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Jan 31

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When Rubrics Reign is it Time for a Coup?

By Mary Buckelew

41G46TubLhL._SS500_“Rubrics make powerful promises. They promise to save time. They promise to boil a messy process down to four to six rows of nice neat, organized little boxes. Who can resist their wiles? They seduce us with their appearance of simplicity and objectivity and then secure their place in our repertoire of assessment techniques with their claim to help us to clarify our goals and guide students through the difficult and complex task of writing” (2). Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment (2007), by Maja Wilson

How many points is this assignment worth? How many lines do I need to write? How many pages? Where’s the rubric? Why did I get a 3 in organization? Why didn’t I get full credit? How do I get an A?

Students enter my college freshman writing classes with the above litany of questions, sometimes spoken, sometimes unspoken, but ever present. These questions are as natural as breathing and begin early in students’ K-12 school careers. Read more

Jan 24

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From the Classroom: Using Listicles for Literary Analysis

This month’s From the Classroom post comes from Tricia Ebarvia, PAWLP Fellow and high school English teacher. If you feel inspired after reading Tricia’s post, please comment below and also consider sharing your own favorite lesson here on the blog. Click here to learn more.

GRADE / SUBJECT

Grade 9, World Literature

LENGTH

1-2 class periods

PURPOSE

Whenever my students and I come to the end of any novel study, I’ve always struggled with finding that perfect and elusive “closing” activity—the lesson that can somehow do justice to our novel study before we move on to the next text. While we often do some sort of writing that helps students synthesize their ideas, I don’t think that we always have to write the traditional literary analysis paper in order to engage students in higher level thinking.

In recent years, I’ve shifted my reading and writing practices to try to be as authentic as possible. Whenever I revisit my approach to a text, I ask myself: How authentic is the learning we’re doing? In what ways is the work we do in class work that’s done only in school or work that reflects the type of reading, writing, and thinking that’s out in the world, beyond our classrooms?  Read more

Jan 10

Tools of the Trade: Kindness in our Digital and Physical Spaces

Rita Sorrentino

R.J. Palacio’s award-winning children’s novel Wonder and the recent major motion picture of the same name shed light on tender topics for the tween-targeted audience. In the book and movie, kindness, acceptance and friendship triumph over bullying, exclusion and peer pressure. Readers/viewers of all ages can undoubtedly connect with feelings and emotions of the characters in identifying empathy as an important and vital skill for social and emotional growth.

As we begin this New Year, perhaps a companion book, 365 Days of Wonder: Mr. Browne’s Book of Precepts offers us an alternative to traditional resolutions, that for the most part, decrease significantly as the months of the New Year unfold. Read more

Jan 3

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Teacher-to-Teacher: Creating a Questioning Classroom Environment By Janice Ewing

In several posts on this site, bloggers have shared ideas for fostering positive teacher inquiry and for sparking student inquiry. As we welcome the new year, I invite you to explore a related question: what strategies can help us to nurture our questioning or inquiry stance as teachers, and how can we extend this stance to our students? Here are some ideas to consider, as we return to our classroom:

lake-430508_640.jpeg Read more