Is This A Redo? ;-)

I am working hard to avoid making a broken-record post based on last week’s. So instead I’ll take a cue from our fearless leader and base my rant/rave on my own personal issues and musings on the subject of differentiated instruction.

Oh, I remember a time when I did not know the phrase “differentiated instruction;” alas, it was a time when it did not roll off my tongue like the morning dew rolls off my windshield as I scurry my car along the cold, dismal highway to school before dawn. But then, hark, the principal at my very first teaching gig said something that resonated: “Differentiation is something that good teachers do without even realizing it.” Ok, cool. Now how do I make sure I’m a good teacher? I remember thinking. I’m not sure that I’m there yet, but I guess I see what he means: differentiation is natural. When I speak to others, I speak how they’ll understand me. For example, when I speak to my friends’ small children, I use different conversation and language than when I speak with my sarcastic adult friends. It’s about making others feel included and comfortable.

In my own words, here is how I break it all down:

• Students will feel more comfortable.
• The kids can do what they’re capable of without feeling pressure.
• They can work at their own pace.
• They can have fun! (Because they can choose to do things they like)
• I can see lightbulbs go off above the kids’ heads. even the shy, unsure kids.

But then...I have an entire chapter (ten) marked from Wormeli’s book to add to my syllabus next year. This is surprising to me. I have always thought of myself as an anti-redo teacher.  This chapter covers the concepts of redos, an issue with which I have many, many questions. But when I started the chapter and read the quote at the beginning, I suddenly felt differently: “Yes, I had a lot of paperwork at first [from grading and re-grading, etc.], but after awhile, it actually decreased. Students began analyzing their mistakes before turning in their tests” (131). I think that I really like this. My problem as a whole, though, is that I almost don’t see this as differentiating instruction; in fact, I almost see it as a cop-out. But Wormeli presents some ways to fix this and adapt our way of thinking. For example, on page 132, he says, “If it’s a charcter issue, such as integrity, self-discipline, maturity, and honesty, the greater gift may be to deny the redo option.” So if students slack off for the entire essay unit because they know they “have an extra week and can redo it,” this won’t apply to them. I also appreciated Wormeli’s comment: “Do not allow any work to be redone during the last week of the grading period” (135). He added that just to help with teacher sanity. Thank you, sir. I need to incorporate this into my life asap. I am currently still chasing two students down for essays that they didn’t turn in during the LAST quarter! Why am I doing this? And further, on the subject of DI, is this really any kind of DI? These students just did NOT do their work. How am I being fair and/or equal to the other kids in my classes then? Sigh.

Truly, though, what resonated more than anything else in this book, was Wormeli’s paragraph at the end of this chapter on page 136:

“Our world is full of redos. Sure, most adults don’t make as many mistakes requiring redos as students do, but that’s just it--our students are not adults and as such, they can be afforded a merciful disposition from their teachers as we move them toward adult competency.”

And this is not just letting them do what they want with no consequences or sense of independence; this is just making them feel like they are cared for; like we, their teachers, want them to succeed; like we aren’t trying to trick them into harsh grades with any kind of demotivational spirit. Strike a balance with this...and THIS is differentation.

Differentiating my Differentiation.

I have run a small gamut in the world of education so far. It's not overly impressive, but as far as my certification goes, it stretches. I started by teaching 7th grade language arts five years ago, which covered reading, writing, and grammar in one curriculum and it was c-r-a-m-m-e-d but I loved every second of it. Now I'm teaching college prep seniors in a semester-long four-essay base module writing course in which students can earn college credit.  When I saw that this and next week's readings would encompass the thoughts of differentiation as it pertains to assessment, I started to think back to my teacher cert program and how much we learned about this. I thought back to my student teaching experience, where my wonderful cooperating teacher modeled many examples of this, from the simple to the quite complex. I thought about my lovely co-teacher from my years in 7th grade who would do anything for her learning support students in my inclusion class. I thought back to when I taught 8th grade gifted language arts (a class of 12) and how I had to come up with frequent ways to differentiate in order to make it more challenging. And I thought about how now I don't noticeably differentiate. 

But then I read.

And I let myself breathe; I let myself take it all in and I finally felt my footing for this new year of teaching. (If you're doing the math, yes, I have taught something new four of the five years I've been a teacher. I'm assuming many new teachers go through this, yes? Please? Anyone?) 

I felt at ease reading about the definition(s) presented to us by both Wormeli and Moon-- they made sense; I had seen this and done this many times. But seeing some new tactics and thoughts behind these things was comforting. I hadn't, pardon me, crapped out at doing Think-Pair-Shares and the like. The nicest thing I came to understand from Moon's text is that now that I'm more comfortable in my teaching and have relaxed  a little (well, as much as we can relax in this profession...), I'm able to really utilize the data that I create with the assessments that I give, either formative or summative (or pre-). I noticed that I'm just starting to really dig in and change things up for the better. 

I learned from Wormeli that it's okay to question and discuss our methods of differentiation. I really pondered over his theories and thoughts on mastery. I think this is such a hot-button issue in education right now. Well, at least for ELA. Perhaps other content areas have it easier, but in all honesty, how do we judge mastery in English class?! I know we've talked about this in previous discussions, but I liked seeing it alongside the idea of differentiation. Whew---mind blown, I'm totally scattered now. Is mastery different for each student out there? And where do standardized tests fit in? 

Annnnnnnnd now I'm having English teacher anxiety. It's a good time to pause and grade some essays, right?

Preassessment Data: Grammar Unit

Thankful for the Peace and Balance (*see last sentence)

I have been so lucky this semester...I get to read and comment on 40 student reading journals that are shared with me via Google Drive. My old self would find this daunting; frustrating, even. You mean...I have to log on throughout the week and comment on every single one...and then GRADE them? Put the grade into a grade sheet?!  Ok and let me admit to something. That "old self" was about three weeks ago and one day after I assigned this project. I suddenly wondered what I got myself into. I thought that this would put more onus on the kids--they could read and do some analysis and we could do a cool debate about the stuff they read. I loved the choices they made; all the books were controversial, hot in topic, and culturally popular. So when I sat down to start reading those 40 shared documents, I felt defeated: where did my enthusiasm go? I probably heaved a sigh at that point...and started in. But something happened shortly thereafter. I really, really, really started to enjoy them. (Not all of them......such is life!) But take a look at the response below; the student's novel is Of Mice and Men. (My question is right after the number "2" then his response is after) 

I loved reading the complexity here. It's simple yet gives me so much insight as to how the student feels about the book. At the same time, I feel so connected because I loved reading this book. I like being able to get into the minds of readers; I think back to the W-RN that we analyzed a few weeks ago. It's such a great way to get personal insight. 

And this week, I really started to take that to the level of my own thoughts and how I will give constructive, thoughtful, caring feedback. And then from that, I started asking myself how I was grading these pieces of writing? As you can see from my comment, I gave this student 20 out of 20. Using theories from this week's readings, I have started now to think more about how I incorporated behavior AND content knowledge into the grading. I have students who turn these journals in late and I immediately take off two points per day. Moving on from just these journals, the readings also made me think about other bigger assignments in different classes...I have students who didn't turn in a huge college research presentation yet. It was due in late January!!!!!!!! (argh.)  But one tried to turn it in to me Monday. Um. How do I keep my frustration out of that grading? I feel like that's a combination of the Ferriter piece AND the Namaste piece. I have to try to remain peaceful and thankful but at the same time having some sort of balance showing that the behavior displayed here is NOT acceptable, but at the same time, he did the work! Ack. ..............Upon further reflection, I am just so very thankful to have the Namaste piece this week. I feel like it was a nice, relaxing way to try to find peace and balance while reading other pieces about creating grading balance. (How many times can I say "thankful," "peace," and "balance" in one blog posting? Going for the record here! Although, if you give that some deeper analysis, I kind of like that those three key words were floating around in my brain this week. Again: a nice mid-semester mentality to be faced with.) 

Show Your Spirit, Be Bold! (But Watch for Commas.)

This week has made me think a lot about how I grade student writing (obviously...?). I have been bouncing around in my brain on these ideas, and it's like the ping-pong effect:

• I should grade for voice! Forget conventions; that's just disheartening to them!
• Buuuuut wait, so am I just communicating that grammar is pointless? Write however you want as long as your message is good?

and

• Rubrics are the devil when it comes to giving writers feedback! They make us too reliant on form so that we are not focused at all on what the reader is really trying to say! 
• Buuuut wait, so should I scrap all the boxes of my rubrics and just make one that says "Writer got point across well." ??? What does this tell students about all the years of grammar they've encountered? Can we send them to the real world just blatantly disregarding sentence structure and basic conventions?! Eek, that frightens me!

Yup. Ping-ponging here. I know we've talked in our discussions about the idea of striking a balance; of learning to promote our positive notes while adding in constructive criticisms. For me, this rang true while I read Anson's piece with the many different styles of teacher feedback. I think that many if not all of those instances occur for me with each stack of papers I am grading. Maybe one for one paper, two or three for another, you get the idea...but the point is that we can have this idea of what the paper means, but how to we assess with equality then? How do we avoid subjectivity and give each student a fair shake? Or is that even possible? Is it right? 

I recently started grading my 87 personal statements. I picked up the first one. Oh, good! I worked with John* a lot on this. I can't wait to read his story!  (reading) Great intro! I like how unique it is. Sets me up for the rest of the story! (reading) Gah. Oh dear. 

 Let's just say it was one where I flipped through the pages thrice before burying it in the stack. Fragments everywhere...ideas just recklessly splatted into paragraphs...a random one-sentence paragraph about how he's a team player...oh dear. This saddened me because he had a great story to tell! I knew this because during our peer conference, he talked it out with me and he decided he really wanted to explain how sports had changed his life. "Awesome," I told him. "Show me, don't just tell me." I even gave him an example from a previous student who did something very similar. But something, so it seems, is lacking when it comes to making that mental story (which was very interesting, I might add) translate into sensible, meaningful sentences. He's a great student--steadfast, caring, sincere, and funny. So how the heck did this paper happen? 

That right there is why I can't just assess for the story. Because now I'm being head-over-heels subjective if I decide to grade solely upon that. We talked and he told it to me, so how can I possibly leave out that knowledge when I'm assessing for a score? And can I send him off to college with him thinking it's ok to produce fragmented sentences and thoughts as long as you tell the prof your story first? (Apologies for cynicism there...but you get my point) No, this just won't do. I have to teach him (and all of them), but really, really teach them that voice is important, but if you can't make your story clear, sensible, transitional, narrative, descriptive, and well-worded, then the voice can't be heard. It's like when you watch two versions of a movie: the old one and the remake. Same basic tale, but somehow one is always better than the other. The old version of The Great Gatsby loses something for me; I didn't ever see the spark between Daisy and Jay like I do in the Leonardio DiCaprio version. As in, holy hell, that "thing" between them is beyond words and moves me to tears in many scenes. That's the difference. HOW we get there...HOW we portray the story is half, if not more than half, the battle. JK Rowling could have written a 100-page book about an unfortunate kid who realized his courage and became a hero; she could have written about all seven years at Hogwarts in those 100 pages; she could have said things like, "Harry killed Voldemort." But instead (and luckily for us), wrote this:

                   Harry Potter: "I know things you don't know, Tom Riddle. I know lots of important                              things that you don't. Want to hear some, before you make another big mistake?
                   Voldemort: "Is it love again? Dumbledore's favorite solution; love, which he claimed                          conquered death [...]? So what will stop you dying now when I strike? [...] If it is not                          love that will save you this time, you must believe that you have magic that I do not, or                        else a weapon more powerful than mine?"
                   Harry Potter: "I believe both."            

                         (Harry and Voldemort face off in the Great Hall in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

And without Rowling's (and all the other authors out there in the universe) keen attention to structure and word choice and her editors' focus on correct conventions and usage, I probably wouldn't be sitting here right now, typing this in my "School of Witchcraft and Wizardry" shirt I purchased at Universal Studios' Harry Potter World Gift Shop, now would I? 

Alas, I feel a little cheated and cheap coming off of this week, after all of the insightful, though-provoking chock-full resources we encountered and scoured, as I concluded thereof that I just feel like we need students to realize that it's a battle of balance. You can't have the amazing voice...that spark...that "something" without also formulating sentences of grammatical awareness. But that's not everything. At all. Good news: grammar can be fixed! So tell your stories, students! Fear not the grammar queen--go forth in your tales! Show me your spirit! Be bold, be unafraid! But...and there has to be a "but," at what point is voice lost because of missing conventional accuracy?