Sing (err…Speak) Their Praises!

by Mike Ziegler Literacy & Technology Notes from the Classroom

shutterstock_352223126 A funny thing happened as my students were wrapping up their narrative journalism papers a couple weeks ago on the shiny new Chromebooks I’d reserved for the assignment. As I was reviewing a few formatting details with them, it suddenly dawned on me that my deadline for a hard copy of the paper–the end of the hour–was physically impossible. There is no printer attached to our Chromebook carts.

After panicking momentarily and shrugging off the realization in front of the kids, I remembered a lovely feature of Turnitin.com. I told my students to submit their papers to Turnitin as usual, and that no hard copy would be necessary. In place of the normal written feedback on their papers and on an attached district rubric, my juniors would be getting three minutes of my silky-smooth voice walking them through their writing, using Turnitin’s audio feedback feature.

“Pass me the mic”

You should know that there are lots of educational tools out there for providing audio feedback to students. If all else fails, the phone app Voxer will let you share voice memos with anyone who “friends” you in the application (which can be done without revealing your actual cell number).

If getting ahold of a recording method isn’t a problem but the huge shift in how you provide feedback is, then I’d ask you to consider why conferencing remains the most impactful method of improving student writing. Kids listen when you talk to them one-on-one. Even the reluctant writers.

In fact, The Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggests that the best feedback for student writing “mirrors conversation with student-writers.” Though speaking your thoughts aloud falls one voice short of a “dialogue,” it certainly allows you to imitate the key elements of a good writing conference: your supportive tone of voice, the context for your criticisms, and clear guidance for how to move forward.

Talk Them Up

shutterstock_406788406 Let’s consider briefly what written feedback tends to look like when you have 100 essays to grade.

You can use a coded system that reduces full ideas to symbols (that your lowest readers will ignore), you can write slightly longer phrases in the tiny margins (which your kids may not be able to read), or you can attempt to provide a full-bodied paragraph of feedback at the end of each essay (which will eventually give you carpal-tunnel syndrome and break your spirit completely…oh, and many of your lowest writers won’t bother to read it.).

I want to suggest to you that audio feedback solves ALL of these problems. In place of countless marks and comments about a student’s grammar, for example, you can now make one supportive, constructive observation. Here’s one hypothetical piece of feedback about possessives:

“One area you should be focused on in future essays is knowing when to use the possessive versus when something is plural. You confuse the two twice in your first paragraph. You use some really interesting syntax throughout the piece, so this small punctuation issue is holding back the power of how great the rest of your writing is.”

See how I softened the blow of the feedback by connecting it to a reminder of something done well? That’s a lot harder to do in the one-inch margins of the essay itself.

What’s more, you can tell them a sort of “story” about their writing. In place of fragmented ideas like “weak intro” or “explain this better” you can walk them through a coherent examination of their paper’s successes and struggles:

“Notice how your thesis is ambiguous about character X? Now look at how much your second body paragraph struggles to make a clear point about how X behaves in the final scene. Your vagueness in the introduction is keeping you from maintaining a clear focus in your body paragraphs.”

And really, that’s the big advantage to audio feedback: isolated, pragmatic written comments peppering the margins are transformed into a comprehensive walkthrough of their writing. If your department uses a standardized rubric, the structure of your feedback is even provided for you.

Students Want to Listen

I’ve found that even my reluctant writers and apathetic learners are intrigued by the idea of a few minutes of audio just for them. If you keep the tone friendly, they’re especially interested. It feels personal–like you’ve set aside time to speak just to them.

If you aren’t so sure your kids will be as eager about it, save the score of their paper for somewhere at the end of the audio file–make them listen to what you have to say in order to arrive at their score. I promise you won’t have to provide such enticement the second time around if your audio is done right–they’ll be happy to listen.

Michael Ziegler

Michael Ziegler (@ZigThinks) is a Content Area Leader and teacher at Novi High School. This is his 15th year in the classroom. He teaches 11th Grade English and IB Theory of Knowledge. He also coaches JV Girls Soccer and has spent time as a Creative Writing Club sponsor, Poetry Slam team coach, AdvancEd Chair, and Boys JV Soccer Coach. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan, majoring in English, and earned his Masters in Administration from Michigan State University.

#nozeros and the Growth Mindset

by Amy Gurney Notes from the Classroom Oakland Writing Project

shutterstock_125746187 Research reveals that a score of zero, in a 100-point grading scale, is pretty difficult for a student to overcome. For example, if a student gained a zero for not having turned in work, he or she would have to turn in nine assignments, earning 100 points each, to overcome the impact of that zero score.

Many teachers just excuse the task, rather than assigning a zero for no work done. But this suggests that the tasks themselves are not valuable, and that the student should not have a grade that represents their learning.

To avoid the zero mark, teachers should take another approach: providing an additional opportunity for students to show their work.

#nozeros

To act on these ideas, I started a lunch routine called #nozeros. (The name came from a kid’s suggestion for a classroom assignment, and it helped to entice the kids to the event.)

Here’s how it works. When students don’t turn in an assignment in class like a monthly reading log, I give them a lunch pass with #nozeros written on it. This requires them to spend a lunch in my classroom.

At first, students came reluctantly when they were given these passes. They expected a punishment-type lunch with the teacher.

Instead, they came and realized that I just wanted to give them a score on their work, and that I would help them if they liked. They could also work alone if they prefered.

If, for example, the missed assignment is a reading log, students write a claim about something that happened in their book. This task shows me that students have read the book, and it takes about a minute to complete. Students can leave when they finish, though some choose to stay and hang out.

These lunches have become something fun, and as my husband, a self-described average student, observes, “It’s not that they don’t want to do the assignment or can’t do the assignment. It’s that they forgot at night or don’t want to do it at home. They love this option because it gets their work in.” For me, the lunches make sense because I get work and students get a viable alternative to show that work.

Now, I have no zeros in my grade book and a lunch routine of openness and growth with my students.

The Growth Mindset

This kind of routine is part of my conscious effort at establishing a growth mindset in my classroom. I want students to realize that they can do their best work—and that sometimes this takes multiple attempts.

Exemplars of achievement levels

To help establish the growth mindset in my classroom this year, I also started modeling the work for my current students, and modeling work at all levels of achievement. All of my students’ work can be revised and resubmitted for feedback.

In addition to the #nozeros meetings, I opened my classroom at lunch time to offer kids one-on-one help if they desired.

One student, Matt, became a weekly participant, with a goal to increase his level of achievement on our weekly narrative writing piece. At these lunch sessions, we worked to increase the elaboration in his weekly story, and to grow his craft in areas like character creation, dialogue, passive voice, and modified structure. My descriptive feedback, which connected directly to his writing, allowed Matt to be successful.

As we continued to work on the assignment in class, I would gently encourage him to name the skills we worked on at lunch, and remind him to make use of them.

After several weeks, Matt, smiling, announced that he got a 4 (a mark of excellent achievement)—because he worked to get it. He wasn’t bragging, though, when he said this to our class. He was encouraging others to put in some work to grow their achievement. I smiled.

From these experiences, I’ve learned a few things as a teacher:

Students are honest evaluators of their own work.
Students will strive to meet expectations you set when they trust that you care about them and their work.
Student can gain confidence through achievement on meaningful tasks.

It’s important to allow kids to do their best, even when the methods to achieve this may look different.

Amy Gurney is an 8th grade Language Arts teacher for Bloomfield Hills School District. She was a facilitator for the release of the MAISA units of study. She has studied, researched, and practiced reading and writing workshop through Oakland Schools, The Teacher’s College, and action research projects. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Education at Central Michigan University and a Master’s in Educational Administration at Michigan State University.

Standards-Based Grading (Part 2)

by Amy Gurney Formative Assessment Notes from the Classroom Oakland Writing Project

In writing about standards-based grading, I’ve described how grades should reflect learning, and assessments should be connected to standards. Rick Wormeli, an expert on the subject, also reveals that in order to coach a student to achieve academic standards, we must use descriptive feedback.

Descriptive feedback tells students what they accomplished toward a particular standard, and what else they need to accomplish to meet the standard. This feedback should be given consistently to all students, and it holds the role of formative assessment (tasks completed on the path to mastery) in education.

Continuing my work with the Galileo Leadership Consortium, I met another expert on the subject. Dr. Ellen Vorenkamp, from Wayne County RESA, helps me use formative assessment in my classroom. Formative assessment, I’ve learned, should be aligned with data. And it should always be planned and used timely and purposefully.

Vorenkamp offers five pillars of formative assessment. These pillars help me to assess what methods I am already using, and what methods I need to add in my classroom. They are:

Pillar I: Clear Learning Targets
Pillar II: Effective Questioning
Pillar III: Descriptive, Actionable Feedback
Pillar IV: Students as Self-Assessors
Pillar V: Students as Peer-Assessors

How This Looks in My Classroom

In my classroom we write claim (thesis) statements for argumentative and informative writing. I will focus here on argumentative writing.

For 8th grade, the academic standard is, “Introduce claim(s), acknowledge and distinguish claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.”

Pillar I, the learning target, is: Students will write a claim statement that includes the main topic of the argument, a summary of evidence, and an opposing side.

Students are introduced to this task with a learning chart and examples from me and past students. They then write a claim statement and turn it in. This is a great spot for formative assessment. I read the students’ statements, and I offer them the stages of development toward this learning target, as well as student samples of each level. And from earlier work in establishing a growth mindset in my classroom, students understand that they can update their work to show more mastery of that standard.

The stages of development in my rubric, along with descriptive criteria, are:

1 (working to meet standard)
- unknown topic or argument
- written in question form
- includes extraneous or unrelated information
- argument is not logical
2 (mostly meeting standard)
- straightforward – includes topic and evidence but no opposing side OR
- represents both sides equally
3 (meeting standard)
- includes topic, evidence, opposing side – needs some word clarity
- includes more details than is necessary for a claim
- creative structure (evidence first)
- multiple pieces of evidence listed for supporting side
4 (exceeding standard)
- includes topic, evidence, opposing side – clear
- includes multiple pieces of evidence for both sides
- argument is clear

Here, I have taken my instruction and student practice through Pillar I: assigning a clear learning target, Pillar II: effective questioning by clarifying the difference between levels of achievement, and Pillar III: descriptive, actionable feedback by telling students what they have accomplished and what they still need to accomplish.

The Use of Exemplars

A shift I made is to make these levels clear to students with student examples of each level of achievement. With this shift, I can take on Pillar IV: students as assessors, as they assess their work compared to the achievement levels and exemplars I have shared.

With this learning target, I still need to add in a Pillar V: students as peer reviewers. So I now give students my own work. Here, students are asked to apply the rubric to my example, and to give me a step to improve my work. Students indicate my score by holding up their fingers. Quickly, then, students discuss with a partner their reason for this score, and a next step for my work.

By practicing the work of peer assessment in this way, students can gain comfort with the practice. Later, students can move comfortably into the roles of self- and peer-assessors, with clear targets for achievement, because they know that these formative assessments are not a judgement, but rather a process to guide their learning.

All of these steps are just a small shift in my classroom. Yet they allow better achievement of academic standards. What small shift will you make to address all five pillars of formative assessment?

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