"...and Not to Yield": Explorations in English Education

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...

During the Spring 2019 semester, I began implementing “community circles” to build classroom culture. Inspired by the work of Monte Syrie (@MonteSyrie ) and his Smiles and Frowns and some readings I had some in sociocultural learning theory, I went for it. This blog will review—first—how my students responded, and then explain my process before concluding with adjustments for this coming year. STUDENT RESPONSE At the end of last semester, I provided a course survey to gauge student responses to our work. My co-teacher and I talk with our students often (as they enter the room, between classes, as we confer during workshop , their bi-weekly-or-so e-mail reflections , etc.), but this was a way for us to get some typed responses to look at. Below is our prompt and some responses The community circle gatherings were new to us this year. What were your thoughts? Should we continue them in the future? What could they be used for? i feel they are good to get to know each ot...

Although I only briefly touched on students e-mailing home in my previous post (after my initial post on it back in January), I wanted to expand on how I currently employ student-authored e-mails home. As I noted initially, I was inspired by Catlin Tucker’s (@catlin_tucker) post, “ Students E-mail Their Parents About Missing Work .” Situated in a workshop approach with a move toward standards-based grading, my process has changed a bit since its inception. PURPOSE While I liked the purpose to let students know that parents would be made aware of their work, I quickly realized the exercise was mostly for my students: we would be embarking on some self-reflection. This would be new for some of my students, summarizing and reflecting on their work and learning. Contacting parents became a side-effect of actual class time to pause and reflect. The goal is to reconsider their daily work logs, completed readings and writings, and their plan of action moving forward. I...