This most excellent fake mustache was made were most everything seems to be made…China. I, like you, buy things without ever really thinking about their origins. In this case, I just thought it might be useful to have a stash of fake ‘staches in the classroom. Of course, they’ve proven to be invaluable in so many ways.
In this case, the mustache was just another item I used to illustrate our global supply chain. Allow me to explain.
A “Made in China” Scavenger Hunt has been one of the most successful “go to” lessons I’ve created in recent years. The idea is fairly simple:
Divide the class into teams of 2-4.
Give the teams five minutes to search anywhere in the room for a “Made in China” label.
Bribe them with a wonderful and mysterious prize for the team who finds the most items. (I keep a “Bag ‘O Mystery” on hand filled with odd flea market and garage sale finds. I gave away a Chewbacca bobble-head the other day that was particularly coveted.)
When teaching AP or IB English, one of the most useful things I did each year was to write at least one of the essays I assigned my students. I would select a textual response prompt I had never seen before and, within the same time constraints set on the students, I would read, analyze, and respond. I would then slip my anonymous response in with the model essays we used during review. It was always humorous and enlightening to hear my students praise and criticize my work, and once I revealed my response, they were always appreciative that I had put myself “out there.”
As teachers we can easily fall into the trap of forgetting the messy, recursive and challenging process of learning. As we repeat lessons throughout the day or re-read books each year, we remove ourselves further from the inevitable struggles inherent in any learning process. To heighten my empathy for my students’ challenges and to model good learning in action, I often do my students’ work. I try, at least once a term, to complete one of my own assignments.
I gave an Ignite speech right along with my students. An Ignite speech is five minutes long, and the speaker creates 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. I have never given such a speech, so I knew I needed to do it as well. I’m glad I did. Had I simply assigned it, I never would have understood how difficult this format really is.
I easily invested six hours into my five minute speech, and I even had to take a “mulligan” when delivering the speech to the class. In the end, however, I am happy with the results.
Most teachers would probably naturally intuit this, but carting 20 students to downtown Boston so they may throw paper airplanes at strangers is probably not a good idea. Too many things could go wrong, and why, exactly, would they want to do this in the first place?
I was cautious, but I really care about putting students’ ideas at the forefront of learning, so we executed this harebrain idea anyway. It did not go so well. And, it was a huge success.
How can it be both? First some background….We used CNN’s Freedom Project throughout the term as one source for our research on modern slavery. One posted assignment, Paper Airplanes for Freedom, intrigued us. It is pretty simple: make a paper plane, write messages of solidarity on it, launch it, and encourage those that pick it up to do the same. It’s a novel way of spreading awareness. More slaves exist in the world today than at any point in human history….27 million by some counts.
As we brainstormed our own ideas for raising awareness, the students had an overwhelming urge to create a public action. During the idea generating and iteration phases, “Paper Airplane Flash Mob” rose to the top. The students and I thought it represented a chance to grab people’s attention and make a lasting impression. We also thought we could execute it relatively easily.
As I sat in line waiting to buy some blue paint and Goo-b-gone, the time creeping past 8:00 p.m., I thought, “Does any of this really have anything to do with English class?” This year I began my sophomore English classes with a project on modern slavery, and even though we moved on to topics like Gatsby’s impossible dream and the nuances of parallel structure, the Modern Slavery Project is still going, taking more and more of my time.
This re-occurring unit is one of which I am very proud. I have written about our work in the past, and every year I attempt to reboot this project, I start by showing past work and asking, “Now…what do YOU want to do?”
For the past two years this has meant tweaking the basic pattern from previous years: students research an aspect of modern slavery, create a video PSA, and write letters to various organizations and individuals, all the while making connections to Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. This work is always engaging, interesting, and original, but this year I pushed my students to think about ways to amplify their voices and increase their impact.
I utilized some design thinking training that is part of Beaver’s in-house professional development. I built in more time to INSPIRE (a research stage of the design process), and we took our ideas through a longer process of iteration. My students were particularly keen to take our work beyond the classroom walls, and they devised some novel ideas to do so:
As an English teacher I must sometimes act as a gatekeeper. I care deeply about engendering a love of reading in my students, and I work diligently toward that end…but I also create situations where I just try to determine a very basic answer to a very basic question, “Did you read it or not?”
This step seems obvious, but many teachers leave this fundamental question to chance. They believe their students will read because they were told to read, but I argue that this kind of trust is actually a disservice to the learners in our classrooms. I am a very optimistic man who believes in second chances and basic human decency, but as an English teacher I am also a crusty, pragmatic troll guarding a bridge. If you didn’t read the book, you’re not getting by me. Let me explain…
I always give a reading quiz the day before I want to discuss the book. This simple step allows me time to determine who has read, and it gives unprepared students a bit of time to catch up. With these quizzes I check for basic reading completion one of three ways:
I am ashamed. Why do simple solutions often elude me? I have been using Google Docs for five or six years now, and one of the main beefs I have with the system is the highlighting tool. It seems like such a small thing, but there is not a way to leave the highlighting tool “on.” I want—desperately—to sweep my cursor across the page, highlighting text as if I had a physical highlighter in hand. Word allows this. Google Docs, however, requires several clicks and menu choices to highlight something, and the process slows things down considerably, especially for an English teacher who reads hundreds of essays in a year and is always on the hunt for ways to shave seconds off the feedback process.
Just last week I realized I have been ignoring a simple solution. I can simply use the comments keyboard shortcut [Option+COMMAND+M] to save considerable time. Now, I highlight my selection, hit a few keys, and then type a quick note: “error #.” It’s so much simpler…and I am a bit sickened by the time I have wasted.
Here is the skeleton in every writing teacher’s closet: grading essays is soul sucking, mind-breaking work. After fifteen years of dedicating obscene chunks of personal time to the task, I wish I could reveal some cure-all that makes grading fast and euphoric. I can’t. Of course, I find many moments of joy, but the bone-weary reality of the life of an English teacher is that it takes considerable time and significant effort to create meaningful feedback. No matter how I try, I can’t seem to write comments on an essay in less than fifteen minutes. Realistically, it often takes more time. I have experimented with many methods of feedback, but when I need to leave a healthy dose of ink, I use a hybrid approach of handwritten feedback and computer editing tools known as macros. This method doesn’t help me grade more quickly, but it does ensure that I maximize my time. Here’s my basic structure for working through a stack of essays:
Students turn in two copies of an essay, one printed and one electronic copy via Google Docs.
I write more quickly on a piece of paper than I can highlight on a computer screen (I have timed each activity), so I go “old school” and leave marks on the page. The two to five minutes I save on each essay quickly add up. I also use a set of symbols to speed this marking process along.
I type longer comments that I later print and attach to the essay. I use macros (more on this step below) for common comments, but I also individualize feedback. I always limit myself to one page of typed comments per essay.
When finished, I photocopy the completed scoring rubric (which I will use during the revision process), print the one page of typed comments, and then staple the typed comments, the marked essay, and the scoring guide into one packet.
I give students at least one week to revise based on my feedback. I require a revision of every major essay, and I use the electronic copy in Google Docs to track the changes. The revision history in Google Docs feature shows me when and where changes were made. Because I made a photocopy of the scoring guide before handing back the essays, I simply look through the revision history on the computer and make changes to the photocopied scoring guide (another time-saver). I do NOT write any additional comments, as the students will not revise this draft, and I am not a glutton for punishment (even though this post may make you think that!)
I would tell you how I incorporate vocabulary in my English classes, but I’m betting you already know. Chances are we pretty much do the same thing. This spring I did something different. Flipping a classroom is not really about turning lectures into videos, it’s about freeing up class time for more one-on-one interaction with students. Here’s one way I’ve done this.
Replacing a whole class vocabulary list with Membean.com was the most successful experiment of the school year. My students learned at least twice as many words, and they learned these words more effectively. I saw the language appear in their writing and speaking with more frequency and accuracy, and the students felt more prepared for standardized tests. I loved the free trial so much, I convinced my colleagues to use it, and next year we will pay for a school-wide subscription, which will cost us a little less than last year’s workbooks.
Membean is an engaging, self-paced online learning environment that allows for multiple modes of learning. It gives students more control over and accountability for their learning, and it provides teachers rich data that more accurately gauges mastery than any weekly vocabulary quiz ever could.
I know, I know…I sounds like they are paying me, but they’re not. I just know this product works really, really well, and I want a bumper new crop of logophiles out there.
As I finish my fifteenth year in an English classroom, I’m seriously thinking about tattooing the following phrase across my belly in Old English lettering ala Tupac: “Students will write more; teachers will grade less.” I once started to calculate how many hours I have spent writing feedback on student writing, but I quickly abandoned that sadistic calculation. The number was impressive. And depressing. And not at all meaningful. Any instructor of writing who lasts for any length of time has to embrace two concepts very quickly: acceptance and efficiency.
I now accept that it takes me 20-30 minutes to write comprehensive feedback on an individual essay, and in a future post I promise to break down my system. In this post, I share some of the things my colleagues and I have done to become more efficient with our feedback.
When is the last time you tried to do a jumping jack? I actually do them fairly frequently. My boxing instructor is a jovial sadist, and we do calisthenics until our arms hang like fresh pasta. I also do at least one jumping jack per year to introduce transitions to my students.
I the introductory transition lesson without an explanation of WHY. Instead, I walk in the room and immediately bark at the students to stack the chairs and push the desks against the walls. I then ask them to find some clear space where they won’t hit their neighbor if they fling their arms around. (I encourage them to fling their arms and test things out.) I then tell the class I will award prestigious prizes for the MOST CREATIVE JUMPING JACK, as judged by me.
SIDE NOTE: I keep a BAG ‘O MYSTERY filled with a few good prizes (mixed CDs I’ve made…toy light sabers…a Napolean Dynamite collapsible cup) and A LOT of obnoxious junk. I regularly comb thrift stores and garage sales and keep a strict nothing-over-a-dollar-rule. The kids (I’m talking juniors and seniors) go pretty crazy over this finely curated detritus. I always hype up the prestige of getting to pull from the BAG ‘O MYSTERY, and students usually take great pride in receiving the dorkiest of prizes. One student kept a chipped garden gnome in his locker throughout his entire high school career.
This most excellent fake mustache was made were most everything seems to be made…China. I, like you, buy things without ever really thinking about their origins. In this case, I just thought it might be useful to have a stash of fake ‘staches in the classroom. Of course, they’ve proven to be invaluable in so many ways.
Robin Neal 
Occam’s Razor, Summer Reading Essays, and Google Docs
1 OctJust last week I realized I have been ignoring a simple solution. I can simply use the comments keyboard shortcut [Option+COMMAND+M] to save considerable time. Now, I highlight my selection, hit a few keys, and then type a quick note: “error #.” It’s so much simpler…and I am a bit sickened by the time I have wasted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ4Me_QtGd8
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Tags: best_practice, comments, English, essays, feedback, Google, GoogleDocs, grading, marking, Neal, pedagogy, technology, timesavers, writing