I have a question for all the English teachers out there. What do you think constitutes best practices for teaching writing? I want to get your thoughts before sharing my own.
[tags]writing, education, english, teaching[/tags]
Category Archives: Teaching Writing
Project: Utopia
My students began presenting their utopian (or dystopian?) projects (based on this UbD unit for Brave New World).
First of all, I think it was a fun project. The students worked hard on it, for the most part, but I think I gave them too much time. I noticed they got most of the work done the last two days. I think I was afraid that learning how to use wikis would take them longer than it actually did. Next time, I think I’ll make it a week-long project and leave it at that. Also, I think in the future that I’ll require the students to create wikis. I gave them more options this time, but I really liked the wiki format for constructing this project.
The students gave me permission to share their wikis with you.
- Woman World — a society completely run by and for the benefit of women.
- Utopian Experiment 211 A — a vision of a future run by psychology.
Two more groups will present on Monday when our class meets again.
Image credit: LGagnon.
[tags]utopia, brave new world, dystopia, project, writing, english, education, literature[/tags]
Teaching Grammar
Grammar is a thorny issue in English/language arts. Many teachers, including myself, were probably taught grammar in some isolation from composition. I remember well the old Warriner’s grammar books. Those books have been out of print for some time, but I know many English teachers who kept their old classroom sets. At my school, we actually still use the Warriner’s books in 9th and 10th grade — well, I think we do. My department head said something about ordering grammar books, and I wasn’t sure if she meant no more Warriner’s or in addition to Warriner’s. At any rate, as you can imagine, the books are extremely hard to come by, and as our enrollment increases and students lose or damage books, we will ultimately be forced to abandon the books (unless we already have, that is).
Why do English teachers love Warriner’s so much? It has the best grammar exercises. A movement in teaching English has moved away from teaching grammar in isolation. As with many educational movements, that has meant throwing the baby out with the bathwater. English teachers could be taught to figure out how to teach grammar in context using the grammar text as a tool, especially as the SAT still includes a writing section that is totally based upon the student’s ability to recognize errors, but many books on composition are not structured in a way that makes this easy. They do a rather clumsy job of integrating grammar into composition instruction.
Many schools and indeed some state standards have done away with objectives that explicitly address grammar, and those that remain are somewhat general. My state of Georgia, for instance, has one standard that addresses grammar instruction:
GA ELA9C1: The student demonstrates understanding and control of the rules of the English language, realizing that usage involves the appropriate application of conventions and grammar in both written and spoken formats.
Likewise, NCTE has one standard that addresses grammar, and does so even more obliquely than Georgia’s standard:
NCTE 4: Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g. conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and different purposes.
My students have traditionally had difficulty with grammar, but I think UbD might help with that somewhat. While I agree that it helps students to learn grammar in context of reading and composition, I don’t think supporting exercises hurt in terms of reinforcement. In any case, the 9th grade English course at my school is “Grammar, Composition, and Literature”; it is so titled because the emphasis in the course is placed on those three areas in the order of their appearance in the title. I don’t always find that teaching grammar is fun, but it is part of our curriculum, and after having planned two units using UbD, I can see how I can make it seem more important and relevant to my students.
You can check out the two units (both on mechanical issues) that I have created so far:
Feel free to leave your comments in the Discussion area. You don’t have to be a member of UbD Educators wiki to contribute to discussion, but you do have to be a member to edit and create pages.
[tags]ubd, grammar, english, language arts, composition, commas, apostrophes[/tags]
Plagiarism
I have been grading student essays this morning and just detected plagiarism in one of my students’ essays. It’s not the first time a student has turned in a plagiarized essay to me, and I am sure (sadly) that it won’t be the last. On the one hand, I know this student was sick when the essay was due, but I did offer her more time to complete the essay, and she declined. What is particularly troubling to me is that the essay contains sections entirely copied and pasted from Wikipedia or Answers.com. I find this distressing for many reasons. First of all, I think it is rather insulting to my intelligence that a student believes she can copy text from such well-known websites without my knowledge — indeed, I had provided students with links to the Wikipedia article she copied in order that they might find it a useful source. Second, it bothers me that the student must have believed turning in writing culled from Wikipedia was OK. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; our current culture encourages plagiarism — you can purchase essays online. I find it frustrating that students continue to steal content from the Internet. I imagine they do so because it’s easier than stealing it from a book, but I don’t think they realize how much easier it is to catch them at Internet plagiarism.
I have learned a couple of tricks that help me catch plagiarists. First of all, look for straight quotes as opposed to curly quotes. Straight quotes often indicate copying and pasting from the Internet because web standard displays quotation marks as two small, straight lines, whereas the default font in MS Word, Times New Roman, displays quotation marks as two curly marks. Straight quotes don’t always indicate plagiarism, but they are something to look for if you are suspicious. If you suspect plagiarism, type a sentence or two from the paper word for word into Google search. You should yield a result if the language is identical to that of another site or even if only a few words have been changed (if you don’t put quotes around the sentence). I found my plagiarist using both straight-quote identification and Google search.
What should you do if you catch a plagiarist? It depends upon the nature of the assignment. I give students zeroes. If the assignment is a major assignment, such as a term paper or research paper, I think discipline needs to be taken further. I think students who plagiarize long-term assignments need to have their parents notified and possibly be referred to administration. I didn’t elect to do that with my student. I think the zero will be enough. I think she’s a sweet girl, and I hate that she’s put me in this position. I did try to be understanding about her illness, offering her more time to finish her essay. She declined.
We all make choices. Part of our job as teachers is to help students realize that plagiarism is never the right choice. Even a poorly written essay wouldn’t have received a grade lower than an F (50-59) in my class. I have a hunch she would have earned at least a C if she’d done the work herself.
[tags]plagiarism, education, writing, instruction[/tags]
Rubrics
One last post, and I’m off to bed. I do, after all, have to teach tomorrow. I had a discussion with my principal about rubrics the other day, and today I read an article entitled “Why I Won’t Be Using Rubrics to Respond to Students’ Writing” by Maja Wilson (in English Journal, March 2007 — read it here if you are an EJ subscriber). My only real issue with the article is that Ms. Wilson focuses on personal narrative, which is much harder to look at with an objective rubric. I would have liked to have seen what she would have done with a persuasive essay, expository essay, or literary analysis, where I think more objectivity in the form of “looking for certain things” certainly exists. I do, however, think she has some very good points. I have been a staunch believer in the rubric, and have even written defenses on this very site this year, but my discussion and this article are really making me think. I do think rubrics have helped me become more objective, but I think I have taken the objectivity too far and some of the human element in what my students are writing has not been considered. I have ideas about how I will approach things differently next year. If I had my way, I wouldn’t grade student writing at all, but simply give them feedback so they could improve. School doesn’t work like that, however, and I have to assign grades to written work. Instead of being a tool, my rubrics have become my crutch, and I think I could have given more tangible, valuable feedback this year. I do plan to stick to my resolve about portfolios and typewritten feedback (at least every other essay) for next year. It’s too late for me to collect data and see what sort of quantifiable impact this approach will have on my students, but I will keep you posted.
Maja Wilson is also the author of the Heinemann book Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment.
[tags]rubrics, writing, assessment, Maja Wilson, English Journal[/tags]
The Reflective Teacher
Nope, in this case I’m not talking about my good friend, the very aptly named Reflective Teacher, but myself. I think teachers that do the same thing year after year without thinking about their practices — and then complaining about kids who don’t cooperate like they did in the good old days — really need to think long and hard about why they are even teaching. I will be the first to agree that students do have a responsibility, too, and it is difficult for even a motivated teacher to kindle student interest out of nothing. They do need to bring something to the table. On the other hand, I think it behooves us as teachers to reflect upon our practices regularly and determine where we are doing well and where we might improve.
It never seems as if I have enough time. I have a modified block schedule, but if you break it down, I have my students for 200 minutes a week, barring any interruptions in the schedule. I think I spend too much time doing some things that would be better left outside the class for homework. We read too much together, for one thing. While I do think reading together less is something I am improving, I still say I have room for more improvement. I would need to plot out class discussions in more detail in order to make the best use of that time. I would also need to feel comfortable raising the bar for my students, which I shouldn’t have a problem with — they’re capable of more, and I know it. We also have an under-utilized learning center where students can get additional assistance with coursework.
I would also like to be more diligent about working with portfolios. Organizationally, I find this one hard to maintain. How better, though, to show a student’s genuine progress or lack thereof in writing? In that same vein, at least every other essay I would like to provide students with typed feedback. I only did that once this year. I can type very fast and give really good feedback, but it is time-consuming. However, that’s part of my job as an English teacher, isn’t it?
I think students in my class know they have to read the material. I give frequent quizzes, and students quickly learn that in order to do well, they need to prove to me that they are meeting their reading obligations. I do see some improvement in the writing of my students, particularly those I’ve had for two years. I think have some creative ideas, and I am proud of the positive ways in which Web 2.0 have impacted my teaching.
What I would like to do this summer, provided I have time, is to plot out lessons using Jay McTighe’s theories of backward design — looking at the whole unit and what I want to accomplish — rather than pick and choose assignments. I would like more cohesion in my class. I would like to be at the beginning of May, next year, and feel better about how much I accomplished in the classroom and out.
Turnitin.com Accused of Copyright Infringement
Turnitin.com, the subscription service designed to help teachers root out plagiarism, has been sued by two high school students who believe the service’s archives of submitted work constitutes copyright infringement.
After the McLean school adopted the system, a group of offended students banded together and hired a lawyer to send Turnitin a letter in September 2006. The letter generated a strong response: Turnitin filed for a “declaratory judgment” from a federal judge in California, looking for a ruling that its service was legal. In that case, filed in early December, the company claimed once again that it was protected by the fair use exemption, and that it was actually protectng [sic] student copyrights. “Rather than infringing intellectual property rights, iParadigms is trying to protect copyright interests by students and other authors by preventing plagiarism of the very student papers that Turnitin receives,” the company wrote.
At the beginning of this school year, my department head charged me with checking into adopting Turnitin.com for our school’s use, but we never felt the principal was behind it, so we dropped it. I have to say that their salesperson was really vigorous about signing us on once we contacted her. She didn’t give up for several months!
My students write papers in class on computers, but nothing really prevents them from saving the documents to flash drives or e-mailing them to themselves to work on at home. I think the only way to prevent plagiarism and be 100% sure you have the students’ own work is to require all essays to be handwritten in class. In this day and age, that seems unreasonable and impractical.
[tags]Turnitin.com, plagiarism, copyright, writing instruction, education[/tags]
Paper Company Writing Instruction?
Can anyone remember those little one-page dittos or handouts created by a paper company for high school teachers to share with students? They were pieces written by professional writers (I remember James Dickey and Kurt Vonnegut). The writers shared interesting information about their writing processes and advice for writers. Do you know what paper company it was? Are the handouts still available?
[tags]education, writing instruction, paper company[/tags]
Research Paper
All 10th graders at my school write a literary analysis research paper. When I went to high school, we were required to write one paper in 11th grade on any research topic (believe it or not, my teacher actually let me get away with writing about Led Zeppelin) and one paper in 12th grade on a literary topic (I wrote about symbolism in Robert Frost’s poetry). This is my sixth year teaching students how to write this paper, and I think it was my best. Students worked very hard on their papers this year. They made excellent use of the library.
I know I’m a bit old-school when it comes to this particular project, but students have told me they appreciated it later (if not at the time). First of all, I use note cards. Now I will state categorically that I never used note cards on my papers in college. They seemed to be too much trouble. But two years ago, I wrote a paper like those that would be expected of my students so they could have a model of the process. I used note cards, and I loved them! I could move ideas around so much more easily, and the paper was much easier to organize. Some might argue that this step is superfluous and silly in our modern age of computers, but I found it much more useful in terms of seeing what I was doing than putting notes in a notebook or word processor would have been.
The first thing students must do is choose a topic. I have found it is best (and will avoid much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth) just to give students a list of topics and require them to pick from the list. Otherwise they try to pick topics for which they will find no information. Students should know that a thesis is a statement they are attempting to prove. Therefore, the thesis I used in my 12th grade paper — “Robert Frost uses symbolism in his poetry” — should have received a great big “well, duh” from my teacher (he was really phoning it in right then, as he was close to retirement), but it didn’t. If I had been my teacher, I’d have taken me aside (which would surely have been awkward) and told myself that Frost had to be using symbolism for a reason, and it would be my job to prove that he used it for that reason. What was Frost using symbolism to convey? I make students write and rewrite their thesis until it’s perfect.
I teach students how to take notes on note cards. They must write some sort of title on the top of the card that indicates what the card is about. Before they write notes, they should create a source card. Their first source card is labeled “A” in the corner. The source card should be formatted according to MLA standards (or whatever documentation style your school uses). I tell students to write the library location and call number, so they are not searching fruitlessly for the book if they need it again. When they begin to take notes from the source, they label their cards A1, A2, A3, and so on in the upper right-hand corner so they have a key to which information came from the source. This is important later. If the source is a book, they must put the page numbers on the card. After they have been taking notes for a week or so, they have a general idea of where their paper is going. I ask them to create a work plan (rough outline) with an outline of what they will discuss and an estimation of how long it will be and how many note cards they will need to get there. Students have found this to be helpful, but they should be coached not to see it as set in stone.
Students will need about 50-80 note cards for a five-page paper. This fact will freak them out, but just make sure you give them library time commensurate with their ability to work independently on a project like this, and they will thank you later — if they take fewer notes, they will have to go back and add information. It took me years to figure this out, and I didn’t require enough note cards. This year for the first time I didn’t have a lot of students complaining about not having enough information or having to go back and look up more information.
After the students finish taking notes, they should compose an outline. This is a pain because MS Word does not format outlines properly. You remember: I., A., 1., a., i., etc. Students, however tech savvy they may be, cannot figure out how to work with MS Word’s helpful auto-formatting and still make the outline come out correct, so I just created a template for them. You can download it if you want: RTF, MS Word Template (.dot). If you don’t care that MS Word doesn’t format formal outlines correctly, then you can skip this step and call me anal-retentive. It wouldn’t be the first time I heard it.
I teach students directly how to integrate quotations. If you don’t, what you’ll get is a paper with a string of quotes that are not tightly integrated. I have a great handout for this activity (download). I think once the students see the difference between properly integrated quotes and dropped quotes, they can do a better job integrating quote with their own ideas. My students are doing well with this so far (I’m halfway through the papers).
Their first drafts should be polished. Expect documentation errors, but caution them that they really need to turn in what they consider to be a final draft in terms of grammar and mechanics. They shouldn’t need much help with organization if you gave them good feedback on their outlines, but they might still need help integrating quotes. For the final draft, I require the old large envelope with all pieces inside. Students should implement all changes you suggested on their first draft in their final draft.
Some tips:
- Spread out due dates enough for you to grade without going crazy, but not so much that students lose focus on the project.
- Grade the small things, including note cards and outlines, in such a way that you see fewer mistakes. It doesn’t help students if you just count the cards (or eyeball them!) to see if they met the number required. See if they actually took the notes down correctly. Check to see if their notes from print sources had page numbers. Really look over that outline for problems in organization, and require it to be full-sentence.
- Require every website they want to use to be approved. You can do what you think is best, but I would steer students away from SparkNotes. It goes without saying that essay cheat sites are no good. Wikipedia? Up to you, but I’d say no.
- If your school can afford it, get a subscription to databases such as EBSCO. They have a wealth of information that students won’t be able to find otherwise. If your school can’t afford it, take a trip to your local library and get the research librarian to show you what databases are available to patrons of the library. Do what you can to get students access. They’re that good.
- Gale’s series Novels for Students, Poetry for Students, Short Stories for Students, and Drama for Students are invaluable if you can get to them. They are more accessible than Contemporary Literary Criticism and other similar series.
- Be firm with deadlines. If you don’t, you will go crazy, and your students will not take the deadlines seriously and will not work like you mean it.
- Analogies help. I came up with an analogy to describe this process to my students that they seemed to like. Writing a research paper is like making Jello. Choosing a topic is like choosing a flavor. Creating a thesis is like figuring out what you will do with the Jello — any fruit? fancy molds? those little squares you are supposed to eat with your fingers? Taking notes and formulating a work plan is like assembling your ingredients and getting all the cooking paraphernalia you need. Outlining is combining the ingredients. There isn’t much else you can do after this step, as the Jello hardens fast, so you better make sure you put in all the fruit and use the right mold now. Creating the first draft is like sticking the Jello into the fridge to harden. By the time students get to the final draft, it should be more like enjoying the fruits of hard work — eating the Jello — than discovering you screwed the whole thing up and have to start over. It made sense to the students, anyway.
I was the Research Paper Witch for Purim last year, and I scared everyone:
I had note cards stapled to my cape (you can barely see one in the bottom right of the picture), and I painted “MLA” on my hat in white-out.
Although you may have to get firm with students when you teach them this process, it is a critical skill to learn. All of us have to write research-based papers, no matter what discipline we study in college. I highly recommend Diana Hacker’s A Writer’s Reference for students writing the research paper. My school purchases copies of these books and allows students to keep them, taking these books with them to college. They are excellent. The sixth edition doesn’t seem to be available for pre-order at Amazon yet, but it is coming out this spring. Go ahead and splurge on the plastic comb edition. It seems like such a little thing, but it stays open when you’re writing, and it’s much easier to navigate.
[tags]research paper, teaching, education, writing[/tags]
Piles of Papers
This is my ninth year teaching (tenth, if you count the year I taught pre-K, but for our purposes today, I won’t). I have been caught up on grading once this year. I have yet to figure out how to manage my piles of papers so that I do not constantly have a stack of some sort. Taking work home with me is merely an exercise in moving papers around, as I have three children running around, a cluttered house, and supper to cook. I try to tell myself this is OK, but it sincerely bothers me that it takes me so long to grade papers. I can remember being in the students’ shoes and wanting quick feedback, so I know how they feel when they have to wait a week or so for papers.
Carol Jago has a book called Papers, Papers, Papers: An English Teacher’s Survival Guide. Has anyone read it? Did it help?
My schedule is a modified block schedule. We do subbing in-house. Some days, my schedule is somewhat light, while on other days, I barely sit down even once. I teach fewer than 60 students, but I do a lot of writing. Students generally write an essay for me every three to four weeks. All of my students. I also do other types of writing assessments. Rubrics save my life — my grading goes much more quickly.
I can remember my students doing much less writing when I taught in public school and simply had too many students to make it effective. How much writing do your students do? How do you stay on top of grading compositions?
[tags]grading, assessment, composition, writing[/tags]