When I was in high school, swimming was everything. Practice eight times a week, meets on weekends, pictures of Summer Sanders and Pablo Morales taped to the back of my door. My best friends–and every single date I had in high school–were all people I met swimming. I wasn’t Olympic material, but I gave swimming everything I had day after day after day.
Analytical writing is often high stakes. It usually takes the form of an essay… and it’s graded… and the grade is worth a lot. It’s time to lower the stakes.
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Literary analysis often lives entirely in intellectual space. When I talk about analysis, however, I often rely on physical metaphors: put the pieces together, hold a magnifying glass over the text, identify the threads that run through the text.
For my recent unit on The House on Mango Street with 8th graders, I made the abstract visual, particularly the concept of thematic threads. Here’s what I did.
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Here’s my favorite report card comment: Devote more time to editing; learn to be a brutal editor!
I’ve learned, though, that that comment is not enough; I must actively teach students how to edit. For students “editing” can be an amorphous word (Am I proofreading? Am I checking my commas?) and they often don’t know what to do.
When students edit in class, I can both teach specific techniques and answer any questions that arise. Students often can hear the sentences that don’t work, but they don’t yet know how to fix them.
I’ve had success with all of these strategies:
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The longer I’ve taught English, the more dissatisfied I’ve become with traditional methods of “grading” essays. Specifically, I’ve been frustrated by how hard it is for students to decipher all of the visual clutter on one page. How do students decide what’s important?
A solution: color blocking.
Students walk into the classroom with a unique set of writing strengths and weaknesses. For struggling writers especially, improving can feel overwhelming and practically impossible.
One instructional technique has transformed how I teach writing.
So much of teaching writing is hard. Students learn by writing, and oftentimes, that process leaves me with large stacks of essays.
But that’s not the only way to teach students to write.
Recently, I’ve discovered a great tool: the individual student whiteboard.
Here’s how it works: Continue reading →
When I was a student teacher, I remember one veteran teacher saying, “Well, the truth is that some students will never really become good writers. They’re just tone deaf.” As I’ve continued to grow and develop as a teacher of writing, I just don’t buy it.
English is a discussion-based class. I want students to interact with what we read and, ultimately, to craft their own interpretations. The class of my dreams involves discussion, debate, questioning, the great back-and-forth that leaves everyone leaning forward in their seat, their eyes completely alive.
But in almost every class, some students learn to lean back, allowing someone else to grapple with a particular concept or tricky passage. It’s easier, safer to listen. Truth be told, I’m like this too.
Rigorous Lit 