One thing I like about the new Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts is the emphasis on looking closely at language choices authors make. NY State Standard #4 requires that students, "Interpret
words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical,
connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices
shape meaning or tone."  Looking closely at language is a huge part of what I love about reading and writing in my own life. Standards themselves, however, don't teach any of this to students, or make it interesting.  That's 

I'm sharing an interesting lesson sequence on economy of language I taught last week, co-planned with learning specialist, Marcia Stiman-Lavian, and which borrowed significantly from a lesson shared by fellow CTQ blogger, Bill Ferriter.  This lesson was a lot of fun, and it really seemed to wake students up to the power and nuance of individual words.  It opened the door to more intensive investigation of the function of specific words--and punctuation--in text. 

Economy of Language--How Much Meaning Can Authors Pack Into a Few Words?

Preparation: For homework the night before, students bring in a photograph that represents something important to them or relates significantly to their lives. 

1. Free-Write first: Using their photograph as inspiration, have students free write for about 5-7 minutes.  Any genre of writing is allowed in free writing. 

2. Read 25 word stories: I got this idea from Bill Ferriter, who offers a lesson and great downloadable materials for it on his blog, The Tempered Radical here. (He shares that he first got turned on to the form by following Kevin Hodgson on Twitter.) 

I simply introduced the 25 word story to my students by saying, "There's a cool new story form out there, catching on through Twitter, called the 25 word story.  These stories have the main elements of story in only 25 words. Today we're going to look at how much meaning authors can pack into just a few words."

Then I project these two stories--both from Bill's handout. 

Understand me, John: The next time you talk about ‘dropping deuce’ in front of Grandma, you’ll be grounded for longer than you can possibly imagine!

First I ask for general reactions. We discuss briefly. Then I ask,

• Who are the characters in this story? 
• What has happened in this story?  
• What kind of conflict is this? 
• What would you say the mood or tone of the story is? (The difference between these two is pretty difficult for middle school students. Perhaps that's another blog post. Suggestions welcome!)
• What words do the most to suggest this mood?

We look at one more example:

He sat surrounded by people yet completely alone. “Why can’t I just be normal?” he muttered to no one, tears streaming down his teenage cheeks.

We quickly discuss the same questions.  

3. Write 25 word stories.  Next students must create a 25 word story, using their free write as a springboard.  I suggest they cut it down to 25 words, but if students have new ideas, based on the examples we looked at, they may start something new. As Bill suggests in his handout, keeping in mind that a 25 word story is about 1 long sentence or 2 shorter sentences, students should write first, and then worry about getting exactly 25 words.  The process of deciding on the 25 words, however, is where the role of each word really comes in to play. 

4. Share.  Students share with a classmate near them, and/or a few can share out to the whole class. 

5. Read a 6-Word Story. I tell students, Ernest Hemingway, a famous 20th Century author, was once challenged to write a six word story.  Hemingway accepted the challenge, and this is what he wrote:

         For sale: baby shoes; never worn. 

Students say, "Oohhh..." as the layers of meaning in the simple story take hold of their imaginations.  We discuss, again, who the characters are, what has happened, literally, and what is suggested.

I ask students, What image does the language put in your mind at each moment in the story?  

We discuss, "For sale," then "baby shoes," and then "never worn."   

6. Write 6 word stories. Now students must take their 25 word story, and whittle it down to six words.  There is lots of energy in the room at this point.  The challenge often posed to students is to write a lot. It's refreshing for the challenge to be, write a little!  I allow students to talk a bit during this writing session, and I listen for interesting conversations about word choices. 

7. Share--in class and on Edmodo! The 50 minute period ends with several students sharing their 6 word stories with the class.  For homework, they must post their story on our Edmodo group space and comment on at least one other student's story.  (If you're not familiar with Edmodo, it is so worth checking out!) With a longer period, this next part could happen on the same day.  

Next day...

8. Reflect on Word Choices. Have students to share their 6 word story with a partner. They should discuss--

• What was the most difficult decision you had to make in terms of which words to use? 
• Which word would you not mind replacing with a stronger word? 
• Ask your partner--what seems to be the tone of the story? Which words convey that tone?  Which words are weaker, and don't build that tone? 
• What does the story leave the reader to wonder about? Why? Is this intentional?
• Take some time to write an alternate version of your 6 word story based on the conversation.

Another day... (You could go in many different directions now, but I took this opportunity for some much needed attention to punctuation.)

9. Learn New Punctuation. The next day, I teach the semi-colon!  Incidentally, the colon and the double dash come up in discussions, as well.  We began by looking at Hemingway's 6 word story again. I ask students to identify the 3 punctuation marks and talk in groups about why Hemingway probably chose to use each one.  I give them some exercises to help them combine or break up sentences properly using a semi-colon. 

10. Revise punctuation in previous writing. Then I ask students to add a semi-colon to either their 6 word story, their 25 word story, or their original free write, depending on what makes the most sense.  Some students experiment with colons and double dashes as well.  

11. Reflect on punctuation choices.  Share with a partner. Discuss--is the new punctuation an impovement on the old? Why or why not?  How can punctuation help create more meaning in a few words?

The next step is to apply this kind of reflection on word choices to longer texts without over-structuring the experience of reading for students. In other words, no one reads specifically to analyze language, so we have to find authentic ways to encourage this kind of thinking. We are working on it in our current novel study.  I will follow up in another post.  Hopefully this was helpful for others who are trying to find interesting ways in to this sort of work for kids. 

[image credit: www.createbrevity.com]

Fellow TransformEd blogger and co-author of Teaching 2030, Renee Moore, makes an argument in this recent post, Learning Unchained, for getting rid of class schedules and grade levels!  I've heard Renee talk about this before, and, as jarring as this may sound, I totally agree with her.  At the end of her post, she asks readers if we know of schools that have replaced these models with more fluid ones. 

I thought of two NYC schools that are on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of teaching philosophy--extreme constructivist and extreme data-driven instruction. I cannot imagine either model being the optimal answer to Renee's question, but the juxtaposition is quite interesting! 

I'm painting with gross generalizations about these schools here, for the same of argument, but I would certainly welcome clarification on the models from those who know better:

1. Brooklyn Free School: Kids determine the shape of their own education, literally choosing to show up and learn whatever they want, whenever they want, and how they want, with guidance from teachers, and rules about not infiringing on the rights of others. Sounds awesome for a certain kind of kid, but seems too loose for an entire school system. I could be wrong, though. 

2. School of One: Based on the idea of personalized instruction, in response to instantaneous assessments administered and graded through computers. Kids are sorted based on mastery of skills as seen in these assessments and move on to the next skill only when they are ready.  The reliance on technology to teach and assess a large group of kids seems like it could be a limiting factor here, though I know teachers do work face to face with small groups of students. Not sure students have any agency in determining what they learn or how they learn it, and the emphasis on individualized instructionmakes me wonder whether students get experience as members of a learning community. 

But... could we get these two schools talking to each other?! Both models seem to be designed to address the same limitations of traditional schools. What if? 

[image credit: overclock.net]

In my last post, I described my utter failure to effectively organize and manage my students' drafting process for writing projects.

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I was getting ready to assign my first writing project and visions of myself last year, struggling to keep track of 100 students' various drafts in various formats, came flying through my brain...  

The Nightmare: (This is not for faint of heart.)  Imagine, you've just graded a stack of essays or stories, but notice a staggering amount of blanks in the gradebook, from students you know have done the assignment.  

You search your email for the first student's name and find an email in which she sent you her first draft.  You search for another email and through your Google Docs folders, but find nothing else.  You print out the draft and move on to the next student.  You search his name and find a Google Doc he shared with you.  You open it and print it (this takes a little whle because the computer has to convert the Doc into a printable format.)  You have no first draft to compare it to, because he has updated the Google Doc.  To view previous drafts, you'd have to go through draft history. No time for that. You find no emails from a third student and assign her a zero.  Later, her mother emails asking why her grade is low.  You explain why, only to find that she did email her 2nd draft, but from a different email address that didn;t come up when you searched her name...

Is this really my job?  Just finding and printing 40 essays alone takes over an hour.  

On top of this mania, the writing process in the classroom is no walk in the park either.  Students save on one laptop, and the next day, we get a different laptop cart, rendreing the student unable to build on the progress.  Students who write in Google Docs are immune to this problem, but the Internet goes in and out, making Google Docs unreliable as well.  Another student saves on a flash drive and then forgets it at home the next day. She begins a new draft in class, only to discard it at the end of the period, in favor the better one she has at home on the flash drive. Other student carefully hand writes his first draft and then lose it, along with your feedback from a writing conference.  Paralyzed, he never writes a next draft.  You take pity on them and don't enter any grade for the assignment, one way or another. 

***

I wrote to my friend Maia Heyck Merlin, author of The Together Teacher and organization guru, with this organizational nightmare.  After I wrote to Maia with my problem, she suggested we talk on the phone.  The solution would need to be customized around my needs, preferences and capabilities.

Maia was great at listening and helping me identify the pieces of the problem.  She asked great questions that led us to some clear, uncomplicated structures that would create order around the drafting process, and allow me to focus on the important work of giving students feedback on their writing.  

Maia has written a great post with 3 general rules for managing this issue in any classroom, called Thumbdrives, Google Docs and Long Hand, Oh My!  

In my next post, I will share the specific ways I am implementing these rules in my 8th grade ELA classroom.

[image credit: tx.english-ch.com]

My friend told me she's been using EdModo to allow students to continue class discussions outside of class--"it's basically Facebook for school," she said.  I was excited by what she described, and I am finally getting around to checking it out.  Wow! I'm extremely impressed with what this site can allow us to do.  

Many times in a day I have to tell students, "That's a great comment! Let's come back to that idea later," or "This conversation is so interesting, but we need to get back to ________."  And my students and I both know that most of the time there's no occasion or vehicle for coming back to the conversation. 

Now, perhaps, there is!  I started with this basic video from ASCD. A few great things I learned from the video:

• When a stduent signs up, a parent code is also generated, allowing parents to watch what their child is doing on the site.  I'm not entirely clear on how this works, but I can imagine some benefits to this.  

• Teachers can create polls for students, and see the results immediately.  We often use Google surveys at my school to do this, but this seems even more direct and easier to view and share results. 

• Teachers can create quizzes on EdModo, grade them or have the computer grade them (where possible) and send feedback to students instantly.  In fact, teachers can have their entire gradebook on EdModo if they want.  I wouldn't be able to do this, because we already have an online grade book with parent access at my school.  But creating online quizzes with instant feedback has some great possibilities.   

• Finally, you can create small groups on EdModo.  I imagine creating small groups for group projects so students can easily communicate about the work asynchronously, and I can observe and chime in if I want.  I can create an Edmodo group for my small group tutorial as well as each of my regular classes.  I can also post out questions for the whole grade.   

This past year there was quite a bit of interest in differences in the experiences of extroverted and introverted students at school. The book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain, caused quite a splash and a lot of new thinking around how we can empower introverts in school.  I'm interested in the opportunity EdModo could provide for less vocal students to get involved in academic conversations. Based on Cain's work, I predict that some students may find themselves leaders in the online environment, who are often silent during face-to-face discussions.

Some additional tips for using EdModo from their site, which I plan to read next are here and here.

Do you use EdModo?  How do you like it?

[Image Credit: techmunoz.edublogs.org--above is the starter image for a nice Prezi by Mrs. Munoz on Using EdModo in the Classroom that includes some quick teacher interviews.]