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As teachers, we are constantly in a position of having a double consciousness. When I see an event happen, I know I need to do two things: to process it myself and to help the young people process it. I spent Wednesday gripped by that knowledge.
This double consciousness is always a challenge, and particularly so when the events we’re witnessing are scary — as was Wednesday’s insurrection in the U.S. Capitol.
I’ve spent years working with young people and teachers, and recently became the senior program and impact director atGeneration Citizen— a nonprofit devoted to “action civics.” Our curriculum gives students the tools to choose an issue they care about. Then we teach them about the policies and governmental structure behind that issue so they can use their voices and actions to make change.
Darcy RichieCourtesy photo
Through our program, students learn about who holds influence and power in government. They talk to community members. They engage with guest speakers, so that students and policy leaders can learn from one another.
In a country where young people rarely have a seat at the table, Generation Citizen students have influenced local government decisions on critical issues. Of course, there are times when our students don’t succeed in reaching, or persuading, their local leaders. But in those instances, they walk away with a deepened awareness of the power dynamics that makes systemic change so hard. It’s a peek behind the curtain, a way to show students what government really is and how it works.
The behavior by the mob at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday felt like an illustration of all of the opposite impulses. In its wake, teachers could use the insurrection to illustrate for young people how those strategies — violence, for one, as well as ignoring the legitimate processes of our government — ultimately didn’t work.
This is also a moment to elevate facts and emphasize critical thinking, specifically:
Teachers can encourage students to ask themselves: What is my opinion? Why do I believe that? What are the facts and details that support or dispute what I think?
This is also an opportunity for teachers to bring up past instances of white rage, such as the attacks on students during school desegregation or the white supremacist marches in Charlottesville, Virginia. Educators can discuss with students the unresolved and enduring legacy of systemic racism in the United States, going back centuries — long before the Civil War.
Relevant recent comparisons for students abound, especially given the responses to the racial justice protests following the police killing of George Floyd. Students can look at how people in power labeled those events. How did those in elected office and in the media describe those participating? Use news articles to compare that to the events at the Capitol. How many called it “a protest”? How many called it “an insurrection”? How many called it “activism”? Encourage them to ask themselves: What do I believe Wednesday represented? This isn’t about teachers superimposing their opinions, but about letting young people come to fact-based conclusions.
The trouble is that when events like this happen, we almost gaslight students. We say or imply that the response of the police is separate from their beliefs. But we can actuallyseethe police response was incredibly different between what happened Wednesday and what happened during the Floyd protests. Young people see the difference, too. And so as a teacher, having the ability to name the differences you see, and saying, “Yes, the police response was different,” is vital.
This is also an opportunity for teachers to learn alongside students. I might tell them that I didn’t realize there was only one other time in history that the Capitol has been taken over, and that was in the 1800s. Let’s research that. What were the circumstances in the 1800s? Do they seem different than the circumstances now? Let’s look at the images. I’m noticing the images from that time in the past are images of pain and seriousness. Now, I’m seeing pictures of people laughing, carrying a podium, putting their feet up on desks that belong to members of Congress. Let’s craft a narrative from these images. I’m not telling you how you should think; I’m facilitating learning and learning alongside you.
This is also a moment to partner with families. I might let families know that I want to open space for young people in my class, and ask them: What are things you want them to discuss? This can be hard to do, but the moment presents an opportunity for relationship-building between families and teachers.
It is also important for teachers to give themselves time to process what has happened. During the George Floyd protests, we at Generation Citizen jumped into action, figuring out what resources we could share with teachers. And at some point, somebody on my staff messaged me asking, “Are you OK?” As a Black person, a Black leader, a Black educator, who was absorbing these images, I wasn’t ok. I needed to take space to process that, too.
Teachers: I wish the world would recognize how muchpressure is on your shoulders. Young people are asking and thinking about these critical questions while teachers are also trying to teach math. It’s a lot, but the space you open for students can be transformative. Thank you.
This is also a chance for educators to share their own truths. The author Bettina Love writes that being a person of color and being a young person of color today is a civic action. As a Black educator, I believe that.
Darcy Richie is the Senior Director of Program and Impact at Generation Citizen.
Larry Ferlazzo is an English and social studies teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif.
(This is the third post in a five-part series.)
The new question-of-the-week is:
How do you get students to want to revise their writing?
In Part One, Melissa Butler, Jeremy Hyler, Jenny D. Vo, and Mary Beth Nicklaus shared their recommendations. All four were guests on my 10-minute BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.
Today, Alexis Wiggins, Keisha Rembert, Alicia Kempin, Sara Holbrook, and Michael Salinger contribute their ideas.
In Part One, Melissa Butler, Jeremy Hyler, Jenny D. Vo, and Mary Beth Nicklaus shared their recommendations. All four were guests on my 10-minute BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.
How do you get students to want to revise their writing?
That
is the $64,000 question. For much of my career, I’ve prided myself on
assigning engaging writing assignments that students will want to write
and revise with enthusiasm. At least that is what I’ve told myself. But
is enthusiasm the same thing as making all the students revise? Most
people would say it is not.
Years ago, I tried my hand at something very different, something
that aimed for enthusiastic, student-driven revision. I was inspired by
an idea I got from my father, education reformer Grant Wiggins, who
referenced a university professor that never gave grades on his writing
rubrics but instead assigned one of two categories: “Publishable” and
“Not Yet Publishable.”
I knew for high school students, I would
need more detail and scaffolding to help them make sense of a new kind
of assessment and feedback, so I built a more comprehensive rubric and
added a third column called “Revisable.” I told my students that
“Publishable” was A work, “Revisable” was anywhere between a B+ and a
D-, and “Redo” had just completely missed the mark because the
assignment had not yet been fulfilled. I allowed my students to revise
their papers as many times as they wanted to until they reached
“Publishable” status and was fascinated with the results. My students
largely worked their tails off to eventually move from the “Revisable”
column to the “Publishable” column. The downside? It was killing me.
I couldn’t handle the volume of revisions I was confronted with and
the amount of comments I had to write out on every single draft
submitted to provide adequate feedback to help students revise and
improve. As a result, I abandoned the practice after one year.
But
a decade has passed since then, and I have spent much of those 10 years
working on developing assessment criteria and rubrics at the schools.
In recent years, I’ve suspected that with more targeted work on
standards-based rubrics, this revision system could be more manageable
and highly beneficial to students.
Instead of spending hours
writing out comments or correcting student errors, the rubrics
themselves are designed backwards from the end goal: persuasive,
eloquent use of language and argument. With the specific criteria
spelled out clearly on the rubrics, I only have to check the category it
falls into under each standard (Publishable, Revisable, and Redo) and
leave a quick note as to what the student can do to revise and
strengthen that criterion if not yet Publishable.
I might add
some additional marks on the paper itself, but these are now minimal
thanks to the targeted rubrics. I experimented this past year with my
senior Film and Composition class, a yearlong English course that I
teach by myself and found my grading time was greatly reduced, even as
the volume of submissions increased.
The rubric
I designed is detailed and specific to my class—it may not be the right
rubric or standards for you—but I believe the principles behind it can
be applied successfully to other classes and age groups.
The key idea here in my “Wiggins Assessment
Method” is that students never receive a grade on any assignments; they
only ever get “Publishable,” “Revisable,” or “Redo” on their rubrics,
and at the end of their semester, their grade is determined by a
breakdown of how many assessments are in each of those categories (these
details are spelled out on the back of the rubric linked above). They
can revise as many times as they would like to before a clearly
communicated due date near the end of each semester. For example, if
they have three publishable and two revisable assignments by the end of
the semester, their grade is an A-. If they want to do better, they keep
revising up until the final deadline before the semester’s end.
The
results with this standards-based rubric and more targeted feedback
process? The best system I have ever experienced in my 20-year career,
hands down.
I used to dread grading papers. Dread, loathe, and
avoid. Now, with such a detailed, pared-down rubric, my grading time has
been cut in half. The rubric does most of the work for me, and office
hours take care of the rest.
The reason I most dreaded grading
before wasn’t so much the time commitment as the fear of how a student
would respond emotionally to the grade I gave them. With my new
assessment method, there are no more fraught emotions because there are
no grades on individual assignments. We just look at the work together
and discuss what changes are necessary to get the work “Publishable.”
Sometimes students are satisfied with their progress and decide to stop
revising before the assessment is “Publishable,” allowing them to better
own their process and choose the final semester grade they are
comfortable with.
Students have reported nearly unanimously in
surveys that they have improved, wanted to revise their work, and paid
attention to teacher feedback more than ever with this new system.
Nineteen out of 20 of my students said this was the best style of
assessment they had ever experienced and that all teachers should use
it. They note that it allows them to be in control of their grades,
their revision process, and their learning overall. Repeatedly, students
commented on how this system reduced their stress level while
increasing their learning and growth.
I’m a convert; I’ll never go
back to teaching Film any other way, and I hope to try this method with
other age groups soon. I can honestly say that with this method, I
actually look forward to grading my students’ papers, and they are
motivated to keep improving their writing entirely on their own.
Win-win.
My summary: “I no longer give grades on student writing assignments, and it’s the best thing ever!”
“We revise pieces of my work together”
Keisha Rembert is a passionate learner and fierce equity advocate.
She was an award winning middle school ELA and United States History
teacher who now instructs preservice teachers. She hopes to change our
world one student at a time. Twitter ID: @klrembert:
Students
often tell me that writing is overwhelming for them. When I dig a bit
deeper to understand, they usually say, in not these exact words but
close enough, writing and revision is less about expression and more
about judgment: You did not include a comma here, check your word choice
there. The complexities of writing are so vast (grammar, semantics,
spelling, organization, etc.) for them that it is exhausting, and they
just want the process to be done.
My retort is that I want to free
them from their fears of judgment and have them experience the joys of
revision. We revise pieces of my work together and talk about it. We
acknowledge that mistakes are opportunities. I share that the reality is
we rarely get things entirely right the first time. Revision is where
we find the golden parts of our voice and the opportunity to clarify and
expand on those golden pieces.
Revision is also a communal
process. This, I think inspires students to want to make it better.
After reading the work of a friend, they often discover new thoughts and
ideas to make their piece better. Revision in my classes is about
community. It is talking out ideas with others and sharing information
which is the heart of good writing and the revision process. Getting
students to see that writing is messy, and perfection is the enemy of
progress especially when it comes to writing, helps them realize their
messiness if appreciated and something to embrace. It relieves the
pressure of having to do it right, always.
A growth mindset
Alicia Kempin is a fourth-grade teacher at The Windward School,
a preeminent independent school in New York which provides a proven
instructional program to children with language-based learning
disabilities. She enjoys sharing her love of reading, writing, and math
with her students:
As a teacher of students with language-based learning challenges,
it’s often difficult to get children to write, let alone revise their
writing! There are, however, several strategies I use to encourage the
revising and editing process with my students.
I have found that
one of the most effective ways to demonstrate the importance of revising
and editing to my students is by completing unelaborated paragraphs
together. This is an engaging writing activity in which I purposely
prepare a terribly written paragraph on a topic with which the children
are familiar. (Of course, I do not tell them that I intentionally wrote a
bad paragraph; that’s part of the fun!) I display this awful paragraph
on the white board, read it to the students, and ask them what they
think. Inevitably, these honest children will tell me it’s horrible. So,
I tell the children that the goal today is to improve my writing by
revising and editing it. (They love that they get to improve MY
writing!) We do several of these activities together as a class and use a
revising and editing checklist that prompts them to use particular
writing strategies. For example, I might say “Improve the topic sentence
by adding an appositive” or “Answer the question words when and why to
expand the sentence.”
After we complete all the revising suggestions,
we read the original paragraph once more, followed by the revised
paragraph—and what a difference! The children not only see the side by
side comparison of the first paragraph compared to the revised
paragraph, but they also hear the difference. I believe that hearing the
original and revised paragraphs really helps the children to
internalize how a paragraph can be improved. These unelaborated
paragraphs can then be followed with children writing paragraphs of
their own with some teacher directed revising goals which are more
general such as “Improve topic sentence” or “Expand detail sentence
two.” Ultimately, the hope would be to have the students eventually
internalize these strategies and not even need revising goals.
Another
strategy I use to encourage revising is to build enthusiasm for
vocabulary. I do this throughout our reading and writing lessons by
directly teaching vocabulary words and by modeling more advanced
vocabulary in my oral language. For example, if we are discussing a book
in which a character is sad, I might ask, “What is another adjective we
can use to describe how that character is feeling?” I would try to
elicit the words heartbroken, devastated, crushed, etc. That translates
into our writing process when the children have completed their rough
drafts, and I ask them to look for words that might have “juicier or
more flavorful” synonyms. We work to elevate vocabulary throughout the
year and challenge each other to use more interesting words. Fourth
graders really seem to love words like flabbergasted and astonished!
When the children know and use these words regularly, it’s easier for
them to revise their writing and look for words they can “elevate.”
Perhaps
the most meaningful strategy I use with my fourth graders is to model
and encourage a growth mindset about writing and revising. I start by
sharing some writing that I have completed and then show them the pages
and pages of revisions that I made in order to get there. It is
important for children to see that good writers look for ways to improve
their writing. This is also when I tell the class a secret: that an
eraser is an opportunity to improve—not just a tool to “fix mistakes.”
Embracing a growth mindset in the classroom allows children to feel safe
in taking chances, and it is a natural intrinsic motivator. I have
found that what the children want more than anything is to take
ownership of their own improvement. And let me tell you something—the
children beam with pride when they see the results of their effort!
Encouraging
a love of writing and revising takes an extraordinary amount of work
and enthusiasm on the teacher’s part. By allowing children to view
writing as a fun, engaging process, rather than as a laborious product,
they become motivated to grow and improve as writers.
Instead of “drafts,” call them “versions”
Sara Holbrook is a novelist, poet, and educator with a multitude
of books for both teachers and students under her belt, including The
Enemy: Detroit, 1954, which won the 2018 Jane Addams Children’s Book
Award.
Michael Salinger is a poet, performer, and advocate of poetry and performance in education.
Sara
Holbrook is a novelist, poet, and educator with a multitude of books
for both teachers and students under her belt, including The Enemy:
Detroit, 1954, which won the 2018 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award.
Michael Salinger is a poet, performer, and advocate of poetry and performance in education.
Together,
they co-founded and direct Outspoken Literacy Consulting, an
organization that runs programs to help K–12 students in the United
States and around the world develop writing, public speaking, and
comprehension strategies:
Labels matter. The first thing we do is ask
every writer to label every new piece of writing “Version 1.” This makes
it clear from the beginning that this is an embryonic document. We use
the word “draft” as a verb. There are no “first drafts” in our writing
workshops because a first draft just sounds like a throw away. Instead,
we take Version 1 and begin to tinker with it. Change a sentence? Add an
adjective? Writers are on Version 2, and the process continues.
We begin very simply and then increase complexity with subsequent revisions. A writing lesson might go like this:
Think of a simile comparison regarding XYZ. (This is Version 1.)
Use that to develop a more complete description of your subject matter. (This is Version 2.)
Can you add some sensory terms to bring the reader into the scene? (This is Version 3.)
Bring a character into the situation. What would that character say? (This is Version 4.)
How
did we come up with this approach? This is how we write. We are both
trade book authors and writers of professional development books. Before
that, we were both business writers—Michael was an engineer for 23
years and Sara was in public relations. We deconstructed our writing
practice and realized a couple important things:
We never
start at the beginning of a long piece of writing, develop a story arc
according to some predetermined pattern, and then use a rubric to make
it right.
All writing is creative. Any time we begin with a blank page and put words on it, it is a creative process.
When
we visit schools, we show teachers how they can use simple frameworks
to help students jump start their writing by starting with Version 1. We
show them how we guide students through the next couple versions.
Writers will discard the framework as the writing takes off on its own,
kind of like taking off the jumper cables after the car is running.
Kids
intuitively get it. We compare the writing process to playing a video
game or learning a sport; people start with simple moves and level up.
Students begin to internalize the reality that revision is incremental
and writing is always an evolving process. We’ve found that the teachers
we work with are excited by this writing process, and even relieved.
Start simple and add complexity is a recipe for success as students
adopt an “I can do that,” attitude.
We actually have kids bragging,
“I’m on Version 6!”
“Oh, yeah? I’m on Version 13!”
But one of
our favorite lines to hear from kids is, “Oh, don’t worry, just put it
down. It’s only Version 1.” We reinforce that no one expects the first
version to be perfect, it’s just something to build on. And then we
offer choices on how to take that next step.
We also invite
students to share aloud throughout the writing process. By reading
aloud, Version 1 and Version 2, partnering, or working with a mini
writers’ group, students are able to see and hear their own progress as
writers. We’ll ask, “Which version is working better for you?” Then
we’ll let the writer explain what made the revised version better and
where they want to take it next.
By building revision into the
beginning of the writing process rather than leaving it until end,
students are eager to add complexity and clarity to their writing.
Thanks to Alexis, Keisha, Alicia, Sara and Michael for their contributions!
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The
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we move beyond test scores to a more holistic picture of students and
school
The
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in the education space—and beyond—worry about lost learning. One way to
know what has been lost is through testing, but is it reasonable
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