Category Archives: 180 Days

Get 5% Better Each Year–What a Relief!

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Many of you are aware that I’ve been trying to follow 180 Days by Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle. Recently, I attended a day-long workshop by the pair, and they ended with the reminder that we can’t adopt their whole practice at once, but if we can try to get 5% better each year, that will be progress.

Good for me to hear, because at times this year, I felt the authors would be disappointed in me if they knew I had let some things drop. I still have to work against a tendency to see where my practices fell short of the gold standard in 180 Days.

Which prompted me to go back to my notes from last summer. I had jotted down a page of my favorite ideas from the book, the ones I would most want to adopt:

  1. Quickwrites with mentor texts
  2. Write in front of the students
  3. 10-minute reading time at the beginning of class
  4. Have students write more volume but I grade less
  5. Try using criteria instead of rubrics
  6. Get students talking every day
  7. Choice in research
  8. Portfolio grade at the end

Of those eight favorites, I incorporated seven into my teaching practice this year. Woo hoo! Some of the daily activities such as quickwrites and reading didn’t happen every day, but an overall tone was established in my classroom that you are a reader and writer. At the moment, I have stacks of student notebooks on my desk. The volume of their writing makes me so proud of my students. I rarely collected notebooks and gave out nominal points for them. Yet even yesterday, they were writing book reviews and ranking all the books they’d read this year from easiest to hardest.

So yes, more volume and less grading on my part. I also tried out all sorts of single-point rubrics, criteria lists, and other ways to assess, and I tried out methods to reduce my grading time and to get them writing more. (Most recently, students wrote four drafts for a single essay and instead of grading each draft, I graded their overall process + metacognitive comments. More volume, less grading!)

I didn’t get to the portfolio at the end, and I was wisely advised to hold off on that. But I did use a new system of organizing student work in shared Google folders so that by the end of the year, they essentially did have a portfolio. They spent a couple days this week looking back over all their work to reflect on how far they’d come. Next year, I will have a better idea of how to lay the groundwork for a true portfolio project.

The good news is that I have a ton of experience to build on, plus a stack of teacher books to delve into, so that I can refine these wins and improve for next year. I have to fight my perfectionism in order to type this final line: I am proud of my progress.

One-On-One Conferences Breed “Relational Accountability”

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Chat, Discussion, Meeting, Talk, Conversation, SpeakingThe authors of 180 Days (see prior posts) emphasize the
importance of one-on-one conferences, and they present a structure for making
them happen. The emphasis appealed to me from the start because I try to
approach teaching as a ministry, an avenue for meeting others where they are in
a spirit of love and acceptance. What better way to minister than in a one-to-one
encounter? The structure appealed to me because I had noticed that I feel more effective
as a teacher when I help students on an individual basis, but only a select few
would take advantage of my office hours.
            The structure looks like this: give
students regular time in class for reading and writing. While they work, meet
with individuals. If it’s a reading conference, we talk about progress in a
book, strategies for comprehension, or book recommendations. If it’s a writing
conference, I might ask, “How can I support you? Is there a part of your essay
you’d like me to look at?”  I keep track
of the students I’ve met with so that I make sure to meet with all of them on a
rotating basis. I also take some quick notes about the meeting.
            I’ve found that even if I never go
back to the notes, the students feel more accountable to me in the context of a
relationship. I’ve started calling this “relational accountability.” For
example, I expect students to “have a book going” at all times, not to meet a
one-book-per-quarter quota. Asking them what they are reading and what page
they are on marvelously keeps them reading, without any grade attached! It
contributes to the tone I want to set that “we are readers.” Likewise, students
don’t put off their writing assignments because they know they will meet with
me to discuss their draft before the due date. (I admit, this hasn’t worked out
as ideally as it sounds, but I’m new at it and have a growth mindset.)
            Most students want to please the
teacher or at least avoid feeling embarrassed, but I’d like to think that relational
accountability transcends those motives. I am trying to take down the affective
filter (Krashen) and build up a relationship based on mutual respect. I want
students to view me as on their team. If nothing else, their few minutes with
me are a moment for them to feel noticed in their busy day.
            For that mindful moment, the student
is not one in a sea of 30; she is, simply, one. I tell myself to be present. I
study her face while she talks to me; I mean, I really look at her and take all of her in. I look into her eyes for
the small child inside. This works especially well with students whose
classroom behavior annoys me. I feel a transformative flood of empathy that refreshes
my relationship with them and renews my sense of purpose as a teacher. My hope
is that the students feel loved unconditionally. Even one such an encounter per
day is a win.

How Forcing my Students to Write Has Made me Happier

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My last blog
outlined some of my past struggles with finding enough time to inspire a joy of
reading and to provide relevant, timely feedback on writing—as well to get
students to do more of both. Now I would like to share some of the processes I
adopted from the book 180 Days: Two
Teachers and the Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents by Kelly Gallagher
and Penny Kittle (Heinemann).
            The authors suggest setting the tone
on day one that we are a community of readers and writers.  A daily routine is thus put into place right
from the start. The routine consists of regular reading time and writing time,
in addition to time for a passage study from a model text. Today’s blog will be
about setting the tone that “we are writers in this class.”
            On the first day, every student
received a composition book. This is their judgment-free place to craft their
writing. Ideally, every day (but in reality, about twice a week), we do a
quickwrite in this notebook. We write about a short excerpt from a book, or a
poem, or a prompt that gets us thinking. First day of school, we wrote about
what empathy means because I wanted to establish empathy as an overachieving theme
for the year. Monday, we wrote “two-sentence horror stories” to get in the Halloween
spirit. A key feature of this method is that the teacher writes in front of her
students. New for me this year: I consistently put my own notebook under the
document camera and project my process. We share our first drafts in small
groups and whole class. Frequently, I model how I might revise my first draft
and then we go back to our notebook to try a revision move in a different color.
We share our revisions.
File:Composition book.jpg            Over one quarter into the school
year, and I feel good about the reading and writing tone that was set on the
first week of school. My students are familiar with the routine and it gives me
pleasure to see them using their notebooks. I’ve made it clear that writing is
not perfect the first time, and that it is normal and desirable to revise. I
think modeling my own vulnerability helps. I regularly reiterate that writing
in a community benefits us because of the feedback we receive from our peers. (And
yes, I welcome student feedback on my own writing—more on that in a future blog
post.)
            As a bonus, I have felt more
connected to myself as a writer from being forced to participate. I love the
crinkly pages of my notebook with poems and passages glued in and annotated. I
love the sketches and scribbles and colorful revision marks. I love getting in
touch with my creative side on a regular basis. I’m happy when I write.
            I love that my students this year
are writing so much more than they did last year, and they write without
expecting a grade. They accept the exercise because my expectation was set on
the very first day.
            On Back to School Night, a
repeat-mom approached me to comment, “You’ve changed, haven’t you? It seems
completely different … and she is responding.” These were encouraging words, and
despite many challenges in living up to the standards in 180 Days, I keep trying. On
my next post, I will share about another new practice for me: regular
one-on-one reading and writing conferences.

Teaching angst subsides with a new approach

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            Part One: The Problem.
            Toward the end of last year, I was
missing some of the thoughtfulness that my credentialing program had infused
into my teaching. I craved a more intentional approach and some backwards
planning. Not only that, I didn’t get a sense that my students were engaged in
reading and writing as much as I’d hoped. I think English teachers in general try
to solve the problem of students who “fake read.” (It hurts when students don’t
LOVE books the way we do!) English teachers also regularly reevaluate how to
teach writing effectively.
            Time is a factor. Most teachers
would agree that students simply need to read more and write more, but that we don’t have unlimited time to
read in class or to collect and grade a constant flow of material if we want to
give meaningful feedback.  We also find
that once there is a letter grade on an essay, written feedback is not as relevant
to the student; therefore, it is not as effective. Ideally, students should
receive feedback on multiple drafts before they receive a final grade. (Some educators
argue that the process ought to count for part of the grade because isn’t
process more important than product?)
            I used to be an editor, and I came
to grading essays with an editor’s mindset. I thought it was my duty to circle
every single mistake. Of course, now I know how demoralizing it can be for a
student to work hard on articulating her ideas, only to have them thrown back
at her, all torn apart. But with each year of teaching experience, I’ve noticed
that I feel far more energized and effective when I meet with students on an
individual level. I’ve also noticed that the most effective time to meet with
them is not when they are “finished” (can you ever be finished with an essay
you’ve had less than two weeks to write?).
            Rather, if I conference when their
ideas are in development, I can help them find their passion on the topic. And,
when they feel strongly about their thesis, they will take more care with their
craft. A little further along into the drafting phase, if I have time to meet
with students again, I can convey customized grammar lessons, pass on
compliments, encourage engagement, and have a conversation about writing. I think it’s a more positive experience all around.
            Last year I felt stuck in a loop of
collecting essays, spending inordinate amounts of time marking them up, and
dreading the next stack of hollow arguments, especially when errors were
repeated. I tried grading on Turnitin.com to see if I could go faster and offer
more pointed feedback. I tried various rubrics and checklists. I tried asking
students to process my feedback and reflect on it. I tried giving them revision
opportunities. Still, I found myself crunched and wishing that the whole thing
seemed less chore-like (for both me and my students). Even more critically, I
found students wanted me to do the thinking for them: All they had to do was
implement my edits and receive a better grade.
            Then, I saw an advertisement for a
new book. It’s called 180 Days: Two
Teachers and the Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents by Kelly Gallagher
and Penny Kittle (Heinemann). The
book is part creed (the authors make a case for ten “we believe” statements
about teaching and learning), part detailed description of how they structure
their year around those core beliefs. The authors’ philosophy resonated with me,
and its practical, organized approach to planning curriculum with the purpose
of creating engaged readers and writers, spoke to my angst and need for
direction.
            I read it—and annotated it!—over the
summer, and what resulted was a major overhaul to several of my approaches. I plan
to blog about my changed approach as the school year progresses, both my successes
and challenges. Stay tuned.