I want to talk about my junior final. Tiz, Jeff and I just concluded a short, three-week unit to finish up the semester. We wanted to end the year with an SEL based unit, so we exposed students to literature loosely based on the theme of self-love. Over the course of the last couple of weeks, students read and analyzed various poems and pieces of literature. They practiced annotating and discussing how these types of shorter works are created, so there was heavy emphasis on writer’s craft/literary devices during class lessons.
I’m really happy with the writing they produced for the final, and I think that one reason the writing is decent is because of the process they were required to work through. Over the course of the last three weeks, students practiced this process several times. That helped. On the day of the final, students were introduced to two brand-new pieces of literature. Together we read through them; they had pencil in hand. Then, students had to quickly choose which piece of literature they were going to work through for their final writing piece. Once students chose which text they liked, they had about 6 minutes to annotate it by themselves. After that, each student had to find a peer, who chose the same piece of literature, and they discussed each other’s annotations/ideas. I think this is such a valuable step in the process; Tiz and I discussed how our best ideas often come from talking it out. After their talking time, they wrote. Once all the prewriting steps were completed, students had about an hour to write for the final.
I’m now grading these writing pieces, and they’re not bad. Students are talking about the tone of literature and how that tone was created. I’ve found that students were mostly successful in articulating these in a clear and concise fashion. I’m happy. Really, I feel like I won just getting 16/17 year olds to write for an hour, not on SnapChat.
Working together really helps students when they understand the purpose of what they are doing and when they take it seriously. Writing is so important for organizing and developing ideas. It seems like many of our students have SnapChat or sound bite brains. Getting them to articulate their thoughts in a clear and concise fashion is just what they need. it sounds like a great final.
Hi Kate. This is a bit off topic, but I bet you and your students are better at gauging tone than AI. I am fascinated nonetheless by AI's reach into understanding tone. I use Grammarly and it has an add on, I think still in beta, called the Grammarly tone detector. A little icon appears on the bottom right corner indicating what Grammarly sees as the tone of my writing. Right now, It is indicating informational, and confident. I can get it to think sad be using a sentence like I am so disappointed and sorry. There, it just changed to disapproving and sad.
I love the idea and the execution Kate. I've found that if you provide a challenge, and give them a reason or benefit for taking on that challenge, they rise to the occassion. I'd love to see some of the responses.
Kate, I'm so glad you blogged about this because I had similar feeling as I graded these finals. It was refreshing to be pleasantly surprised and to see all of the practice rounds pay off. As I was reading students' responses, I was seeing the two poems in new ways. I really learned from my students' analyses, and it made me think about how much better my understanding of a piece of literature can be when I'm allowed to share ideas with others. The students definitely benefited from that brief discussion step, which took down the typically stressful tone of a "final" for them. It is almost unheard of, to get a chance to compare notes with peers before writing your final.
I love how you guys set this final up… how creative and interactive… and that the ultimate product was them actually writing for an hour is a huge win… that is awesome
I think it's beneficial when writing is not such an isolated endeavor. Incorporating a discussion into the final writing assignment is such a great idea!