Teaching Work Habits in the Secondary ELA Classroom

Since implanting a readers-writers workshop, I realized I needed to better help students reflect on their work habits. I enjoyed following discussions online regarding work habits, especially in gradeless or standards-based classrooms where work habits were separate of content mastery reporting. Here is my process and plan to implement the teaching of work habits this year to my sophomore students.

GENERATING A LIST

I turned to Twitter to seek ideas:

What work habits do you try to foster in your Ss? Share ideas with T @NAEmmanuele! #ProfDev #TeacherEd #SELchat pic.twitter.com/q2MFwKHhpd

— Teacher2Teacher (@teacher2teacher) June 10, 2019

With plenty of helpful leads and some ideas percolating, I then came across Mount Desert Island Regional School System’s Middle School Habits of Work Google site. This helped me focus on three habits: respect, responsibility, and perseverance. I edited the last to “work ethic,” and thought I was ready.

However, in talking with my co-teacher, we realized our own school-wide positive behavioral interventions and support (SWPBIS) system had three components: Participation, Accountability, and Respect. We ask our students to be “on P.A.R.” So, those became our categories.

OUR WORK HABIT LIST

The following is the current iteration of our work habits and what they look like in the classroom:

Present

I am present when

1.      arriving to class consistently, on-time, and prepared;

2.      thoroughly completing assessments by their due dates, and

3.      participating in learning experiences.

Accountable

I am accountable when I

1.      utilize my time in class to establish and demonstrate my learning,

2.      ask questions when I am uncertain, and

3.      take initiative to tackle new learning experiences.

Respectful

I am respectful through

1.      my awareness of how my choices impact others’ work and focus,

2.      how I collaborate and work with others, and

3.      how I take care of the classroom and its resources.

The detail bullets are a mix of various pieces we saw, and the list under each habit does not necessarily reflect the lists in our SWPBIS. However, we think this list will serve as a strong starting point.

IMPLEMENTING WORK HABITS

Now that we have a list, what is our plan?

We posted them on our wall to start, and we also added them to the top of our Daily Work Log this semester for students. This will help keep them visible. Additionally, we have three structures in place to reinforce, instruct upon, and reflect on these habits:

1.      During workshop, if students are off-task or not engaged, we can refer to a specific work habit to help them conceptualize what it means to be present, accountable, and respectful. We can also praise students who are “on P.A.R.” Since we can confer during workshops, work habits now have language in our classroom that we can refer to and use to help students talk about their process.

2.      On students’ daily work log, we now have a column for reflection. Each day, we will prompt students to reflect on their independent reading (thanks to Kate Roberts’ suggestion in A Novel Approach) or to reflect on their work habits. This will provide us some formative assessment and provide students a place to think.

3.      Lastly, we utilize our e-mail reflections home. We will be adding a space for students to discuss the work habits they are strong in and where they need to keep working.

We’re excited to implement these skills and procedures to help us utilize workshop time more effectively.