Fair Isn't Always Equal: Chapters 10 and 11

(Page 136) “If we’re basing our decision on the ‘real world’ outside of school, then the answer is clear: Allow students to redo work.”
I’m really thinking we all will like this chapter because it doesn’t tell us that we ALWAYS have to let students redo work; it is at our own discretion. We’ve had the conversation before about students in the elementary and middle school just automatically being able to retake a test—they often don’t study because they know they’ll get another chance to do better. I think Wormelli makes it clear that we aren’t required to give students a retake if we think they’re taking advantage; we offer the option when it’s the fair thing to do. This is where the ART of teaching comes in to play. While you may do different things for different students, you still have to be able to justify it if it becomes necessary. We can’t arbitrarily refuse to let students redo work, but if we can explain why we wouldn’t let Johnny redo a test even though we allowed another student to do so with good reason, then there will be no problems. Making such decisions is like good teaching—you know why you’re doing what you’re doing!

I must admit that Chapter 11 did get a little wordy for me. I suspect you mathophobics were really thrown with all that number talk early on. I see the point of not giving a zero, but I don’t know that I’m completely sold on the “just give ‘em a 60” idea either. I think I could live more with giving a 50, but I’m thinking that would have to be at my discretion much like the idea of providing the opportunity of the redo. Wormelli gives the example of the kid who does nothing and gets all 60’s still ends up with an F. Well, that’s if the kid does absolutely nothing. What about the kid who is smart but lazy, so he has half A’s and half F’s? That child isn’t going to get an F. Again, I think the whole things deals with the art of teaching. For some students, they do deserve a 0, but others deserve the 50 or 60. I’m definitely one who believes in giving a kid hope. If a student has a horrible grade first quarter that is mathematically impossible to bring up to passing, I absolutely believe that he should be given the opportunity to redeem himself and that number should be adjusted if the student is willing to do a turn-around. What are y’all’s thoughts on this issue?

Content Area Writing: Chapters 5 and 6

(Page 126) “Content-area teachers will rarely have time to teach all the aspects of composition; we’ve got our subjects to cover! Still, the more we understand the writing process and the qualities of good writing, the more we can help our students.”
These chapters cover lots of components of writing, but I think the authors do a good job explaining that every teacher doesn’t have to teach everything about writing. To me, it gets to that whole depth over breadth notion. Sure, you could whiz through everything and say you “taught” the writing process, but did anyone really learn anything? It’s sort of telling students every fact that could possibly be on the EOC just so you can say you covered all the topics, but did the kids really learn anything? By choosing just one or two of the steps to focus on and spending a substantial amount of time on them, then students come to understand and retain how to do different components.

I particularly liked the “Four Corners” strategy discussed on page 128. I think the use of this one is not limited to writing—it could be used with a variety of things. In fact, we may have to do this in class one week before the year is up! It’s a great way to find where people stand on particular subjects why keeping them from just sitting in their desks. It also forces students to come up with a response instead of being lethargic and not participating at all. Even if students don’t say a word through the entire process, you still know what they think. So, based on what you teach, what parts of what Daniels et al wrote about do you think you could use in your classroom?

Teaching Adolescent Writers: Chapter 5; Content Area Writing: Chapter 4

Teaching Adolescent Writers
(Page 91) “Choice generates a welcome chain reaction: it creates student buy-in, which in turn generates writing motivation, which in turn causes students to write better.”
Imagine that—giving students choice in writing actually has the same effects as giving students choice in what they read—they’ll actually want to do it! On page 90, Gallagher makes an excellent point in that we often have students do the type of writing they’ll neither do nor often see in the real world. Yes, yes, yes, I haven’t forgotten that we have those standardized tests looming over our students’ heads, but if someone is just a plain good writer, they’ll be able to do fine on those standardized tests. But if a student can only generate good standardized test-style writing, how is that going to benefit him after he graduates? I will go on record as saying the one thing I liked about our old exit exam versus HSAP is that the old one offered students a choice in their writing; they were given two prompts and had to choose one. However, with the HSAP, the scoring of it is not as rigid as the old one—there is not as much emphasis on conventions, so students have more leeway in how they write. Yes, they have to have a beginning, middle, and end, but they don’t have to necessarily format that into three or five paragraphs.

I love how in his traditional way, Gallagher doesn’t just tell us the problem. He provides lots of options that can be used in the classroom to generate student choice in writing then goes on to give ways to merge requirements with choice. Did anyone try one of the ideas Gallagher wrote about, or have you done something he didn’t mention that would be beneficial to us all?

Content Area Writing
I decided to go with having you all choose four of the eight strategies to read about in this chapter for a couple of reasons. First, I thought some of you may already be familiar with a few of the strategies. Second, I think the way Daniels et al present each strategy makes it easy to skim through the “What It Is” section of each to decide if that’s something useable for your classroom. So, did you have a chance to try out any of these strategies on your students, or how do you think you could incorporate one (or more) into your classroom?