Rubrics, Guidelines, or Checklists

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It is amazing how much I can miss writing my blog.  I am finally going to be able to get back to doing my brain purges here on the Hyler 1 blog.  I apologize once again to my readers for taking so long to write.  Those of you who made requests for certain topics, I will be addressing them through out the next few weeks. Rest assured, I have been writing. I have been working on a chapter that was accepted for a practitioners book and I am working on some other writing for another book.  I am truly glad to be back to writing my blog.

With all that being said, I would like to give some thoughts on rubrics, guidelines, and checklists. Three or four weeks ago I was engaged in a conversation on Twitter with another NWP colleague about rubrics and guidelines.  After the conversation came to an end, I was left with a lot of confusion in my brain.

First, I am an avid user of rubrics, I have been using them for as long as I can remember. I am a firm believer they help my students understand what I want from them when it comes to a writing assignment or a project I am conducting in class.  My colleague stated that they do not like rubrics, they like using guidelines.  Their opinion of using a rubric was that they are too restrictive to the student and don’t allow the student to be expressive.  He liked the use of guidelines better because it didn’t restrict students in what they were doing. He feels the students have to do what is requested on the rubric, where a set of guidelines does just that, it guides the students to making the appropriate decisions necessary for an assignment or project.  Now, do rubrics and guidelines sound the same?  Perhaps they do.  As of right now, I am not sure of the difference.  A typical educational definition of a rubric would be:

an explicit set of criteria used to assess a certain type of work or performance.

For a guideline, it is defined as:

a recommended practice that allows some leeway in interpretation, or how it can be used.

Okay, so based on those two generic definitions, I can see my colleagues point.  However, I am not sure how one switches from using a rubric in class to using guidelines.  In addition, does it make a difference when the students are completing the assignment?

Then, you can’t forget checklists.  Where do those fall in to place.  We all know that checklists are merely there for students to “check” off the items on the list to makes sure they have everything.  For example, I give my students a checklist of items to look for when they do both peer editing and peer revising. But, are rubrics essentially a glorified checklist?  Hmmm. I can’t help but wonder what others are doing in terms of rubrics, guidelines, and checklists.  Furthermore, if anyone is a guideline implementor, how does one implement them into your classroom.

Cheers!

Getting a Grasp on Good Readers and Writers

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It has been busy the last few school days of school. I feel as if I am wasting time at certain moments, but I know what I am doing only paves the way for the rest of the year. As I sit here in my local library, escaping the hustle and bustle at my house, it occurs to me that within the first few weeks of school, I still do not have a clearly painted picture of my students as readers and writers.

Thursday was great with my middle schoolers! I felt very accomplished with both 7th and 8th graders.  The 7th graders continued their brainstorming and pre-writing with completing their wordles about their beliefs.  It was an interesting start to the morning when students were having difficulty with the website freezing up from time to time and they had to start over.  Then, the printer was having issues with the ink cartridge and I had to have that replaced.  Needless to say, I was off to a rough start with the 1st hour of the day. As wonderful as technology may be at certain times, it still can cause major issues with completing your lessons you may have for the day. The students completed their wordles and handed them into the homework tray. As part of the brainstorming process for their “This I Believe” essays, I gave them a grade on their wordle.  Next, I gave the students an experience survey as a pre-reading activity for the novel we are going to start on Monday or Tuesday, depending on time.   The 7th graders are going to be reading The Acorn People by Ron Jones. In my opinion, it is a very compelling tale about a young man right out of college who learns to look past people’s differences and see people for who they really are and as a result the campers are allowed to be themselves. Below is the survey I gave to my 7th graders.  I posted it on Schoology for them to start the discussion.

  • Pick at least two questions to answer for discussion. Please use QIS and explain with detail. Respond to at least two classmates.Have you ever…

    1. Been faced with a challenge that seemed not only unpleasant – but impossible?

    2. Felt uncomfortable around someone very different from you?

    3. Felt uncomfortable around a physically or mentally handicapped individual?

    4. Felt adults underestimated your abilities?

    5. Met someone who stayed positive no matter what?

If anyone is curious about what QIS is, it stands for Question Inclusive Statement. I am a huge fan of my students writing in complete sentences that includes part of the question. This survey acts as a springboard for our discussion prior to the novel.  The students are already doing an excellent job of discussing the questions on Schoology.  In addition, we will also have another discussion about disabilities.  I am thinking I may have the students do a short 2 minute video using a webcam describing what they think are their disabilities might be.

In terms of technology, the 7th graders have been fully submerged.  Friday I finally was able to send home the Gmail/Google Drive letter to gain parents permission for 7th graders to create a Gmail account.  If you would like to see the letter I sent home, just email me.

The 8th grader have spent more time writing this past Thursday and Friday.  Seeing how the 8th graders already had a Gmail set up from last year, we took some time and I showed them how to set up a folder on Google Drive to start their digital portfolio.  When they were done setting up their folder, I had them put their 6 word memoir and their 140 character Twitter memoir in their digital portfolios. When they completed adding work to their portfolio, I had the students try something I have not tried for a very long time.  The 8th graders completed their first reading assessment on a short story we read earlier in the week.  On Schoology, in the discussion section, I asked the students to take an event from the story “The Osage Orange Tree” and I asked them to write the event from the antagonists point of view. As readers we only saw the story from the narrators prospective. I wanted the students to write the event from that other point of view and ask themselves if the story changed at all.  I want my students to understand how the outcome of the story could be completely different if told from another characters point of view.  We actually spent some time talking about how The Hunger Games could be an entirely different story if it were told from Haymitch’s point of view.  The students of course laughed and I think they got what I was trying to say.  Upon reading their responses, most students did a great job and I started see some creativity pop out in some of their writing.  Others, still struggled with the idea and what I was trying to get them to do.

These first few weeks have been used to get a lot of technology and digital tools up and running. On the other hand, both 7th and 8th grade have already read a shorts story and completed 2-3 writing tasks.  Even though the students have been busy, I still don’t feel I have a grasp on what type of reading and writing skills they have.  I am referring more to the 7th graders of course, because I had the 8th graders all ready last year.  Next week I do plan on sitting down and talking with each of the 7th graders to discuss what their strengths and weaknesses are as readers and writers.

As I prepare for next week, I am looking forward to starting both grades novels and their bigger writing assignments.

Cheers!

1st Day Reflections

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As mentioned in my last blog, my goal is to write every day this year to reflect back on my experience.  Perhaps some of what I write tonight should have been written prior to the start of the first day of school, but if I didn’t take time to think about what I did, I couldn’t reflect, right?

This is my second year teaching both 7th and 8th grade language arts. I have to say I am completely amazed at the differences between the two grades.  There is a huge difference in maturity, both socially and academically.

Despite the differences, I felt both groups of students did fairly well today.  I am not sure what other teachers do on their first day of class, but I do not go over any classroom rules with my students.  Part of me believes that is what their expectation is from me and I like to keep my students guessing. Bwaaahaaahaaa! That was my evil, take over the world, laugh.  Instead of the rules, I jumped right in and had both my 7th and 8th grade students take a narrative reading pre-test.  The state of Michigan has required teachers and schools to measure student growth.  Our district has decided on a pre and post test as a way to measure student growth.  I was not about to give my students an eight page reading document and 36 questions for the reading portion.  Instead, I discussed with my principal how I have broken down my units into Narrative, Informational, and Argumentative.  This mirrors the Common Core Standards and three major areas of writing that the CCSS focuses on.  I do not however, teach just tree units, I teach six total units.  So, I have broken down my pre-tests and the students took a short seven question narrative reading pre-test.  This is only one part of the narrative pre-test.  I will be giving them a small grammar pre-test in the coming days over the grammar concepts we will cover during our narrative unit.  As a language arts department, the students will show growth through a writing portfolio throughout the year.  I know, it sounds confusing right?  If you haven’t already checked out Kevin Hodgson’s blog today, I encourage you to do so at Kevin’s Meandering Mind.  I think we all feel the way he has portrayed the teacher in his comic when it comes to juggling the Common Core.

I also addressed the homework policy for my classroom.  Now, as any middle school teacher knows, it is our job to prepare them for high school.  I am always amazed at the 7th graders response when we go over the homework policy.  Usually their mouths are wide open and they are disbelief.  This year I feel I am going hardcore my students.  To put in simply, they lose 50% for being one day late unless it is a major project where they will lose 30%.  If it is more than one day late, they get no credit. If you would like a copy of my homework policy just leave me a comment.  If my students bring it back signed by them and their parents tomorrow, I will give them extra credit.

I also took time with my students today setting up their writing notebooks or journals.  This is important because most days we start the hour by doing “writing into the hour”.  I set my notebook up very similar to how Jeff Anderson discusses journal writing in his book Mechanically Inclined: Building Grammar, Usage and Style into Writer’s Workshop. My classroom is indeed a writer’s workshop and this book was read by our language arts department prior to the start of last year.  This year we are reading Write Like This by Kelly Gallagher.  “Writing into the hour” is basic.  I give students a topic to write about.  The students can choose to write about the given topic or they can write about what is on their mind that day.  In addition, I allow my students to even go back to a previous days entry and either continue or revise that piece of writing.  With having so many choices, the students have no excuse not to be writing.  I give my students 5-7 minutes to write and ask them to forget about the editor in their head and just write.

With those two activities, there wasn’t a lot of time left in class.  I did hand out reading textbooks to my 8th graders and I tried to become more acquainted with my 7th graders by playing 2 truths and a lie with them.  It isn’t the most thought-provoking activity, but it is fun and the students seem to enjoy it.

Now tomorrow and the rest of the week is going to bring in a whirlwind of technology to the students.  Tomorrow the students will set-up their Schoology account and I will demonstrate and walk them through the reason we will be using this digital tool.  Thursday the students will set-up their Twitter accounts and Friday we will do a recap and then move our way towards getting our Celly accounts ready.  It is a busy week, so I am off to bed and ready to start another adventure tomorrow.  Email or leave a comment with any questions

Cheers!

Welcome Back

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Well, my summer break was officially over this past week as I trudged through my mornings with my coffee in hand trying to fall back into a routine that will be a part of my daily life starting Tuesday.  To those teachers and administrators that have been back for awhile, I hope all is going well. Welcome back everyone!

It has been a busy summer and one of the best I have had since going through the summer writing institute in 2010. With that being said, I went back to school Monday with an open mind and an understanding that things were going to be different again. It seems over the past 5 years that I have been teaching at the middle school level, there has been some type of change; whether it has been teaching assignments, new staff, or even new administrators. The week was interesting, but also very trying.

I applaud my principal for keeping an open mind to the use of technology in the classroom. We had a two hour segment titled 21st century learning and there were three staff members who presented, including myself.  My principal wanted us to share what we were doing in our classroom to engage today’s learner.  Three different digital tools were presented to the staff:

  1. Moodle
  2. Celly
  3. Schoology

I of course being the big Celly user introduced this to my colleagues.

The middle school science teacher discussed Moodle, which I do not use and do not really care for.  I find it difficult to navigate and not very user friendly for the students.

Finally, one of our high school language arts teachers showed Schoology. All 7th-11th graders will be using Schoology this year as a way to communicate, get access to assignments, and collaborate. Parents can even see what is happening in class.

One of the bigger issues at the helm was student growth.  Our beloved politicians in my state want teachers to be able prove they are doing their job by displaying there was student growth.  What is this supposed to look like?  Well, that is superb question.  One way our principal wants us to show student growth is by giving a pre and post test.  In addition, we were to discuss other ways within our departments how we could potentially show student growth.  The language arts department discussed writing portfolios and the possibilities digital portfolios bring.  With students from grades 7-11 using Schoology, it would be easy to pass their digital portfolios from year to year.  Schoology syncs well with Google Docs, so students can create folders within Google docs and put their writing samples in it.  The more important question is what is the definition of student growth? If a student scores one more right on the post-test than what they did on the pre-test, is that considered student growth? What is classified as being proficient? 75%. 80%. It was a conversation that quite frankly literally gave me a headache.

I deem myself as a hard working teacher and I know my students get better by the end of the year, but what truly is an accurate way to measure student growth.  I am curious if there is anyone who has suggestions.

I am blessed to have a job and I love being a teacher. I know I will have another successful year based on the mere fact I will engage my students each and every day.  I want my students begging me to keep reading and writing.  That is my measure for student growth.

Keep reading and spread the word.  I want to write everyday during the school year.  I want to use it as a reflective time to help me form my thoughts for the book I am working on.

Cheers!

Grammar, A Debate We Will Have Forever

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All summer I have been writing in some capacity. I will be the first to admit, I struggle with grammar from time to time, but who doesn’t?  Grammar has been a perplexing issue for language arts/English teachers for year and years.  Some teachers may argue for a constant drill and kill approach, thinking the more that students do it, the better they will get at grammar.  Other educators let their student’s writing do the talking and examine where their weakness lie in their writing, then they plan and teach accordingly. A balance of both approaches is also used in classrooms.  Despite how you or your district take on the daunting task of hoping your students “get it”, I am here to tell you I don’t believe there is a magic spell out there for the proverbial lightbulb to click on instantly.

My lightbulb burns, at best, about as bright as lamp.  Experts are argue time and time again that we as the writing teachers aren’t doing our job and students are falling further and further behind. Of course, these “experts” are examining standardized test scores as part of their conclusion, and I am not even going to go down that road.  In addition, others believe the use of cell phone and social media is causing students to fall further and further behind because of their “text talk”.  Read this post in Education Week and let me know and others what you think.  I was outraged when I finished reading the post as were others that I have professional relationships with.  It is one more way to blame technology for shortcomings on standardized testing.  Articles such as this gives educators and districts more reason not to embrace technology.  It is bad enough students aren’t getting more of a 21st century education and aren’t connected the way they should be.  I am not saying technology is going to fix the grammar issues that seem to plaque our students.

What I want to say is I can remember all the way back to 8th grade when I had my orange grammar handbook. As a middle schooler, I was clueless from time to time when it came to things such as misplaced modifiers or using a semi-colon correctly.  There were concepts I understood and there were some I did not fully grasp.  I can also remember there were classmates that were way better at grammar than I was.  Sound familiar?  Yeah, the same thing we see with our students today.  Are there better approaches to teaching grammar? My goodness gracious, yes!  I encourage everyone to check out Jeff Anderson’s approach to grammar in his book Mechanically Inclined. I particularly like his express lane checkout approach to the writing his students do in Journals.  There are other methods available too.  Needless to say, our students aren’t going to be grammar experts by a long shot.  Yes, they should be achieving at a certain level, but grammar takes years and years to master in my opinion.  It isn’t going to happen over night and we need to stop whipping a horse that really hasn’t changed much over the years.  Every year I am looking for new ways to engage my students with grammar as should anyone else.  Some ideas work better than others, you just need to find what works for you and your class.  Furthermore, being a writing teacher, means we need to write with our students and only then will our students start taking more of a vested interest in their writing and then maybe they will start listening to those grammar lessons we give.

Cheers!

Unconnected Learners

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I just finished listening in on Teachers Teaching Teachers tonight.  It was the kick-off for Connected Educators Month.  Check out the link here. Through many different topics and conversations that took place in the session, I decided to write my blog post tonight about connected learners and the unconnected learners that are reluctant to be connected.

Since going through the Summer Institute in 2010, I consider myself a connected learner.  What does this mean?  Well, it means I stay connected with other professionals through various social media sites, or other web platforms where ideas can be shared and essentially we become better teachers because we learn what is working in each other’s classroom and go forward with more learning tools in our belts.  For example, I find Twitter to be a phenomenal place to get unscripted professional development.  I find new websites, digital tools, and have conversations with other educators that help enrich my teaching. In addition, I may attend webinars, online book talks, or participate in subscribing to a blog.  There is a cornucopia of ways to be a connected learner.

Enriching my teaching and my students as learners is what I crave and what I thrive for each and every day.  The idea of “not being in teacher mode” during the summer or any other time of year, never crosses my mind.  I am not cutting down educators that may have made that comment in the past.  Don’t get me wrong, we all need a break.  I can’t help but wonder why there are teachers out there who do not want be connected or help their students become connected learners.  I understand there are districts who prevent their teachers from using technology to enhance their student’s learning.  This does not mean the teacher themselves can’t become connected in some way to help their students.  Also, what actually holds teachers back from becoming a connected learner and discovering the possibilities that awaits them?  Is it fear of using something like Twitter, Facebook, or Google +?  Perhaps it is the lack of knowledge of such technological tools and what they offer.  I also wonder if there are still teachers out there who think technology is just another gimmick, bell, or whistle to bring in the classroom.  Wait,  it is less of a wonder and more of a “I know”; but there are teachers who believe using technology within their lessons is just an excuse to use it. Grasping and understanding the “why” has not been attained.

One specific topic that came about in the discussion tonight was “lurkers”.  Lurkers are those people who in reality are connected, but never participate in what is happening.  For instance, I have participated in webinars where individual participants don’t do anything to actively participate in the session.  They sit and watch and are just there.  What motivates these individuals to “lurk”?  Are they not confident, just being good listeners, or are they just there because they have to be there as a requirement by a principal?

Connected Learning month will hopefully answer some of the questions that were brought up tonight.  On the other hand, the answers may already exist.  Nevertheless, connected learning can be powerful for teachers and students.  Online book discussions, webinars, social media with students, Youth Voices, Digital Is, etc. are all great ways to be connected and become better teachers and help your students be better learners.  Check out more resources on the National Writing Project’s Digital Is website for connected learning.

Cheers!