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

With an organized list of conflated standards and associated learning targets —along with a system for reporting in the gradebook —I now turn to rubrics. However, in a gradeless classroom, I found “rubric” to feel inadequate as a title, since we’re not specifically placing students on a scale. I’ve opted for the title “Feedback Guide.” This will also work into students’ weekly reflections and five-week (mid-quarter and quarterly) reflections and grade pitches . FORMER RUBRICS Originally inspired by Jennifer Gonzalez’s (@cultofpedagogy ) single-point rubric , my former standards-based rubrics looked like the following: As I read a student’s work (the above rubric was for a constructed response analyzing mood), I could put an X in the “I can” or the “I cannot yet” column next to each learning target or add more focused feedback in the form of sentences. Then, in the grade column, I’d assign an A, B, C, or F. My original post on this model can be found here . FEEDBACK GUIDES N...

Once I had decided to go gradeless and have students pitch a grade every 5 weeks, I needed to determine how to utilize my gradebook. Students will be reflecting on their learning each week , and I plan to have that Google Doc shared with parents, but I also want to keep our gradebook updated. We utilize Infinite Campus, and I plan to use it to communicate student completion (since feedback will appear in student weekly reflections and in their Weekly Learning Guides ). MY PAST PRACTICE In past years, I divided each assignment into a column for each standard it assessed. So, an analysis paragraph may assess elements of fiction, focus and organization, and use of evidence. There would be three columns for one assignment and would show as “Character Analysis: Fiction Elements,” “Character Analysis: Focus,” and “Character Analysis: Evidence.” I would then assign a letter grade for each standard, provide feedback, and input the letter grade in the gradebook under each category (so a stu...

With my English 9 course standards and learning targets decided, I next turned to figuring out how to possibly organize a data collection system that focused on feedback and reflection rather than points. Some of my most recent thinking can be attributed to Sarah Zerwin ( @SarahMZerwin ) and her book Pointless: An English Teacher's Guide to More Meaningful Grading . In the past, I had developed work logs where students could record their reading, journal, and copy the day’s learning target. Last spring, before going virtual, students were tracking their online vocabulary program progress and gathering evidence of their writing style in two additional Google Docs. I wanted to keep many of these organizational options, but I also wanted to ensure that I didn’t have students needing to always open so many documents. WEEKLY LEARNING GUIDES Last spring, for my Honors English 9 class, I created a Google Doc for our two units we explored while at home. For my Academic English 10 cl...

[ Revision note, 8/22/20: Shout-out to Hector Caudillo ( @CaudilloHector ) who suggested I rearrange the learning targets of Standard 2 . They have been sequenced so writing a claim comes first, then formatting proper in-text citations, and then using those citations to analyze the topic at-hand. The text below is edited from my original posting .] Continuing from my previous post , I plan to use the following six guiding/power standards for the 2020-2021 school year: Standard 1 : Reading Nonfiction and Informational Texts Standard 2 : Composing Nonfiction Standard 3 : Reading Fiction and Literature Standard 4 : Composing Fiction Standard 5 : Developing Speaking and Listening Skills Standard 6 : Employing Mechanics, Style, and Vocabulary Even from my post a couple days ago , I have changed a category and added Vocabulary back to Standard 6. I was going to have it integrated throughout, but it makes more sense to have one learning target (subcategory) for it under one Stan...

Two years ago, I began combining and rearranging the English Language Arts content standards that I would utilize in my courses. Since then, I’ve made developments in my assessment practices, and as I prepare to begin on a hybrid schedule this fall and utilizing grade conferences (where students will present evidence of their work and pitch the grade they deserve), I wanted to further refine my work. My plan to is post much more frequently in the coming days and weeks as I articulate my own journey in preparation for the school year (our students begin on September 8 th , 2020). Since my first post on this in August 2018 , I reduced my eight standards to six to make it more manageable. Last school year, I utilized to the following six standards (reduced from the Pennsylvania Core Standards): 1.      Standard 1 : Applying Literary Elements & Devices I can define and apply various elements of fiction (characterization, setting, point of view, conflict, plot, ...

In this post, I want to review my past practices in scoring writing, my newer approach to feedback in workshop, and then articulate some challenges. These blogs are as much for my reflection as they are (hopefully) a guide to some of you who may be facing similar issues or planning to jump into a workshop approach. HOW I USED TO SCORE WRITING Before I began using workshops, my classroom was a bit more traditional: whole-group instruction, engaging lessons (sometimes with technology), whole-class novels, and writing assessments with brainstorming, planning guides, and time to write. For any writing assessment, we had students work from previous short-writes and referred them to models we had read in class of that writing style. We would always have planning guides due before we asked students to start writing, and after glancing over them, we’d give whole-class notes on segments of planning to review. For some shorter, paragraph-length assignments, we would leave comments on p...