My Work
Choosing the "Right" Writing
Helping students determine the appropriate style for their audience and purpose
Infographic created using Canva
Context:
I noticed that students in my classroom were struggling with shifting their writing styles based on their audience and purpose. They were frequently using slang in polished essays or using beautifully crafted creative writing pieces as half of the answer for an analytical prompt detracting from what is meant to be a "no-fluff" answer.
The Fix:
Create an infographic and mini lesson detailing the differences between formal and informal writing.
Impact
Connecting the idea of formal writing to formal clothing was instantly relatable to every student. Students even began to use the analogy as part of the peer review process and extended it by talking about different fashion styles (preppy, grunge, hipster, etc.) as different writing styles and were able to acknowledge too that just because an author's style wasn't to their taste, that didn't make it bad, in the same way that they can admire an outfit even if they would never wear it. Implementing this analogy reduced slang in formal writing by 80% and 60% of students regularly referenced their chart at the start of each writing assignment.
Visualizing Thematic Statements
Tracking a protagonist's journey to figure out an author's message
Thematic Statement Organizer Arch.pdfContext:
When students are required to figure out the theme of a text, they often react as if they you've just asked them to figure out a way to end gravity citing that it's impossible to know what an author is trying to say. A big part of this reaction is because figuring out an author's message requires them to practice close reading skills and think about how symbols, conflict, and the protagonist's journey all work together.
The Fix:
Create a graphic organizer to help students gather everything they need in one place. The first time, we'd draw the organizer on the board together as a class in the order the steps should be completed to minimize any confusion. However, drawing can be time consuming, so pre-made handouts would be available for students to use in the future if they didn't want to design their own (which they were highly encouraged to do!).
Impact:
Students immediately began improving in their ability to identify and articulate the author's message as demonstrated through increasiningly complex and nuanced thematic statements. While initially going over the organizer, students commented on how the steps were symbols or sometimes puns themselves (such as a stone arch for the "overarching conflict") indicating a stronger grasp of the concept. After implementing the organizer, by the end of the year, students were achieving 90% higher on assessments than students in previous years on the same assessments who had not used the visual.
Planning & Progress
Helping people track deadlines and deliverables
Context:
In AP Seminar, students are expected to undertake large research projects both as individuals and within groups. For one of the projects, groups of 3-4 students work together to come up with a research question, individually research a different lens of the issue (e.g. economic, social, historic), write a research paper, combine their information into a cohesive argument, and present a compelling group presentation. All of this must be accomplished without direct feedback from any adult and within a strict timeline. While many students tackled the challenge of reading and writing research papers without major issue, almost all struggled with time management and meeting deadlines (although if we're being honest, this is a difficult skill many adults struggle with too!).
The Fix:
Create a team board that visually displays their progress which they update every class period. Although they always had access to the list of due dates and graphic organizers to help them with their research, keeping track of their progress as a team and as individuals helps to keep them all on the same page minimizing conflict and enabling groups to address problems at the first sign of an issue.
Impact:
Team members always knew what they had to do, in what order, and who was struggling to keep up and it was easy for me to check at a glance which groups would require intervention. If all sticky-notes of one color (which represented one group member) were in the "To-Do' column, they were in need of support. Incorporating the routine that students had to use the first and last 10 minutes of every class to update the chart and check in with each other and me, lead to less conflict and greater collaboration. Weekly student feedback surveys overwhelming revealed that implementing this chart was the most useful resource for their greatest area of weakness-- staying on task and managing their time.
Understanding Point of View and Perspective
How is the story being told and who is telling the story
Context: Frequently, people use point of view and perspective interchangeably although they are different when referring to literature. This caused lots of confusion when asking students to identify things like the point of view in The Hunger Games is 1st person and the perspective is Katniss. Additionally, students struggled with recognizing that narration is the only piece that matters when determining point of view and that dialogue should be ignored.
The fix: Create a series of active reading steps to help students figure out point of view and perspective. Include separate blanks to help students recongize that they are two different pieces in discussing the purpose behind an author's choice of narrator(s).
Impact: Giving students concrete steps to follow that include visual reminders of the important information, resulted in 85% of students achieving mastery in identifying point of view and perspective within a week. This reduced the amount of time spent reviewing and practicing terms by 2 full weeks and allowed us to begin analyzing the effect of these choices much sooner on the reliability of narrators and the science behind the way we internalize information written in 1st person.