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culling conversations

I kid you not.

3/29/2021

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Yesterday marked the first Sunday of spring break around here for teachers and students. On a typical Sunday, I'm finalizing my lesson plans for Monday--making notes--thinking about how everything will fit together for the week--beginning to order ideas and activities and time slot allotments. Transitions, music choices, students, personalities, extra handouts, extra guidance for those who will need it, extra pushes for those, extra extensions for those--you see where I'm going with this? Oh, and at about 5 p.m., the ultimate feeling, right? How can I extend the weekend? It's not just the scholars. We love our classroom communities, but let's be real about it. 

Today, though, I am  thinking about my freshman. It is the beginning of fourth quarter around here, and I Kid you N O T <-- (litotes), I have been asked by students to teach them about commas and syntax.

How are we supposed to know this? I have heard it from behind my back--sometimes in a whisper, or How do they expect us to know where to put a comma? or now and again from far corners of the room where students are working with a partner: How do they expect us to know this when they haven't taught us? They pretend to, but they haven't. Sometimes these messages are much louder--bolder--S  H  O  U  T  E  D     a  c  r  o  s  s   the room a little louder than it should be but it doesn't matter because it is just before break and we are all so excited and we will be back soon anyway and we are freshmen and Ms. Nelson has promised to put something together for us for when we return that will help us think differently about how we might go about using commas and other syntactic patterns to our advantage.

I kid you not. There was excitement. Before break. About these things.
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amidst MUCH change, some things are constant.

9/7/2020

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Well, the school year has certainly not begun in the way that we had hoped. At least this is the situation for me. Something that has not changed, however, is the fact that students need to learn to read, write, speak, listen, and think critically.

With that in mind, my ninth grade students and I began talking last week about the difference between Dairy Queen ice cream and Culver's custard. Besides the obvious difference--eggs, and a TON of calories--we talked about density, viscosity, and other important characteristics. Stephen King explicates his airy analogy in his On Writing as well. I have added to it because our school happens to be directly down the block from a  Culver's.

I handed out my Level One Critical Reading Annotation rubric to my students this past week and began discussing the important shift to think about in terms of reading:  that shift from reading for fun--where we are so engrossed in story, perhaps, that we cannot read fast enough to the idea that we begin reading on several levels at the same time and begin to take longer to process those different levels of information.

I could tell that a few of my students were a little bummed when I mentioned "extra time." But some students were actually pretty excited when they heard that they were going to start understanding deeper meaning and different levels of text. Other students shot me quizzical glances above their masks. (I'm hoping those looks mean they want to trust me.) I intend to give them more support this next week. I intend to let them know that this is all going to be just fine. We've got this!
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Holistic Essay evaluation vs. checking the boxes

8/16/2020

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With AP’s changes to Language & Composition this last fall and to the rubrics, I've decided to GO BACK to my old faithful: my 1-9. HOLISTIC and student-friendly rubrics (that correlated to 100-, 50-, and 25-point scales already, which made the conversion to the new CER format SO easy to begin with) and have already saved my ESSAY EVALUATION SANITY each year! Those rubrics were both student-friendly and teacher-friendly and use skills-based language that allow everyone to focus on . . . wait for it: WRITING.

I also used those rubrics in conjunction with my essay evaluation comment sheets to lighten the ink that I put on student papers, to continue to give specific and effective feedback, and to shorten the response time for that feedback. And when it came time to REALLY DIG IN with students and ANALYZE writing, we got down and dirty with our ROUND-ROBIN READING EVALUATION (nearly ready for release)!! Yes. I know. It is all so powerful.

Students would come to class EARLY. Their eyes would scan the board. A quick visual check of each items on the list, and papers came flinging out of folders, binders, backpacks. Chromebooks were unplugged, rebooted, and electronic handouts were accessed. The typical excitement ensued over color bursts of sticky notes and highlighters and pens. Doodling, color, putting marks on paper, and appreciating the very texture of pen and ink on a surface in addition to the messages conveyed along with the style conveyed through writing . . . mmmmmmmmmm . . .mmmmm. We were huuuu--uuuu--uunggrrryyy.  
  • Appropriate assignment rubric
  • Holistic or new CER (or both) or student evaluation checklist handouts
  • Vary Your Verbs & Sentence Structure & Theme and Thematic Category handout
  • AP Essay, Synthesis, Language (Rhetorical) Analysis, Argument Structure Strategy handout
  • Primary Rhetorical Features & Effects if applicable
  • Appropriate essay Evaluation Comment Sheet handouts (for synthesis, argument, or language analysis) because students should be working towards becoming independent and critical evaluators of their own and others’ writing as well
  • Prompt or writing assignment 
  • Two (or more) pieces of writing (distributed later)
  • Sticky notes (if necessary)
  • Multiple pen colors (No student within the small group should have the same color.)

                         This year, all of that changes.

                         Too many papers.

                         NO problem.
                         ​
                         We'll go electronic.

                         Rubrics.

                         UGH! 

                         No.

                         This year I will not attempt to decode new rubrics with students. This year . . .  

                         So this year,  I am going to quit worrying about the darn style point.

                         ​If we actually teach writing, then students learn to write.

I have taught AP Language for 18 years now, seventeen of which I have used some form of my holistic rubrics found free this week on the ATELIER page, by the way. And for this year, at least, THIS is the language--the description--I will continue to use with my students.

I expect there will be a place for AP's new rubrics in the mix somewhere; however, there's already TOO much. And students need skills. And I want to ensure that development. 

Don't forget to hop on over to the ATELIER to download your free copy! And definitely click and share some snaps of this rubric in action! Or share some comments below! I would really like to know how this works out for you and how you've chosen to use it with your students! You might even want to cruise over to COLLABORATE & CREATE in the ATELIER to start working on some new things together! 

We'll talk soon!
Dea

    What are you planning to use for rubrics in AP Language this year?

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