Monday, March 2, 2015

When Homework Doesn't Work

Day 2 of 31 posts for the Slice of Life Story Challenge hosted by the team at Two Writing TeachersStaceyTaraDanaBetsyAnna, and Beth.
Head over to the link up for seconds or to serve up your own slice!

Once a week students write about a book they are reading. It is a homework assignment. On Tuesdays students take out their reading journal entries and while students read independently, I confer with individuals or pairs about the writing they did in their reading journals.

Lately the conferences have focused on students' understanding (or misunderstanding) of analysis. This quarter students are creating their own analysis prompts using the question matrix I described in part three of an earlier post. We are practicing analytic writing to develop critical reading and thinking skills and to develop skills that are assessed on our state test.

This year I tweaked the reading journal assignments I've had students do in the past to reflect our shift as a state and a school toward argument and analysis. During the first quarter, students wrote argument; during the second analysis. Here is the handout students pasted in their journals to guide their argument writing and here is the analysis handout for quarter two. This quarter they are creating their own analysis prompts or questions using the guidelines pictured below, but it is not working well.
I have modeled how to create a prompt in my own reading journal
where I model the work I ask students to do.

Grading guidelines shifted from individual goals around focus
(summary versus argument or analysis)  the first
quarter to all three columns
(focus, evidence and quantity) the third quarter. 


Too many students are creating prompts for themselves that do not set them up for writing success. Consider these prompts students wrote for themselves:


"Describe how author's use of sequence of events to develop the theme of truth."

"Make a claim about the author's use of structural choices conveys life after loss."

"Compare how the author's use of tone develops the characters change of identity?"

"Describe how the first person point of view illustrates political activism (in the book)."

"Explain how the authors use of theme and place manipulates the character's change of identity." Theme is not device or literary convention. This student, as with others noted above, misunderstands.

These prompts will not set these writers up to successfully analyze scenes from their independent reading books.I see confusion in not only how to set up the analysis but also at the conceptual level.

What is a literary device or convention? When is it appropriate to analyze how an author sequences events? How is character analysis similar to and different from thematic analysis? What is tone exactly? How does point of view give us clues about the author's attitude?

These are questions we need to discuss tomorrow.

Too many cognitive tasks is what I think is going wrong here. It is too difficult for many students to translate their initial understanding of literary conventions and devices into a prompt or question to guide their analytic writing. Bad practice will not get us where we need to be. For tomorrow I called a time out --no reading journal writing is due. Instead, I will rethink the assignment and reteach.

It's time to take advantage of the teachable moment and clear up these misunderstandings.


19 comments:

  1. So true that it is best to stop and use a teachable moment like this. Sometimes we have the best intentions, but it is clear from student work that the assignment did not do what we had hoped. It is a sign of a great teacher to be reflective like this and adjusting your assignment. I am sure you will figure out how to change it and reteach it so that your students are successful.

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    1. Thank you, Andrea. I like how you use the word intention. There is such a gulf between teacher intention and student action... now to bridge it better tomorrow!

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  2. "Bad practice will not get us where we need to be." So true and a BRAVE statement, as the only thing to do is rethink and reteach. Makes me think of the Vince Lombardi quote: "Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect."

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    1. And Janet Allen used to say "practice makes permanent." Your Lombardi line brought her voice right back to me. Here's hoping that the practice hasn't actually "set" yet. : )

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  3. And I love that you're re-thinking and re-teaching, instead of just scrapping the idea altogether. It is easy to put things aside to try again at a later date and never find the energy to revise. Students will see your revision in action and better understand what that process is all about.

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    1. That's what I hope will happen, Carol. It is a difficult time of year (testing season) and while making changes mid-stream sometimes throws students off, I think that's my next best move here. Thank you for stopping by and commenting.

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  4. You've given me lots to think about. I'm teaching a new class this year and I'm just not happy with the way the responses are going. I love that I can be reading other's slices and find some new idea to think about

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    1. I get so many good ideas and good food for thought from reading other's slices. Thank you, Deb. I hope you,find ways to turn your new class around too.

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  5. I want to make pins to pass out "Bad practice will not get us where we need to be." But the very fact that you took a step back to examine what is wrong means this is not bad practice. You tried something new, you see it isn't working, you are developing a solution. To me, that is in fact very good practice.

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    1. You make me feel good, Mindi Rench! Thank you. I'm trying. Still learning.

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  6. Ditto the love of this line: "Bad practice will not get us where we need to b." Let's get buttons for NCTE! We've all been at this scratch your head and regroup juncture. I'll be writing about such a moment later this week.

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    1. Oh good, Glenda. I'll look forward to hearing how your moment went. I was thinking this afternoon that I could follow this post with a "what worked" post about the same assignment. One amazing thing about teaching is that it's never 100% one way or another--some days it just seems that way.

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  7. I remember reading about these responses here before, but had forgotten about them. I will book mark this now and I hope you share how you tweak them. I think this a wonderful idea!

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    1. Thanks, Leigh Anne! Your encouragement buoys me for the work ahead.

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  8. This is what true responsive and responsible teaching is all about. I hope you share tomorrow's learning with us.

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  9. I will, Tara, but it might take me a day or so to write it.

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  10. Bravo, friend!!! Sometimes the problem with our students' understanding or mastery of something doesn't start and end with them. I so appreciate your ability to be a reflective practitioner and take a step back and cut your students some slack while you reevaluate. If all teachers would do this, imagine where we might be?

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  11. good work listening and watching for the opportunity to revise and reteach...with so much other noise...it is easy to overlook...

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  12. Thank goodness you're so attentive to reading and discussing their work. And you think about what their responses say about your teaching. Like everyone else, I'm noting the line "Bad practice will not get us where we need to be." Wise words to commit to memory!

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