Comments on Good Drafts of the College Essay

I just finished grading a set of College Essays written by first semester juniors.  What kinds of things did I write on the "A" papers?  The "B papers"?  The C or lower papers?

A
I like the first three paragraphs a lot.  They're original and funny.  They have a sense of personality.  They paint a picture of a quirky and distinct person.

I like how you begin with small concrete things -- lunch, grape leaves -- and work up to things like "peace" and "speech."

This is a good value to focus on for the college essay (patience).  And it seems like a small, true, important story to relate.

Impressive organization.  I like how the ending circles back to the first line in a very natural way.

Good narrative sense.  Clear transitions between ideas.  Strong mixture of narrative and reflection.


B
The ending feels a bit too "set" and less of all the good things I noted above. It spoils the picture you've created and makes it seem like you're a little hard to work with.

Maybe you should begin the "best of both cultures" idea sooner?

The essay feels "unbalanced."  The "lesson" that you learn in the last paragraph seems to be sprung upon the reader and not really connected the the rest of the essay.

Do you try to say too much?

Prose is simple and easy to follow.

The beginning is too soft.  Get the reader to the action quicker.    I'd get rid of the first paragraph completely.

This seems to be two essays in one -- about "learning to appreciate violin" and about what the experience of "Les Mis" did to/for you.  I'd choose the second.

Because there are so many segments, I'm left with a really general and diffuse sense of why swimming is so important to you.  I'm not sure what impression that I'm supposed to take from this overall.

This essay makes you seem like you're a "stiver," trying to please the college admissions officer.  Do I ""know you better" after reading it?  I don't know.  I know you're trying to sound like a fully-developed businessman!

I like the idea of connecting the beginning and the ending, but I feel the "straight lines" in the first and last sentences seems "tacked on" and gimmicky.

The prose and organization are way better than the central idea.  I don't think "being more sociable" is a strong enough idea (as you've described it) to hang the whole essay on.

Clear enough narrative frame.  But it's not clear why THIS setting is necessary for THIS realization, which makes this topic choice weird.

I really liked the line about "not taking short cuts even if it means getting the same outcome."  Developed well, that can be the core of an excellent essay.

The third paragraph feels not as strong (as concrete, as focused, as honest) as the rest.

Openings that end up being "dreams" that you wake up from often feel like a let down to the reader.

C
You don't answer the prompt very well.  Where is the "transition to adulthood"?

The prose gets in the way of your ideas.

The mechanical errors are distracting.

I don't get a very detailed impression of YOU.

You come across as a bit glum and downcast.  That might not be the best picture to present to the college of your choice.

Some of your descriptions and word choices (the old lady, your dad's car, the cliche about dog walk away with tail between legs) seem cliche or irrelevant to the story you're trying to tell.

This topic seems to fit the "overdone" topic choice of "the big game."  This feels a lot like the "Rocky" story (and so a little "constructed").   I wonder if you can focus on a smaller topic.

You say 3 times that you've gained "experience" and have become "more open minded" but you don't show these things.  What's the experience worth?  What are some concrete details about how you've become open-minded?

What's the organizational plan behind the 3 paragraphs?  Each seems to cover similar ground?  Make the central idea of each paragraph stand out.

College Essay Assignment: Kurt Vonnegut

Cut and pasted from Slate: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2012/11/kurt_vonnegut_term_paper_assignment_from_the_iowa_writers_workshop.html

Suzanne McConnell, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s students in his “Form of Fiction” course at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, saved this assignment, explaining that Vonnegut “wrote his course assignments in the form of letters, as a way of speaking personally to each member of the class.” The result is part assignment, part letter, part guide to writing and life.

This assignment is reprinted from Kurt Vonnegut: Letters, edited by Dan Wakefield, out now from Delacorte Press.

FORM OF FICTION TERM PAPER ASSIGNMENT

November 30, 1965

Beloved:

This course began as Form and Theory of Fiction, became Form of Fiction, then Form and Texture of Fiction, then Surface Criticism, or How to Talk out of the Corner of Your Mouth Like a Real Tough Pro. It will probably be Animal Husbandry 108 by the time Black February rolls around. As was said to me years ago by a dear, dear friend, “Keep your hat on. We may end up miles from here.”

As for your term papers, I should like them to be both cynical and religious. I want you to adore the Universe, to be easily delighted, but to be prompt as well with impatience with those artists who offend your own deep notions of what the Universe is or should be. “This above all ...”

I invite you to read the fifteen tales in Masters of the Modern Short Story (W. Havighurst, editor, 1955, Harcourt, Brace, $14.95 in paperback). Read them for pleasure and satisfaction, beginning each as though, only seven minutes before, you had swallowed two ounces of very good booze. “Except ye be as little children ...”

Then reproduce on a single sheet of clean, white paper the table of contents of the book, omitting the page numbers, and substituting for each number a grade from A to F. The grades should be childishly selfish and impudent measures of your own joy or lack of it. I don’t care what grades you give. I do insist that you like some stories better than others.

Proceed next to the hallucination that you are a minor but useful editor on a good literary magazine not connected with a university. Take three stories that please you most and three that please you least, six in all, and pretend that they have been offered for publication. Write a report on each to be submitted to a wise, respected, witty and world-weary superior.

Do not do so as an academic critic, nor as a person drunk on art, nor as a barbarian in the literary market place. Do so as a sensitive person who has a few practical hunches about how stories can succeed or fail. Praise or damn as you please, but do so rather flatly, pragmatically, with cunning attention to annoying or gratifying details. Be yourself. Be unique. Be a good editor. The Universe needs more good editors, God knows.

Since there are eighty of you, and since I do not wish to go blind or kill somebody, about twenty pages from each of you should do neatly. Do not bubble. Do not spin your wheels. Use words I know.

poloniøus

Practice Writing Effective Openings

Great examples from NY Times Learning Network Blog:  http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/skills-practice-writing-effective-openings/?_r=2

10 Assessments you Can Perform in 90 Seconds

This is a copy and paste from: TeachThought.com

http://www.teachthought.com/teaching/10-assessments-you-can-perform-in-90-seconds/

Good assessment is frequent assessment.

Any assessment is designed to provide a snapshot of student understand—the more snapshots, the more complete the full picture of knowledge.

On its best day, an assessment will be 100% effective, telling you exactly what a student understands. More commonly, the return will be significantly lower as the wording of questions, the student’s sense of self-efficacy, or other factors diminish their assessment performance. It sounds obvious, but a student is a human being with an entire universe of personal problems, distraction, and related challenges in recalling the information in the form the assessment demands.

This makes a strong argument for frequent assessment, as it can be too easy to over-react and “remediate” students who may be banging against the limits of the assessment’s design rather than their own understanding. Rather than re-teaching, sometimes all that is necessary is re-measuring.

It is a huge burden (for both teachers and students) to design, write, complete, grade, and absorb the data into an instructional design sequence on a consistent basis. So why not frequent, simple assessments?

Simple Assessments

The word “simple” here is misleading. Rather than describing the cognitive load on the student, it instead describes the complexity of the assessment form itself. The simpler the assessment—in terms of process and logistics—the more “purely” it can function as a tool to get at what a student actually understands, and help you identify how to help them.

Then, due to their brevity, they’re simple to grade–in fact, you can grade them as exit slips–which makes taking the data and informing instruction (the whole point of assessment) a much simpler process as well.

1. New Clothes

Take a given topic—thesis statements, push-pull factors, the scientific process, etc.—and describe how it can be used in some way other than how you’ve been taught.

Example of Student Response: We’ve learned the scientific process by looking at how actual scientists study new things, but the scientific process would also make an excellent tool for detectives to use while pursuing criminals. It would allow them to observe data, form theories, test theories while collecting more data, and draw conclusions that can then be judged in a court of law.

2. Dos & Don’ts

List 3 Dos and 3 Don’ts when using, applying, relating to the content (e.g., 3 Dos and Don’ts for solving an equation).

Example of Student Response: When adding fractions, DO find a common denominator, DO add the numerators once you’ve found a common denominators, DON’T simply add the denominators

3. Three Most Common Misunderstandings

List what you think might be the three most common misunderstandings of a given topic based on an audience of your peers.

Example of Student Response: In analyzing tone, most people probably confuse mood and tone, forget to look beyond the diction to the subtext as well, and to strongly consider the intended audience.

4. Yes/No Chart

List what you do and don’t understand about a given topic—what you do on the left, what you don’t on the right, but you overly-vague responses don’t count. Specificity matters!

Example of Student Response: In learning about paragraph structure (Do Understand): what a topic sentence is, how many sentences a paragraph should have, that a paragraph should be about one idea; (Don’t Understand) how a paragraph can have a conclusion, how to know when I’ve given enough supporting details in the paragraph, how to revise a paragraph

5. Three Questions

Ask three questions about the topic, then rank them in terms of their importance/value.

Example of Student Response: Low Importance: Does the prefix “tri” mean 3? Medium Importance: Is the triangle the only 3-sided geometrical figure? High Importance: Why don’t triangles show up very often in nature (as so many other shapes do)?

6. Explain What Matters

Explain the most critical part of a given topic to a self-selected audience (must clarify) in two or fewer sentences. (Audience can be anyone!)

Example of Student Response: The most important part of a thesis statement is clarity and conviction, so I’ll explain that one to Jay-Z: A thesis statement is kind of like the hook or title of one of your songs–it delivers the message that the song goes on to explain. Feel me?

7. Big Picture

Diagram the context–where does it fit in and how does it function in its natural “bigger picture.” This is good for abstract or right-brain thinkers.

Example of Student Response: It is impossible to understand the rules we live by and how they’re formed without understanding the 3 branches of government.

8. Venn Diagram

Compare/Contrast a given topic to a tangent topic (e.g., the water cycle to distillation, symbolism to allusion, etc.)

Example of Student Response: A Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting symbolism and allusion, or tone and mood.

9. Draw It

Draw what you do understand.

Example of Student Response: A drawing of what an adjective thinks about a noun, or a how much smaller in size the thousandth’s place is compared to the ten’s place.

10. Self-Directed Response

Prove to me you understand in diagram, written, or related form in a way that a stranger would understand.

Example of Student Response: I wrote this chorus of a song I’ve been thinking of that would explain this character’s motivation….

Great Model Paragraph from Jennifer Egan

From “A Visit from the Goon Squad” (2010) by Jennifer Egan

Consider.

Sasha usually looked at the window, which faced the street, and tonight, as she continued her story, was rippled with rain.  She’d glimpsed the wallet, tender and overripe as a peach.  She’d plucked it from the woman’s bag and slipped it into her own small handbag, which she’d zipped shut before the sound of peeing had stopped.  She’d flicked open the bathroom door and floated back through the lobby to the bar.  She and the wallet’s owner had never seen each other.

Discuss.

1.       Describe word choices, figurative language, and repetitions you find in the sentences.

2.       Describe this paragraph as a whole.  How is it constructed?  What do you note about the series of sentences?

3.       What is the author trying to emphasize about this scene? HOW does Egan want you to see it?

Apply.

Write a short narrative using stylistic elements that Egan uses above.  Use 3-4 sentences.  Create a general impression of the narration -- a way of seeing the narrative -- that is implied through stylistic choices.

Great Model Sentence from Jennifer Egan

From “A Visit from the Goon Squad” (2010) by Jennifer Egan

Consider:

She lay with her body tensed, claiming the couch, her spot in this room, her view of the window and walls, the faint hum that was always there when she listened, and these minutes of Coz’s time: another, then another, then one more.

Discuss.

1.       Describe this sentence.  How is it constructed?  What do you note about the sentence?

2.       This sentence makes syntactic and semantic sense if it ends at the first comma.  What do the additional clauses add to the meaning and effectiveness of the sentence?

Apply.

Rewrite Egan’s sentence, matching it phrase for phrase, punctuation mark by punctuation mark.

Creative Nonfiction: an Introduction

Today in class we read an article about creative nonfiction (and the focus on private lives) entitled "Delving into Private Lives" by Gay Talese.  Talese says, "I believed then -- and I believe now even more -- that the role of the nonfiction writer should be with private people whose lives represent a larger significance."

No Child Left Untableted - NYT

This Sunday the NY Times published "No Child Left Untableted" in their magazine section.  Find it here.

Great Paragraphs

From The Wild Places by Robert MacFarlane

This is a beautifully written book, filled with well-wrought paragraphs like the second one below.  I'm including the first because it provides context and is remarkable, too.

These were the markers, I realised, of a process that was continuously at work throughout these islands, and presumably throughout the world: the drawing of happiness from landscapes both large and small.  Happiness, and the emotions that go by the collective noun of 'happiness': hope, joy, wonder, grace, tranquillity and others.  Every day, millions of people found themselves deepened and dignified by their encounters with particular places.

Most of these places, however, were not marked as special on any map.  But they became special by personal acquaintance.  A bend in the river, the junction of four fields, a climbing tree, a stretch of old hedgerow or a fragment of woodland glimpsed from a road regularly driven along -- these might be enough.  Or fleeting experiences, transitory, but still site-specific: a sparrowhawk sculling low over a garden or street, or the fall of evening light on a stone, or a pigeon feather caught on a strand of spider's silk, and twirling in mid-air like a magic trick.  Daily, people were brought to sudden states of awe by encounters such as these: encounters whose power to move us was beyond expression but also beyond denial.  I remembered what Ishmael had said in Moby-Dick about the island of Kokovoko: 'It is not down in any maps; true places never are.' 

Adventures in Anaphora

What a rich collect of teaching materials over at Poetry Foundation's online Learning Lab!

Under the heading "Essays for Teachers and Students" there's one called "Adventures in Anaphora" where author Rebecca Hazelton argues that "students write better when they repeat themselves."  One great reason to check this posting out is the huge number (and range) of examples of anaphora (from MLK to Obama to Churchill to Ginsberg to Whitman to Mumford and Sons to Homer Simpson (and many in between)) and her clear way explanations of the purpose and effect of anaphora.

I especially like the lesson (towards the end of the article) where she describes how students write poems modeled after Joe Brainard’s book-length poem I Remember.  

With these examples in mind, I show students model poems and ask them to write imitations, keeping the anaphora but letting their imaginations run free. I choose examples that reinforce different aspects of poetry as well. For instance, these excerpts from Joe Brainard’s book-length poem I Remember create the atmosphere of a remembered time and place through specific detail:

I remember a piece of old wood with termites running around all over it the termite men found under our front porch.

I remember when one year in Tulsa by some freak of nature we were invaded by millions of grasshoppers for about three or four days. I remember, downtown, whole sidewalk areas of solid grasshoppers.

I remember a shoe store with a big brown x-ray machine that showed up the bones in your feet bright green.

After reading this, I have students write an “I remember” poem about a specific place and time, requiring them to focus their poem’s subject. I suggest they choose a place they know well, such as their hometown, the house they grew up in, their high school. Brainard’s poem, with its concrete descriptions, encourages sensual and specific details. The anaphora asks us to return again and again to the well of memory and, like the “I spy” games of their childhood, to articulate what they see there.

Teachers in Oregon to grade students only on academic mastery

A change in state law this year will require Oregon teachers to grade students solely on academic mastery -- a culture shift for schools accustomed to docking points from late or missing assignments and offering extra credit to boost grades. Chronically late work will prompt a meeting with parents or other nonacademic responses. "My philosophy has been that it's good to give parents information about whether their child is working hard and turning in work, but academically, they need to know, really, where their child is," said Amy Wood, a middle-school science and math teacher. The Oregonian (Portland) 

(from ASCD Smartbrief)

On Settling by Robert E. Goodin

On Settling by Robert E. Goodin (Princeton University Press, 2012)

The American Dream for most is achieved by working hard, persevering, overcoming obstacles: by striving.  You might expect that a book called "On Settling" would be down-right anti-American.  If striving isn't thought of precisely as a socialist trait, it's often thought of as a loser's trait, as "giving up."

Or is it?

Goodin argues in this book that "settling" is a necessary compliment to striving.  And is in itself good for such things as planning, creating trust, and strengthening the social fabric.

This book reminded me of "Staying Put," the great essay by Scott Russell Sanders on the importance of roots in our restless world.  And it reminded me of Wendell Berry's work.  But Goodin's work is more philosophical and more structured argument.  It's good fun to watch the argument take shape.  In one chapter he defines the term settling in how we commonly use it in positive senses, like "settling down," and "settling in," and "settling up."  Next he demonstrates why we value these settlings.  In another chapter he argues that settling is distinct from "compromising," "conservatism," and (most interestingly to me) "resignation."  In a short last chapter Goodin re-sees striving and settilng in a common context.  There he says, "We ought to settle some things, precisely in order better to strive for others."

Striving v. Settling

Beginning with Thomas Hobbes' famous line: "a general inclination of all mankind...., a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death," Goodin provides many examples of how humans have memorialized and celebrated "striving" in history, including French Revolutionary Danton's ralliyng crying "to dare, to dare again, ever to dare!" to Goethe to Tennyson (the last line of 'Ulysses' - "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.'".  It's not hard to think of modern examples, from Nike's "Just Do It" to the Olympic's credo "Higher, Faster, Stronger."

To "rescue" the notion of "settling" in our current cultural context, Goodin examines a variety of modern usages of the word settling, including: Settling Down, Settling In, Settling Up, Settling For, Settling One's Affairs, Settling On.  None of these, he will argue later in the book, are like compromising or resigning.

What should we settle for?

People plan their lives on the assumption that the things they take to be settled in their own lives will remain fixed for some suitably protracted period.  In their dealings with others, they likewise plan on the assumption that crucial facts about those people, too, will remain fixed for some suitably protracted period.  In all of that, they furthermore plan on the assumption that crucial features of their larger social environment will remain fixed for some suitably protracted period.

That's the value underlying all settling -- it's an necessary aide to planning and agency, it's the settled trust we have in each other and in the law of the land.  And it's important in our own identities.  This is my favorite part of the book:

The point about commitment is just this.  People are not merely bundles of beliefs and desires.  They also have (and want to have, and are better off and better people for having) sympathies and commitments to people, principles, and projects.  Those commitments specify what a person cares about, and in so doing define who the person is.  Given who we see ourselves as being -- the desires with which we identify (as Harry Frankfurt would put it), the people, principles, and projects to which we are committed (as Bernard Williams would) -- there are some things that we just cannot do, or even seriously consider as live options.  They lie outside our "narrative identity" thus constructed. 

We need to settle to strive

Goodin claims in the last chapter that "If we do not settle on some things -- our goals -- then we will have nothing to strive for.  If we settle everything too firmly -- if we resign ourselves too completely to the world as we find it -- we have nothing to strive for, and nothing to live for.... We ought to settle some things, precisely in order better to strive for others."  We need to settle, he says, "to clear the decks and free up resources."  We need to settle on things we will not strive for.

You need to treat other things as given, fixed for a time; you need to put pursuit of those other things on hold; you need to treat those other things as true, for present purposes.  In that way, you free up time and attention and other resources with which you can pursue whatever it is you have settled on as the thing(s) that you next want to strive for.

This seems to me the philosophical explanation for Stephen Covey's work.  The mantra of "First things first" is another way of saying "imagine that everything but the first thing is settled for now."  It gives a philosophical weight to saying that you can't do x, y, or z, because your deck is full.  Otherwise, everything is "unsettled."

Also in the last chapter Goodin tries to address the questions of "when do you know to stop striving" and "when do you know when it's time to stop being settled."  Goodin's answers are weak and unsatisfactory: when something comes up, when reasons accumulate, when time runs out, when big events happen.  None of that seems to explain much.

So, it's OK to settle -- if you're settling down, up, on, or for.  Settling is a necessary precondition to most of life and our sense of self.  And settling even helps us become better in our strivings.

Transformative Assessment by W. James Popham

I love the first two sentences of this book:

This is a book about classroom assessment, but it's not about giving tests.  Really, it's a book about instruction, because classroom assessment can fundamentally transform the way a teacher teaches.

Acknowledging that such claims about fundamental transformation usually means that you're "dealing with an author in need of reality therapy," Popham supports it later with data from a Black and Wiliam meta-analysis (1998) which reports an effect-size between 0.4 and 0.7.  (and explains that an effect-size "in a recent...study of mathematics would have raised the rank of a middle-of-the-pack country to one of the top 5 nations.)

The Case for Formative Assessment

Popham provides his definition of formative assessment:

Formative assessment is a planned process in which assessment-elicited evidence of students' status is used by teachers to adjust their ongoing instructional procedures or by students to adjust their current learning tactics.

What's so special about formative tests?   There's actually no such thing as "a formative test."  "It's not in the nature of the test that earns the label formative or summative but the use to which that test's results will be put.  If the purpose of Test X is to provide teachers and students with the evidence they need to make any warranted adjustments" then it's part of the formative assessment process."

This definition is particularly important, according to Popham, because companies are trying to sell "benchmark tests" as "formative assessment."  Too, Popham warns that there is currently no-evidence that district-developed or state-developed assessments boost student achievement.  The effect size noted above is reserved for "classroom formative assessment" -- teachers figuring out what kind of (perhaps very quick and dirty, perhaps elaborate) assessment will produce evidence of learning.

Learning Progressions

Popham claims:

Formative assessment is all about decision making.  Those decisions, made by both teachers and students, invariably revolve around the following two-part question: "Is an adjustment needed, and if so, what should that adjustment be?"

But what the context for making adjustments?  Theoretically, you could be making adjustments after every piece of incoming data.  How do you decided where the "decision-making assessments" belong?  Popham says it's "learning progressions" which are composed of the step-by-step building blocks students are presumed to need in order to successfully attain a more distant,  designated instructional outcome."  

A couple caveats...
A learning progression isn't unerringly accurate.  It's teachers' best thinking, hypothesizing.  It's "instructionally defensible."
A particular learning progression isn't suitable for all students.  It's a hypothesis of how the greatest number of students will learn.
A learning progression isn't necessarily better because it's more complex.

And a few ideas about how to build learning progressions

1. When should the teachers assess the sub-skills found at one of these building blocks?  Before proceeding to the next building block.
2. How many building blocks should you build?  only those for which you plan to collect assessment data. (and CAN collect measurable data!)
3. Which building blocks are truly requisite?  those that, "if unmastered, you'd really need to reteach it."
4. When developing assessments, think about creating "behavior-difference situations,"  "settings in which individuals would behave differently depending on whether they have or haven't already mastered the target curricular aim under consideration."

Levels of Implementation
Popham talks about four levels of formative assessment.  Level 2 is when students' are self-assessing and changing the procedures they're using.  Level 4 is schoolwide implementation.  Neither of these were as helpful as Level 1 and Level 3.

Level 1: Teachers' Instructional Adjustments
Teachers collect evidence by which they decide whether to adjust their current or immediately-upcoming instruction in order to improve the effectiveness of that instruction.

Is a teacher good at immediately diagnosing, by sight, the needs of classroom a good formative assessor?  No.  check this out:

Teachers often make on-the-spot instructional adjustments.  If, in the middle of Mr. Howell's explanation to his class of 4th graders, he takes students' glazed-over expressions as a hint that this particular segment of his explanation is confusing, he is likely to make an instant decision to return to that apparently murky explanation in order to do a better  explanatory job.  Such on-the-spot adjustments are usually defensible because teachers have a way of inferring that such instant changes will be beneficial.  These sorts of adjustments, though commendable, are not what the first step of Level 1 formative assessment is all about.

Instead, teachers should look to the pre-decided learning progressions and pre-set "triggers" for what is acceptable evidence of mastery on specific assessments.  The assessments do not have to be pencil-and-paper affairs, either.  Popham talks about letter-card responses, key questioning during discussion (with random responses), whiteboard responses, traffic-signal techniques, etc.

All of this already paints a picture of a highly skillful practitioner.  Popham suggests that the most skill, though, is in HOW to adjust instruction.

Whether  major or minor, adjustments in a teacher's instructional design typically require the teacher to draw on personal pedagogical expertise.  Here's where teachers need to show just how instructionally astute they really are.  This is the moment when top teachers shine.

Level 3: Classroom Climate Shift
Teachers consistently apply formative assessment to the degree that its use transforms a traditional, comparison-dominated classroom, where the main purpose of assessment is to assignment grades, into an a typical, learning-dominated classroom, where the main purpose of assessment is to improve the quality of teaching and learning.

Popham says that you'll notice a teacher who has undergone the shift from Level I to Level III by observing the classroom:

1. Learning Expectations.  Do all assignments, activities, and assessments reflect the teacher's belief that all students will master all curricular aims?  Do students' behavior and actions suggest that they believe success is within their grasp?
2. Responsibility for learning.  Do assignments, activities, and assessments place significant responsibility for learning on students, as individuals and as members of a community of learners?  Do the students' actions and behavior show that they're assuming meaningful responsibility for their own success and the success of their classmates?
3. The role of classroom assessment.  Is classroom assessment consistently employed to generate evidence of learning with the goal of informing teacher and student adjustments?  do both students and the teacher see it as the means to improve learning rather than the means for ranking and comparing students?

These changes can also be seen in students:

• Students need to believe the teacher is invested in having all students succeed -- not just those who are the "best" students.
• Students need to believe the teacher is using formative assessment's test results exclusively for improved student learning -- not for allocating grades and not for determining who is a "smart" or "good" student and who is not.
• Students need to believe the teacher is genuinely seeking their collaboration in assuming responsibility for their own learning.

That's about it.  There's more about how to implement this school-wide.  But that's not my focus now.  There's a chapter on what formative assessment can't do (raise current standardized test scores) and why.  This is a polemic about the current focus on high stakes accountability testing.

One last great Popham quote (from the chapter on Level 2 Formative Assessment)
"None of the assessments functioning as part of the formative assessment process ought to be graded."

Beloit College 2017 Mindset List

http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2017/

Common Core assessment support faltering?

Education Week reports on August 7 that several states are ending relationships with PARCC and/or Smarter Balance.  Per Student Testing is the major concern as is technology.  And, ACT is building a competitor -- called Aspire.  What will come of this fragmenting?  How will states be compared when there are a large number of different tests for the CC?  Kentucky is already suggesting they'll make their own with items from ACT and PARCC and Smarter Balance.

SAT = AP = Common Core... Practice the academic tasks that will be asked of kids in college

In a recent article in the NY Times about the redesign of the SAT, David Coleman says where the SAT is headed:

Since he arrived at the College Board in October, Mr. Coleman has been working on a fundamental redesign of the SAT, which he announced in February. The test, he said, should focus on “things that matter more so that the endless hours students put into practicing for the SAT will be work that’s worth doing.”

Citing the College Board’s Advanced Placement tests as a model, he said he aims to have a test that requires students to demonstrate the skills that good classroom teachers drill them on to reach academic excellence.

Deciding what students should master has been Mr. Coleman’s métier: he was an architect of the Common Core standards — guidelines for what students should learn in each grade — that are being put into place in most states. So it is no surprise that he has clear views on what the SAT should test, although he declines to offer specifics because College Board members need to be consulted on every element of the redesign. Most likely, he said, the outlines — sections on critical reading and math and a 25-minute essay — will remain the same. But Mr. Coleman has made known his discomfort with the essay, which puts no premium on accuracy. Students can get top marks for declaring that the Declaration of Independence was written by Justin Bieber and sparked the French Revolution, as long as the essay is well organized and develops a point of view.

“We should not be encouraging students to make up the facts,” Mr. Coleman said. “We should be asking them to construct an argument supported by their best evidence.”

Over and over, Mr. Coleman returns to the need to prod students into marshaling their evidence. “The heart of the revised SAT will be analyzing evidence,” he said. “The College Board is reaching out to teachers and college faculty to help us design questions that, for example, could ask students to use math to analyze the data in an economics study or the results of a scientific experiment, or analyze the evidence provided within texts in literature, history, geography or natural science.”

What's most important in instruction...

Think about your lesson & ask: What have I taught readers to do today that they'll be able to do w/other texts?

(from Carol Jago retweet from Heineman)

Common Core Resources - like sample annotated student papers - from Achievethecore.org

http://www.achievethecore.org/ela-literacy-common-core/student-writing-samples/argument-opinion-writing/

On the Common Core: "text dependent questions" don't mean "every literal detail"

Check out this Tim Shanahan posting that corrects a potential misperception about what the Common Core's focus on "text dependent questions" really means.

Highlight:

Common Core advocates make a big deal out of the idea that questions should be text dependent. This means you shouldn’t be able to answer a question without reading the text. By all means ask questions that require reading.

However, this is a very low standard. Many text dependent questions simply aren’t worth asking.

Last week I met a teacher who was trying to generate every literal question she could—long lists of questions. She was interpreting close reading as “thorough reading” and she was making sure that her first-graders missed nothing; no detail was too trivial for her text dependent questions.

However, close reading does not necessarily require this kind of intensive, thorough, literal reading.

Close reading asks readers to understand what the text says, how it works, what it means, how it connects up with other texts, what value or quality it has… but none of this requires the reader to come to terms with every fact in a text.

The key is to ask questions that are not only text dependent, but that guide the reader to accomplish those interpretive goals. To do that the questions have to emphasize what is important in the universe of the text.

August 13 Greetings Email to Depart - Summer Curriculum, Mandated Training, Department Calendar

Greetings, English Department,

I hope that you have had time to unwind, rejuvenate, and recreate during these past 10 or so weeks.  I wanted to say hello and ask if there’s anything that you need assistance with as the new school year beckons.

I have a few preliminary notes, but they are just ad hoc.   I am slowly scraping the rust of summer off myself.

1.        It is Jim DiDomenico’s birthday today.  Tomorrow is Susie Jaffe’s birthday. 

2.       Summer Curriculum.  Just a reminder that John B. sent out an email not too long ago about finishing up the projects.  (I’ll paste his notes below)

3.       Mandated Training.  Troy Courtney sent us an email earlier this summer about completing mandatory training on allergies and diabetes.  I did them last night – it took me about 80 minutes total.    I will ask the principals if it’s OK for me to “schedule time” during the institute days to work on this… I won’t know until Friday if I’m granted it.  In any case, if you were to do the training BEFORE institute days, you’d have that time to work on getting ready to teach.  (I’ll paste his notes below.)

4.       Calendar for your planning purposes.  I have posted on a Department Blog a “master calendar” of important Department and School dates.  Let me know if there’s anything to add.  You can find it here:  http://hchsenglish.blogspot.com/2013/08/master-calendar-for-first-semester.html 

Enjoy the last week of summer!

Matt Damon speech on standardized testing

I had incredible teachers. As I look at my life today, the things I value most about myself — my imagination, my love of acting, my passion for writing, my love of learning, my curiosity — all come from how I was parented and taught.

And none of these qualities that I’ve just mentioned — none of these qualities that I prize so deeply, that have brought me so much joy, that have brought me so much professional success — none of these qualities that make me who I am ... can be tested.

See Valeries Strauss' blog posting at Washington Post here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/matt-damons-clear-headed-speech-to-teachers-rally/2011/07/30/gIQAG9Q6jI_blog.html

How to respond when students complain about annotation

While you know that I'm no advocate of "annotate everything, all the time," I'm hoping that you might use this article to talk to kids or make a handout.   If nothing else, check out the "what to avoid" section at the bottom.  (Thanks to Jan Bujan for sending this my way.) I have posted this entire blog posting from Teachhub.com: http://www.teachhub.com/how-annotation-reshapes-student-reading

How Annotation Reshapes Student Reading

By: Jordan Catapano

Students cringe when teachers mention annotation because they know it’s time-consuming, detail-oriented, and just plain boring.

At least that’s their initial impression. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing this reaction at the beginning of many school years, when introducing and requiring annotations on student reading assignments. And I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing those same students automatically and joyfully annotate by the end of the school year.

So what makes the difference for these students? How do they transform from readers who hesitate to annotate to readers who rely on it?

Several factors stand out as the critical pieces for getting students to properly understand and implement annotation as a consistent tool in their reading.

When starting annotations with students, here is what every teacher should make sure their students understand:

1. Annotations are a record of your thinking. If you’re thinking, make a record of it by writing down what scuttled through your brain.
2. Annotations make remembering your thoughts much easier. In fact, you don’t even have to remember what you thought -- the paper will remember for you!
3. The act of annotating is a physical interaction with the text. Because you’re interacting with the text with both your hands and your eyes, the multisensory experience makes a much stronger imprint on your mind.
4. Annotation is appropriate for ANY subject. It’s not just an English class skill, it’s a reading skill – and reading happens in every course.

Also, “annotations” means much more than merely highlighting.  It is a dynamic way of interacting with the text. In general, annotation refers to two related things:

1. Symbols = These are the physical interactions on the text itself. These might include highlighting, boxing and circling words/phrases, underlining, stars, arrows, question marks, numbers and bullets.
2. Marginalia = These are the words a reader writes next to the text in the margins that record thoughts.

The trick to good annotation is that both symbols and marginalia should be used in conjunction with one another. As students highlight or underline a phrase, for example, they should also write a note in the margin that records why that phrase stood out to them. Similarly, if they have a thought they write in the margin, they should physically mark the specific words and phrases that inspired that thought.

As students are required to fill their readings with their thoughts, they realize that they have a lot going on in their mind while they read. Students who don’t annotate will, at best, remember only one or two of the thoughts that occurred to them while reading.

Students who do annotate will find that nearly ALL of their thoughts get recorded and, even better, that the very act of writing and thinking leads them to have even more interesting ideas about their text.

In general, here are the main types of notes students should record in any passage for any subject:

• Questions = Our minds constantly asks questions about things we don’t understand, things we are predicting, things we are trying to make sense out of. Recording these questions while reading will help students’ minds automatically search for answers.
• Connections = The more students can connect the information they read to what they already know about themselves, their world, or other readings, the more the passages in front of them will make sense.
• Interpretations = The meaning or depth of a passage may not be stated at the surface level of the text, but after thinking and inference, it is important that students identify the puzzle pieces and start putting them together.
• Summaries = Even just putting something into their own words helps to clarify and solidify its meaning in a student’s mind. Writing paraphrases of information in the margins and at the end of sections/chapters helps enormously to enhance understanding.
• Patterns = As lists, series, sequences, chronologies, or motifs are identified within a text, it’s important for students to use numbers, bullets, or a their own method of annotation to organize the passage.
• Words = Individual words often hold a great deal of meaning, so making vocabulary words, course-specific terms, and unique diction choices stand out with annotation is essential.

It’s also just as important to tell students what kind of annotations to avoid:

• Notes without thoughts = It’s easy to write an inane comment but not have an actual thought attached to it. Simply identifying a “simile” serves little purpose; instead, students should record a thought about why that simile is there.
• Personal reactions = If a student is shocked or confused, writing “Wow!” or “Boring!” doesn’t warrant taking up space. Annotations are for thoughts worth remembering.
• One-word comments = Like notes without thoughts, usually a one-word margin note just doesn’t depict enough thinking to justify the space it takes up.
• Notes without symbols or symbols without notes = It’s important to use marginalia and symbols in conjunction with one another. They tag team to bring the passage to life.
• Too much of anything = Too much chocolate makes you sick. The same is true with annotations: Although they are an extremely good tool, when a student highlights an entire page or paraphrases every sentence, the exercise becomes self-defeating.

Giving students the right understanding of annotation goes a long way towards helping them use it properly. Often, what students once reviled as a time-consuming task turns into an essential component of their reading that they both rely on and enjoy. 

Business Week Spoof Article to teach Data Evaluation or Logical Fallacies

Teaching evaluation of the quality of data?  Teaching logical fallacies?  Check out this amusing series of graphs (from Business Week) which can help teach that correlation is different than causation.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/correlation-or-causation-12012011-gfx.html

Graduation Speech by George Saunders

(printed in the NY Times: http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/george-saunderss-advice-to-graduates/?src=me&ref=general)

Down through the ages, a traditional form has evolved for this type of speech, which is: Some old fart, his best years behind him, who, over the course of his life, has made a series of dreadful mistakes (that would be me), gives heartfelt advice to a group of shining, energetic young people, with all of their best years ahead of them (that would be you).

And I intend to respect that tradition.

Now, one useful thing you can do with an old person, in addition to borrowing money from them, or asking them to do one of their old-time “dances,” so you can watch, while laughing, is ask: “Looking back, what do you regret?”  And they’ll tell you.  Sometimes, as you know, they’ll tell you even if you haven’t asked.  Sometimes, even when you’ve specifically requested they not tell you, they’ll tell you.

So: What do I regret?  Being poor from time to time?  Not really.  Working terrible jobs, like “knuckle-puller in a slaughterhouse?”  (And don’t even ASK what that entails.)  No.  I don’t regret that.  Skinny-dipping in a river in Sumatra, a little buzzed, and looking up and seeing like 300 monkeys sitting on a pipeline, pooping down into the river, the river in which I was swimming, with my mouth open, naked?  And getting deathly ill afterwards, and staying sick for the next seven months?  Not so much.  Do I regret the occasional humiliation?  Like once, playing hockey in front of a big crowd, including this girl I really liked, I somehow managed, while falling and emitting this weird whooping noise, to score on my own goalie, while also sending my stick flying into the crowd, nearly hitting that girl?  No.  I don’t even regret that.

But here’s something I do regret:

In seventh grade, this new kid joined our class.  In the interest of confidentiality, her Convocation Speech name will be “ELLEN.”  ELLEN was small, shy.  She wore these blue cat’s-eye glasses that, at the time, only old ladies wore.  When nervous, which was pretty much always, she had a habit of taking a strand of hair into her mouth and chewing on it.

So she came to our school and our neighborhood, and was mostly ignored, occasionally teased (“Your hair taste good?” – that sort of thing).  I could see this hurt her.  I still remember the way she’d look after such an insult: eyes cast down, a little gut-kicked, as if, having just been reminded of her place in things, she was trying, as much as possible, to disappear.  After awhile she’d drift away, hair-strand still in her mouth.  At home, I imagined, after school, her mother would say, you know: “How was your day, sweetie?” and she’d say, “Oh, fine.”  And her mother would say, “Making any friends?” and she’d go, “Sure, lots.”

Sometimes I’d see her hanging around alone in her front yard, as if afraid to leave it.

And then – they moved.  That was it.  No tragedy, no big final hazing.

One day she was there, next day she wasn’t.

End of story.

Now, why do I regret that?  Why, forty-two years later, am I still thinking about it?  Relative to most of the other kids, I was actually pretty nice to her.  I never said an unkind word to her.  In fact, I sometimes even (mildly) defended her.

But still.  It bothers me.

So here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it:

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. 

Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded…sensibly.  Reservedly.  Mildly.

Or, to look at it from the other end of the telescope:  Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth?

Those who were kindest to you, I bet.

It’s a little facile, maybe, and certainly hard to implement, but I’d say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: Try to be kinder.

Now, the million-dollar question:  What’s our problem?  Why aren’t we kinder?

Here’s what I think:

Each of us is born with a series of built-in confusions that are probably somehow Darwinian.  These are: (1) we’re central to the universe (that is, our personal story is the main and most interesting story, the only story, really); (2) we’re separate from the universe (there’s US and then, out there, all that other junk – dogs and swing-sets, and the State of Nebraska and low-hanging clouds and, you know, other people), and (3) we’re permanent (death is real, o.k., sure – for you, but not for me).

Now, we don’t really believe these things – intellectually we know better – but we believe them viscerally, and live by them, and they cause us to prioritize our own needs over the needs of others, even though what we really want, in our hearts, is to be less selfish, more aware of what’s actually happening in the present moment, more open, and more loving.

So, the second million-dollar question:  How might we DO this?  How might we become more loving, more open, less selfish, more present, less delusional, etc., etc?

Well, yes, good question.

Unfortunately, I only have three minutes left.

So let me just say this.  There are ways.  You already know that because, in your life, there have been High Kindness periods and Low Kindness periods, and you know what inclined you toward the former and away from the latter.  Education is good; immersing ourselves in a work of art: good; prayer is good; meditation’s good; a frank talk with a dear friend;  establishing ourselves in some kind of spiritual tradition – recognizing that there have been countless really smart people before us who have asked these same questions and left behind answers for us.

Because kindness, it turns out, is hard – it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include…well,everything.

One thing in our favor:  some of this “becoming kinder” happens naturally, with age.  It might be a simple matter of attrition:  as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish – how illogical, really.  We come to love other people and are thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality.  We get our butts kicked by real life, and people come to our defense, and help us, and we learn that we’re not separate, and don’t want to be.  We see people near and dear to us dropping away, and are gradually convinced that maybe we too will drop away (someday, a long time from now).  Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving.  I think this is true.  The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was “mostly Love, now.”

And so, a prediction, and my heartfelt wish for you: as you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love.  YOU will gradually be replaced by LOVE.   If you have kids, that will be a huge moment in your process of self-diminishment.  You really won’t care what happens to YOU, as long as they benefit.  That’s one reason your parents are so proud and happy today.  One of their fondest dreams has come true: you have accomplished something difficult and tangible that has enlarged you as a person and will make your life better, from here on in, forever.

Congratulations, by the way.

When young, we’re anxious – understandably – to find out if we’ve got what it takes.  Can we succeed?  Can we build a viable life for ourselves?  But you – in particular you, of this generation – may have noticed a certain cyclical quality to ambition.  You do well in high-school, in hopes of getting into a good college, so you can do well in the good college, in the hopes of getting a good job, so you can do well in the good job so you can….

And this is actually O.K.  If we’re going to become kinder, that process has to include taking ourselves seriously – as doers, as accomplishers, as dreamers.  We have to do that, to be our best selves.

Still, accomplishment is unreliable.  “Succeeding,” whatever that might mean to you, is hard, and the need to do so constantly renews itself (success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it), and there’s the very real danger that “succeeding” will take up your whole life, while the big questions go untended.

So, quick, end-of-speech advice: Since, according to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving: Hurry up.  Speed it along.  Start right now.  There’s a confusion in each of us, a sickness, really: selfishness.  But there’s also a cure.  So be a good and proactive and even somewhat desperate patient on your own behalf – seek out the most efficacious anti-selfishness medicines, energetically, for the rest of your life.

Do all the other things, the ambitious things – travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey poop) – but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness.  Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.  That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality – your soul, if you will – is as bright and shining as any that has ever been.  Bright as Shakespeare’s, bright as Gandhi’s, bright as Mother Theresa’s.  Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place.  Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.

And someday, in 80 years, when you’re 100, and I’m 134, and we’re both so kind and loving we’re nearly unbearable, drop me a line, let me know how your life has been.  I hope you will say: It has been so wonderful.

Congratulations, Class of 2013.

I wish you great happiness, all the luck in the world, and a beautiful summer.

How to Get Your Mobile Device Onto the Staff.D86 wifi

(from BW)  You must complete an instructional device request form. We are not approving personal devices for the STAFF WiFi unless there is evidence the device is being used in the classroom. This decision was made to “protect” the flow of traffic on the STAFF WiFi, addressing the broadband usage. Personal devices may connect through the D86 WiFi for general use.

                                                               i.      http://www.hinsdale86.org/emp/EmployeesInfo/Pages/default.aspx

3 Ideas to Start the Year from Carol Jago

This past week, Carol Jago has tweeted "3 Tips for New Teachers."  But they work as a good reminder for not-so-new teachers, too.

Tip #1 for new teachers: Learn students' names ASAP.
Tip #2 for new teachers: Have students write on day one. Base line info!
Tip #3 for new teachers: Talk about the books you read this summer.

Follow Carol on Twitter for updates on Common Core, testing, and literature: https://twitter.com/caroljago

Clavin and Hobbes... On Writing

Master Calendar for First Semester

Master Calendar 2013-2014

August

8/20      Tuesday              Freshmen Orientation                 8-11:30

8/21      Wednesday       Teacher Institute

8/22      Thursday            Teacher Institute

8/23      Friday                  First Day of School

8/29      Thursday            Meet the Teachers Night

September

9/2        Monday              Labor Day – No School

9/10      Tuesday              Yearbook Photos T, Th, F (Jr,So,Fr)

9/11      Wednesday       Late Start Day                                7:30-10:00

9/18      Wednesday       Homeroom #1

9/23      Monday              Banned Books Week (thru 9/27)

9/24      Tuesday              National Punctuation Day
9/26       Thursday           First Drama Production Picasso at the Lapin Agile:  September 26-28

October

10/2      Wednesday       Late Start Day                                7:30-10:00
10/8      Tuesday            A Celebration of Writers  (Community Room)          7:10-7:50
10/9      Wednesday       Butler MS teachers come to visit E1 and E1H classes
10/11-12                        Homework Free Weekend for Seniors

10/14    Monday              Columbus Day – No School        

10/16    Wednesday       PSAT in school
10/17     Thursday          Freshman Play:  Brothers Grimm (10/17-19)

10/18    Friday                  PLAN in school (all sophs) (see 11/1)

10/23    Wednesday       Late Start Day                                7:30-10:00

10/25    Friday                  End of First Quarter

November

11/8      Friday               PLAN Testing  (periods 1-6) (sophomores will be in class 7-10)
11/7      Thursday            Parent Teacher Conferences      6:00-9:00

11/8      Friday                  Parent Teacher Conferences      9:00-3:15
11/11   Monday              Scenes from Inherit the Wind in the library during lunch periods

11/13    Wednesday       Late Start Day                                7:30-10:00
11/14    Thursday           Fall Play Inherit the Wind  November 14-16
11/19     Tuesday               Parent Participation Day

11/27    Wednesday       Early Dismissal – Thanksgiving

11/28    Thursday            Thanksgiving – No School

11/29    Friday                  Thanksgiving – No School

December/January

12/11    Wednesday       Late Start Day                                7:30-10:00

12/20    Friday                  Winter Break Begins                     3:00

1/6        Monday              School Reopens

1/8        Wednesday       Homeroom

1/14      Tuesday              Semester Exams Begin (Tu-Th)

1/17      Friday                  Teacher Institute Day

February
2/5                                  Late Start
2/19                               Late Start


March
3/12                                  Late Start
3/15       Thursday             Spring Musical:   Beauty and the Beast: March 13-15
3/27        Thursday             Parent/Teacher Conferences 6-9 PM

April
3/30-4/7                            Spring Break
4/18       Friday                   Non-Attendance Day
4/23       Wednesday           Early dismissal - PSAE
4/24       Thursday              PSAE Day

4/24        Thursday              "Spring Play" The Rimers of Eldritch (top secret: not yet announced to kids) 3/24-26

May
May 7     Wednesday            Late Start