Literacy Now

When I was a high school English teacher, I would drive to the local bookstore on Friday nights, refusing to leave until the stack of junior research papers were marked up with red, purple, green, orange, or blue pens. The colorful pens were about the only thing that got me through. The relief I felt when I finished the tome was dampened on Monday after I passed out papers and students threw their papers in the trash can on the way to lunch. Needless to say, I have found grading students’ writing assignments to be one of the most challenging and time-consuming aspects of teaching.

Initially, I was angry because my students did not seem to care about my feedback. After having time to reflect on these practices, I realized what the real problem was—My assessment practices were not helping students become better writers. And that was my fault, not theirs.

After some time (years) to reflect on my practice in addition to some advanced coursework on composition theory, I have made a lot of progress in terms of how I think about writing feedback and assessment.

So when one of my student teachers asked how she was going to grade 120 essays in one night, I thought I would offer some feedback and assessment strategies to her and to you with the intention of helping you become more efficient and your students become better writers, which is, of course, our ultimate goal.

These tips may not replace assessing and providing grades for all of your students’ essays at certain points in the year but they might help you think of ways to vary your feedback and assessment practices.

Look for trends in representative sample drafts. Read a few pieces from a selection of students across the class or periods. Create a list of strengths and areas of improvement, supporting your findings with evidence from these student examples. Present your list (student anonymity is best here) to each class. Discuss strengths and areas of improvement and ask students to consider their own work. Have them make writing goals for their own final drafts based upon the student samples. Not only does this tip keep you from assessing each student’s draft but it also helps students engage in metacognition as they reflect on their work and make writing goals for their final drafts.

Ask students to identify two elements on which they want feedback. I have found that limited, focused feedback works best. Pointing out too many areas of improvement to students runs the risk of overwhelming students and decreasing their confidence as writers. By targeting two areas only, we can offer focused feedback for students. After you have offered specific revision advice on these particular areas and students have had time to revise their work, ask students to highlight the changes they made based on your feedback and to write howtheir second draft is better than the first. This student-centered tip facilitates a way for you to cater feedback to areas that are important to the writer—without feeling the pressure of making suggestions based on every error you see. I have already anticipated your question, “What if a student has a particular area of writing in which he or she needs to improve but the student never mentions this area?” In this case, you could have the student select one area of feedback and you create the other one.

Share your experience as a reader during conferences instead of on students’ papers. This helps students consider how their piece is received by a reader and they can understand what you’re thinking and any praises or recommendations you may have as you read along. You can also help your students do this with each other during writer’s workshop. It’s a great way to help student writers gain experience in something that is difficult for many writers to do: anticipating an audience. This also prevents you from taking hundreds of papers home for a weekend! Students are not learning how to write while you are grading papers at home, in the local coffee shop, or in the car while your kid is at soccer practice!

Help your students learn to grade peers’ papers holistically. I have not tried this method personally, but some of my colleagues have found this to be quite successful. Based upon what I have heard, here’s how I see this process working in the secondary literacy classroom: You select three anchor texts that exemplify what an “A” paper looks like, what a “B” paper looks like, and what a “C” paper looks like. (What particular papers at certain grades look like should be established on the basis of a predetermined holistic rubric.) After helping students understand why these anchor texts earned the grades they did, allow students to assess each other’s papers. Each paper should be read by two students (who do not know who the author is) and given scores should not be discussed by students during or after the grading process. Calculate the average of these grades to determine the student’s final grade. Of course, you need to spend time helping students learn how to assess peers’ pieces, but this process in and of itself helps students engage in metacognition about the writing and assessment processes, which can, in turn, have a positive impact on their own writing. If you feel uncomfortable about how this might work, try it with drafts versus final drafts first.

Plan mini-units during your grading time if you need to grade each writing assignment. By allotting one or two weeks to grading, you don’t feel pressured to return papers the next class period and your students get some time away from their writing (which is what real writers do). If you take this route, give students class time to consider feedback they receive.

Have students consider their feedback and write reflections to hand in with final drafts. In these reflections, students should address the feedback provided by both you and their peers on earlier drafts. If they adjusted according to feedback, have them write about how and why. If they chose not to incorporate feedback, have them write about why. You are not only helping students consider carefully the feedback they receive but you are also providing an opportunity for student writers to build autonomy as writers.

To my student teacher who asked about grading 120 essays in one night, I answered: Don’t!

Obviously these tips are not aimed to fix every writing feedback and assessment woe, but hopefully they have provided some food for thought and will encourage dialogue about offering feedback and assessing in today’s writing classrooms.

Kathryn Caprino is a doctoral candidate in English education at the University of North Carolina’s School of Education. She is also earning a minor in English, focusing specifically on rhetoric and composition. She teaches the middle grades methods course and supervises English student teachers. Before returning to graduate school, she taught middle and high school English.

Sharing a single poem movie is one-minute activity that allows you to engage reluctant learners in an entertaining way. You can show a single poem movie—a brief clip with video or images featuring the poem read aloud—for a language arts “snack,” or show several science-themed poem movies during a five-minute break to provide an integrated lesson in science and language arts.

The following is our annotated list of some of our favorite poem movies, which we feature in our Poetry Friday Anthology series (Pomelo Books). It is a supplement to our article “Nourishing the Mind All Day Long,” which appeared in the May/June Children’s Literature issue of Reading Today.

For Younger Students:

“Old Water” by April Halprin Wayland
from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science (Kindergarten, Week 16: The Water Cycle)
Water: a billion years old?! This fun video will get kids hooked on science.

“Kindergarten Kid” by Stephanie Calmenson
from The Poetry Friday Anthology (Kindergarten, Week 2: More School)
Poet Stephanie Calmenson reads four poems here. The first poem, “Kindergarten Kid,” invites you to talk to children about features of your classroom and the different subject areas they will be covering during the year.

For Intermediate Students:

“Which Ones Will Float” by Eric Ode
from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science (Third Grade, Week 1: Scientific Practices)
Students are seen doing “sink or float” observations in a classroom, testing a variety of items including cans of diet Coke and regular Coke. Perhaps the most valuable part of this movie (and poem) is that it raises the question: What if we disagree about data?

“Centipede” by Michael J. Rosen
from The Poetry Friday Anthology (Fourth Grade, Week 36: Looking Forward)
Poet Michael J. Rosen reads three poems in this video. In the first poem, “Centipede,” a long line of children, crouching in centipede segments, form a fun visual backdrop. Your students will enjoy moving like a centipede in a reenactment of this video.

“Scientific Inquiry” by Susan Blackaby
from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science (Fifth Grade, Week 1: Scientific Practices)
Paper puppets of Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Neil deGrasse Tyson are the stars of this clever stop-motion animated short that explains the scientific inquiry terms hypothesis, observations, data, and results.

“Thirsty Measures” by Heidi Bee Roemer
from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science (Fifth Grade, Week 26: Kitchen Science)
This poem movie uses visuals to show a cup of juice, a pint of lemonade, a quart of chocolate milk, and a gallon of iced tea. And what happens when you drink all of that? Students will enjoy the toilet-flush ending and won’t even realize that they’ve just had a science and math lesson.

For Older Students:

“Names” by Julie Larios
from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School (Sixth Grade, Week 10: Food)
This poem movie is a great way to get students talking about their names and provides a writing prompt with a simple diversity theme. The setting of this video is a panaderia where the speaker talks about Mexican pastries and muses over the meanings of names.

“Gear” by Michael Salinger
from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School (Seventh Grade, Week 24: Science & Technology)
Performance poet Michael Salinger channels Bill Nye and explains the function and properties of gears (complete with bike grease on his face).

“According to Bread” by Lesléa Newman
from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School (Eighth Grade, Week 32: Metaphor & Simile)
Students learn not only metaphors and similes, but also idioms (“I’m in a jam”; “butter me up”).

Sylvia Vardell is a professor at Texas Woman’s University. She has published extensively and maintains the Poetry for Children blog. Janet Wong, an ILA member since 2012, is the author of 30 children’s books. Vardell and Wong are the creative forces behind The Poetry Friday Anthology series (Pomelo Books).

There is a time to slide and there is a time not to slide. With the boys of summer, America’s national pastime heroes (i.e., baseball players), it is perfectly acceptable to run the bases and slide when needed. However, with America’s national educational heroes (i.e., teachers and students), it is not acceptable to run a successful course of the school year and then experience a summer slide academically.

How can we prepare our students to have stamina to finish the school year strong? How can we empower them to continue hitting home runs during the final “innings” and into summer? The answer might be found in the power of I³ (influential, intentional, instructional). Just like running around all the bases in a game of baseball will allow a “run” to be added to the score, focusing on the three-cord strength of I³ potentially allows for a home-run factor to occur into summer without any sliding!

Influential

Avoiding the summer slide begins with educators realizing the influence they hold in the lives of their students. It is vital in these final months for teachers to use the power of their influence, as they have built their students’ trust and are able to “coach” and guide them to a victory. Teachers everywhere have spent this entire year building a rapport; therefore, this is the time in the game (school year) in which they have the greatest influence with their students. The days leading up to summer are a perfect time for educators to “power up” and use this influence to strengthen students’ learning stamina.

As educators, let’s step up to the mound and pitch a winning game with our words (i.e., higher order teacher talk) and our ways (motivating and engaging instruction), increasing a chance of a win on the scoreboard. Let’s believe in ourselves as influential powers in the lives of our students. Let’s believe in our students as strong potential players, for they need to know we believe in them to the end!

Intentional

Another factor in I³ is being intentional. Many classrooms are entering into what could be called the seventh-inning stretch. In baseball, the seventh-inning stretch is an intentional period when everyone takes a moment away from the actual game for a well-deserved break.

In the classroom, this is a time when, after many months of rigorous instruction and assessment, there should be a momentary pause for reflection and celebration. In baseball, coaches and players take this time to maintain momentum, talk strategies going into the final innings, and change up the game plan if needed to pull off a win. Let’s take this season of the school year to be intentional as we pause, celebrate successes, and make alterations as needed during this seventh-inning stretch period going into the final days towards a successful summer.

Instructional

The final factor in I³ focuses on purposeful instruction. During the seventh-inning stretch, educators are encouraged to make changes to continue keeping their students engaged and motivated. When the students are engaged in the final innings of the school year, they have a far better chance for long-term retention of the necessary content needed to achieve and maintain academic success during the summer months.

The “Instructional Change-Ups” chart features examples to support motivation and engagement when scaffolding the summarizing strategy using this baseball metaphor.        
Using baseball bases (manufactured or hand-crafted), place the bases around the room to create a diamond. Above each “base” area, display chart paper and use the baseball environment for sequencing story elements and for asking and answering questions.

Valerie Ellery has served the field of education for more than 25 years in literacy roles as a National Board Certified Teacher, curriculum specialist, mentor, staff developer, reading coach, international educational consultant, and award-winning author. Her book Creating Strategic Readers is currently in its third edition and has been one of ILA’s best sellers for 10 years. Visit valerieellery.com to learn more about her work internationally.

As reading and writing teachers who value providing authentic experiences for our high school students, we feel compelled to examine the disconnect between our students’ experiences with Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and our approach to teaching reading and writing.

Our ninth-grade students took the PARCC performance assessment in March. The morning following testing, we prompted our freshman English classes to journal about their PARCC experience. We asked them to respond honestly about how the PARCC made them feel. The following examples sum up what the students had to say:

• “The test made me feel frustrated, dumb, stupid, and that doesn’t feel good.”
• “The test made me feel confused, dumb, and unknowing.”
• “The PARCC test made me feel like a 5-year-old learning for the first time.”
• “The test made me feel stupid and lowered my self-esteem.”
• “I felt really down because I couldn’t answer any of the questions.”
• “The test was extremely hard, and I never want to take it again.”

As teachers, we work tirelessly beside our students, guiding their decision making to facilitate their literacy identities. Our purpose has been to develop positive lifelong reading and writing attitudes and habits. We have taught them that reading and writing are processes that develop over time (e.g., days, weeks, or months) as they actively engage in decision making. We have taught them to choose their topics and purposes wisely because the reading and writing begins when they make these initial decisions. We have watched our students grow significantly as confident, competent readers and writers, which is why their responses bother us so deeply.   

Why did our students have such negative responses to their experience with PARCC? During reading classes, students choose books so they can use their background knowledge and experiences as all good readers do. In these classes, students have read deeply and critically and have been instructed to decide what is important from the text and prove it in their writing, discussions, and conferences. In their writing classes, students have been instructed to choose topics around their interests and their expertise so they craft purposeful writing. They have had to decide which form best meets their purpose and to use mentor texts as their guides. We have mandated that they draft, confer, revise, edit, and publish. Through modeling, we show them that writing does not simply pour out on the page. We have encouraged our students to think freely, embrace their individual learning styles, and find a workable learning pace. PARCC included none of these options for our students.

Instead, PARCC said read and interpret this passage this way. PARCC said organize the main ideas using this method. PARCC said take 90 minutes to read three complex passages, answer six analytical questions, and write an essay in this box. There was no free thinking, individuality, or pacing. There was frustration, confusion, low self-esteem, defeat.

These observations frustrate us because PARCC, we believe, could offer customization. After all, different students were given different passages to read. Why could they not choose which ones they read? This way, they could engage their schema and begin the reading process before reading the text. For the writing, why are they told to write a narrative or expository piece? Could they not decide which form best meets the function? And why write in a little box? Perhaps if the screen split in half, giving the test takers a full-line view, students could more easily write, revise, edit, and back-and-forth their way to a well-written response. To scroll up and down to write disrupts the writing process.

PARCC was pitched as revolutionary. Take away the servers, the flashing lights, the backlighting, the typing, and the clicking and dragging—we’re left with the same old test. Students sitting in rows being tested on what someone else thinks is important and being asked to prove their understanding as someone else decided they should prove it. They are reading what some other person picked out and being asked to write in a format that someone else chose.

At this point, the only thing revolutionary about PARCC is that it made our students feel less motivated, less confident, and less competent. Our students will take the PARCC again in May. With what attitudes will the students show up?

Michael P. Henry is a literacy coach and reading teacher at Reavis High School in Burbank, IL. As a dissertation candidate at Northern Illinois University, his research interests include adolescent reluctant readers, adolescent reader identity, and high school reading intervention. Henry has served as chairman for ILA’s Teacher Advisory Panel and as chairman for the Advisory Committee of Teachers. He currently serves as a member of the Adolescent and Adult Literacy Committee for ILA. Kelly Klein is also a teacher at Reavis High School. Teaching both ninth-grade English and 11th-grade American Studies, her pedagogical philosophy focuses on helping her students become independent readers, writers, and thinkers.

For my students, a critical step in increasing student ownership was establishing effective feedback, as it is has some of the greatest effects on student achievement, according to John Hattie, author of Visible Learning. Practicing effective self-reflection and feedback methods allows authentic student ownership to take place. We followed the National Council of Teachers of English’s definition of formative feedback as nonevaluative, specific, timely, related-to-learning goals and providing opportunities for students to revise and improve work products and deepen understandings. Through that, we began an action research project examining a structure for success and to normalize the culture of feedback centered on student engagement and ownership.

Establishing a structure for success

1. Create a class definition of effective feedback (thoughtful, focused on the aim, and bite sized)
2. Exchange verbal feedback during the share portion of lessons.
3. Provide opportunities to ask for peer or teacher feedback while working.
4. Model effective feedback practices consistently. This includes providing feedback forms for colleagues who visit our classroom, sharing feedback stories, and celebrating when students ask for feedback and revise work following feedback.
5. Prioritize time to practice authentic feedback opportunities. Students are able to revise their work following feedback, further driving home the point that feedback is here to make us better—not to make us feel bad or point out inaccuracies or gaps in knowledge, but to move us forward as stronger learners and citizens.

Authentic feedback opportunities became a game changer in engagement and ownership for our classroom.

Normalize the culture of feedback

Feedback Friday began during a time in our class when students worked on self-directed learning projects (think Genius Hour). Feedback Friday content was different each week and included individual growth goals, specific academic work, and behavior reflections. The process remained the same each week, with an exchange including one thing that was working or successful and one thing to consider or try next time.

But here is what made all the difference—I also received feedback during Feedback Friday. Students could use the feedback form from my folder to give me written, anonymous feedback, or they could give me verbal feedback during an individual conversation. Providing structure with the option of a feedback form and a time specifically dedicated to feedback was necessary. We were able to plan, prepare, and reflect together.

Reflection

Although we took steps to create a structure supporting this work, I received nothing but compliments and praise the first week. I continued to model my own self-reflection in order to move this process forward. I pointed out things I would have changed, things I could make better, things I thought could work differently. I called my shots by giving students specific things to watch for while I was teaching and identified two or three specific areas where I wanted to grow. The next week, feedback changed. The positive feedback that I was given was more specific—it was about instructional strategies, texts we had read, and classroom procedures. However, the most significant change was the growth feedback I received.

Students suggested new seating arrangements and that I implement cold call more often. They wanted me to consider different check-in procedures for homework and new uses for our 1:1 devices. Then came the most critical step. In order for this to work—for it to be a true exchange of feedback—I had to act. Susan Brookhart and Connie Moss describe this as the golden second opportunity for revision in Advancing Formative Assessment in Every Classroom: A Guide for Instructional Leaders. In order for students to feel empowered and to feel ownership over our classroom and their learning, in order for students to see and feel the value of feedback, I had to revise my practice following their feedback.

Revision

Eventually, Feedback Friday evolved from a concrete, scheduled part of our week to an embedded part of daily practice. Knowing their voices were always heard improved engagement and ownership in all of my students. Independently, students were self-reflecting and asking for feedback on all work whether small (Does this image make sense here?) or large (Did I arrange these reasons in sequence to create a compelling argument?). Students were offering one another feedback (I really liked how you unpacked that text evidence.) and following up on work they knew their classmates were doing (What information did you end up using from that article?). My practice continued growing as well. I was able to make small, significant changes to meet the needs identified by each learner (providing visual cues) and larger changes in my own instruction (improving my questioning techniques). Implementing Feedback Friday was truly a game changer for all of us.

Taylor Meredith is a Chicago-area instructional coach and former fifth-grade teacher. A graduate of Syracuse University, Taylor has a degree in Policy Studies from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and received a master’s degree from Hunter College while a member of New York City Teaching Fellows. Passionate about student ownership of learning and thinking, action research, formative feedback, and theory of mind, she learned from the best while teaching special education at a public school in East Harlem, NY. Connect with Taylor on Twitter or at The Formative Feedback Project.