski has given me much to think about today in “Towards Reflective BlogTalk.” His ripple effect worksheets have students reflecting on and analyzing their own blog writing. It’s almost inspiring enough to make me consider having students develop their own blogs as part of my courses.

          Almost.

          Filed Under: 21st Century Skills, Assessment

          The Weight of Report Card Comments

          January 29, 2008 By Leave a Comment

          Another semester has ended, and I’m wrapping up my final report card comments. I often experience some anxiety over writing comments, not least because of the time in which these concise, insightful, grammatically correct summaries of student’s achievements are to be completed.

          But it’s more than meeting the deadline that challenges me. I struggle to find a way to express a student’s progress in a way that helps students and parents alike — meaningful without being too wordy; honest without being harsh; linked to curriculum expectations without being full of education jargon. The Report Card Blues posting by TVOParents suggests that there are parents out there who read these comments carefully and want to be able to understand them. I can appreciate that.

          Another challenge is the decision to recommend a student for another level next time. This, I find very difficult. On the one hand, I want students to experience success in school, and some of my students strike me as ideal candidates for a less challenging level. On the other hand, I realize just how significant the course level is in determining future opportunities. Academic/University students have more future options than those in the Applied/College level, who in turn have more than those in the Essential/Workplace level. By recommending that a student try an easier level, am I favouring their short-term success over their long-term fulfillment?

          Ultimately, it is the parents who will decide which level to place their student in, so I know that my recommendation is not a final ‘sentence’ for a student. Still, it weighs heavy on me.

          Filed Under: Assessment