All Those A’s

I have a student—let’s call him Mark. If I’d been grading writing like I did last year, using rubrics and points, Mark would be getting a B-, or maybe a B at best, in English for the trimester. I’m giving Mark an A.

I knew it would happen. I knew that if I went from rubric grading to a satisfactory-unsatisfactory approach, I’d end up with a boatload of A’s and A-’s when in the past, grades in my class fell on a pretty nice bell curve centered on B or B+. And I admit that giving Ben an A makes me wince a little bit. As great a kid as he is, his writing is fairly bad. But in seventh grade, even the kids who write well write badly. And, more importantly, I have to grade in a way that reflects my values:

• Process over product. My goal is not to produce 47 brilliant essays—if it were, I’d write them myself. My goal is to help my 47 burgeoning writers develop processes that work for them. Yes, everyone’s process should ultimately involve lots of revision, but there’s no one schema that will work for every writer, every time. I want them to experience what “process” feels like and decide what works for them. And, if I do value great writing, I need to promote the long process by which a seventh grader becomes a great writer.

• Subjective interaction between reader and writer over attempted objectivity in my own reading. There is no such thing as objective reading. Reading is an exchange between reader and writer. I want my students to understand that different people will perceive their writing in different ways so they, as writers, can learn to honor and accommodate that diversity.

• Learning over natural talent. Kids come to school to learn. Different kids come to my class with different amounts of natural talent (and pre-cultivated skill) in different areas. It’s not my job to see who’s a better writer than whom. My job is to make every kid a better writer by June than he or she was in September—and to want to learn how to write even more effectively after June.

• Student-teacher partnership over autocratic grade-giving. How are students supposed to learn how to assess themselves if I don’t give them a chance to assess themselves? And if the self-assessment is meaningless because they know I’m going to give whatever grade I give, why should they bother? And, who am I to be the final arbiter of their performance without getting some input and insight from them?

As I’ve explained elsewhere, I no longer put scores on assignments. Kids get either S (satisfactory) or U (unsatisfactory). If they’ve met my high standards, they’ve done satisfactory work. If not, they have more to learn, and after they’ve learned more, they can redo the assignment. As I expected, my new system of getting feedback from multiple readers and thinking about audience has led to more variety, creativity, and risk-taking in the students’ writing. I enjoy their papers more. But it doesn’t help me at the trimester’s end, when I have to assign a grade to each student.

What I did was, I had students reflect upon their trimesters. What did they learn? What do they need to work on? Here’s the survey they filled out.

Answer these questions thoughtfully and honestly. What did you learn this trimester? What were one or two of the highlights of English class? What are your strengths as a reader? Be as specific as possible. How have your reading skills improved so far this year? Be as specific as possible. What do you think you need to work on as a reader? Come up with 1-2 specific goals. What are your strengths as a writer? Be as specific as possible. How have your writing skills improved so far this year? Be as specific as possible. What do you think you need to work on as a writer? Come up with 1-2 specific goals. Comment on how you think you’re doing in each of these areas. Respectful Behavior Being polite; waiting your turn to speak Maintaining a positive and productive working environment Making sure you don’t distract others or disrupt the work environment Speaking respectfully, without putting others down or making inappropriate remarks Responsibility Bringing all materials to class Doing and turning in assignments Arriving on time to class Getting class notes and homework assignments when you miss class Participation Listening actively during discussions Taking notes as needed Contributing relevant comments to discussions Asking appropriate questions Commitment Following all directions on assignments Using guidelines to do well Making assignments challenging and interesting for yourself; taking them to the next level Focus Using class time wisely Staying on task Avoiding side conversations Circle the grade you think you should get in English, keeping in mind the following policies: 1. Your trimester grade drops for every unexcused late assignment. (“Unexcused” means you did not contact me BEFORE the assignment was due.) 2. If you have any never-revised “U” assignments or never-done work, you can’t get higher than a B- in English. The more unrevised U papers or missed work, the lower the grade. A A- B+ B B- C+ C C- D F Explain why you think you should get this grade.

Students were astoundingly perceptive. I don’t know which impressed me more, when they picked up on strengths and weaknesses I noticed, or when they came up with strengths and weaknesses I hadn’t thought of. And they were specific in how they stated their strengths, achievements, and goals.

For the most part, I entered the grade students gave themselves. I bumped a few students up—mostly those who felt uncomfortable giving themselves A’s. And I bumped a few students down if they violated the late policy or the unsatisfactory work policy, or if their behavior in class made it difficult for other students (and themselves) to learn. My breakdown looked like this:

21 A

18 A-

3 B+

2 B

2 B-

1 C

So, they’re entered. They’re in the computer system for any of my colleagues to see, and they’ll be printed on the home reports for parents to read. And it feels scary, and it feels good, because I’ve fully and irrevocably committed a system of assessment that reflects my values.

Our Groups of Friends: A Mix-It-Up Day Processing Activity

Tuesday, November 10th was Mix-It-Up at Lunch Day. Schools throughout the nation participated. The event is very simple: students are asked to spend one lunch period sitting with kids they don’t usually sit with. The purpose of the lunch isn’t to send the message that it’s bad to have a group of friends. It’s to get students—and faculty—thinking about the kinds of boundaries we all put up around ourselves and our groups.

At my school this year, the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades participated in Mix-It-Up at lunch. Later in the day, each grade did an activity to think further about the boundaries they create. For the 8th grade, I created an activity that got students to examine how diverse their groups of friends are, both as opposed to their parents’ friends and in the context of their grade.

First, students met as a whole grade to discuss two simple questions. Why is it good to have things in common with your friends? And, why is it good to NOT have things in common with your friends—to be a diverse group? Next, they broke into advisory groups. Each student got a chart and were asked to follow these simple directions—with pauses so that everyone could complete the step before anyone moved on:

1. Write your own name and the name of an adult you live with.
   

2. Write the names of 5 of your closest friends. It doesn’t have to be people who go to school here—it can be anyone you consider to be a close friend, by whatever your definition is of a close friend. Then, write the names of the adult’s five closest friends. Again, you can decide for yourself what a “close friend” is. DO NOT PROCEED UNTIL EVERYONE HAS COMPLETED THIS TASK.

3. At the top of the red column, write “Race.” Make an S in the box next to each of your friends who has the SAME race you identify yourself as having. Make a D in the box if your friend has a DIFFERENT race from yours. You might not KNOW how each of your friends identifies. The point is how YOU perceive each of your friends. Do the same for your parents: S for same race, D for different race.

4. At the top of the orange column, write “Age.” Make an S next to each friend whose age is within 1 year of yours. Make a D if your friend is more than a year older or younger. For the adult, make an S next to each friend whose age is within 5 years—as you perceive or guess it. Don’t worry if you’re right! Make a D if the friend’s age is greater than 5 years older or younger.

5. For yellow, write “Gender.” Make an S for same gender and a D for different gender—as you perceive it.

6. For green, write “Socioeconomic Class.” Make an S if you perceive your friend to be of the same socioeconomic class as you, D if different—as you perceive it. Do the same for your parents.

7. For blue, write “Religion.” Make an S for same religion and D for different religion—as you perceive it.

At this point, the students were ready to process and discuss. Here are some of the discussion questions advisory groups used:

• Count your Ds and the adult’s Ds. Who has a more diverse group of friends, you or the adult? Why might that be?

• In what way are your friends most diverse? Least diverse? What about the adult? Why do you think this is?

• Why is it valuable to have friends who share your identities? Why, for example, would you want to have friends who are of the same gender, or the same age as you?

• Why is it valuable to have friends who do not share your identities? Why, for example, would you want to have a friend who’s a few years older, or a different religion?

• Do you talk about these aspects of your identity—race, age, gender, socioeconomic class, and religion—with your family? For example, do you discuss what it means to be wealthy, or Muslim, or 13 years old?

• Do you talk about these aspects of your identity with your friends?

Some of the results were surprising. One advisory group discovered that their parents’ groups of friends were more diverse than their own. A student theorized that kids have a limited group at school from which to draw their friends, but their parents are out in the world and so have a more diverse pool of potential friends.

Next came what I think is the most interesting part of the activity. Students got 25 dot stickers, 5 in each of the colors from their charts. Looking at their own friend lists, they labeled their dots with Ss or Ds, by color, according to how many Ss and Ds they had in that column. So if, for example, Molly had 2 red Ss and 3 red Ds, she labeled her red dots accordingly. Out in the hallway were 5 large posters, each labeled with the appropriate color and identifier (Red-Race, Orange-Age, Yellow-Gender, Green-Class, Blue-Religion). Each poster was divided in half, with the halves labeled “Same” and “Different.” Students stuck their dots one the appropriate halves of each poster.

Here are some more discussion questions for after making the posters. The students ran out of time, but I’m hoping they’ll get a chance to have these discussions in future advisory meetings or in small groups with teachers.

• Which “D” poster got the fullest? Why do you think that is?

• Which “S” poster got the fullest? Why do you think that is?

• Do any of the posters surprise you?

• How do you think the results of this activity would change if, instead of going by your perceptions, you had to ask each of your friends how they identify?

• Why would you want to have friends who are the same as you in some of these ways?

• Why would you want to have friends who are different from you in some of these ways?

And the results? Unsurprisingly for 8th grade, the dots on the age and gender posters were almost entirely on the “Same” side. Religion was about 50-50. Class and religion were fuller on the “Same” side. Food for thought on Mix-It-Up Day.

If you’d like to do this activity at your school, please leave me a comment (or send me an email) and I’d be happy to share the lesson plan and chart!

Whole Brain Teaching: How Brainy Is It?

“Whole Brain Teaching” is a method of classroom management that engages more of the students’ brains—mostly through movement and sound—focuses their attention, and makes students actually enjoy following rules. But it’s really better to see it than read about it, so:

Falling squarely in the “so crazy it just might work” category, I tried some of the techniques in my classroom this week.

What I like:

1. “Class-yes” gets their attention. I’ve used a countdown (5-4-3-2-1) for years, and it works more often than not, but it’s always felt a little fake and condescending to me. “Class-yes” is so over-the-top fake and condescending that it becomes genuinely fun and equally silly for all of us. And, “class-yes” gets their attention at least as well as the countdown—probably better.

2. I tried a version of the scoreboard today without telling them what smiley face and frowny face meant, why I was giving points on both sides, or whether they’d get anything as a result of how the scoreboard ended up. And still, their behavior changed: when they got a smiley point they became more engaged, and when they got a frowny face point they stopped doing whatever they were doing. I also followed the suggestion of never letting the difference between smiley points and frowny points get greater than three, because I don’t want them to give up or grow overconfident.

3. I also tried micro-lecturing followed by having them explain what they learned using loud voices and vigorous gestures. Know what? They did it, they loved it, and they learned from it. Go figure.

4. I’ll try “hands and eyes” because it seems, like much of this, silly enough to work.

What I don’t like:

I don’t believe in extrinsic motivators and can’t bring myself to use them. Even if Alfie Kohn is wrong that extrinsic motivators decrease student interest and excellence, what would I use as the carrot? Should I let them out a few minutes early for good behavior? That sends the message that our minutes together are so unbearable that their removal is a wonderful thing, and that they’re so unimportant that I can give them up whenever I want. Should I give them a free pass on homework? If the homework weren’t valuable preparation or review, I wouldn’t assign it in the first place. Should I let them do a fun project instead of a boring one? I try to make all of my projects engaging, relevant, meaningful, and fun—but less fun projects like essays are important too and I can’t simply take them away. And again, I don’t want to send the message that certain kinds of work are torturous. Should I give them candy or pizza? That would mean expenditures of my free time and money, all to promote junk food consumption.

No extrinsic motivators. They’re just going to have to learn because they’re interested and behave because it’s the efficient, compassionate, and ultimately smart thing to do. And again, it was fascinating to see their behavior change simply because I made a tally mark under the smiley or frowny face. I wonder whether the tally marks themselves, signifying absolutely nothing tangible, work as extrinsic motivators that decrease their interest and performance, or whether they’re simply reminders of what kids should be doing without my having to scold.

What I’m unsure about:

“Teach-OK” seems perfect for classes where most of what the kids are doing involves absorbing information. A great way to learn is to read, see, or hear something and then explain it to someone else. Today, I had the students explain what they learned directly from me (the definition and features of a thesis statement, the parts of an essay) back to each other, using loud voices and vigorous gestures.

But, so much of what we do in my class is constructivist activity-based. They’re not absorbing meaning from me (or a book or video); they’re creating meaning together. So for example, they’re looking at great, decent, and terrible essay introductions and figuring out what makes a good introduction good. Or, they’re finding examples of a motif and figuring out what the motif means. If I gave the command to “teach” the symbolism in Cannery Row before they’ve analyzed how it works, they wouldn’t know what to do—though if I gave that command at the end of class, for review, they’d be fine.

I think I need a different command word that basically means, “Do whatever activity I just told you to do,” which can include explaining what they’ve just learned, and a response that means, “Sure, boss.” Maybe just “Go-OK.” Sounds like the name of a band, doesn’t it?