Literacy Summit 2008 More Writing Across the Curriculum.
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Transcript of Literacy Summit 2008 More Writing Across the Curriculum.
Mike Schmoker’s presentation Day 1
“The Opportunity: from Brutal Facts to the Best Schools We’ve Ever Had”
Day 2 “More Writing, Less Grading”
The Brutal Facts
Only 7% of low-income students will ever earn a college degree
Only 32% of our college-bound students are adequately prepared for college
“Understanding University Success”Center for Educational Policy Research
The Brutal Facts
“Under-developed literacy skills are the number one reason why students are retained, assigned to special education, given long-term remedial services, and why they fail to graduate from high school.”
Fernandino and Tirozzi, presidents of NAESP and NASSP
Brutal Facts
Writing is rarely assigned, even more rarely taught.
William Zinsser, National Commission on Writing
Even U.S. student’s best writing is mediocreNAEP report on “best” US high school writing
Students “with 3.8 GPAs” in highly selective colleges, write poorly
NAEP writing Study
The Challenge
The key to K-12 and college success:
Analytical Reading and Discussion
Persuasive Writing
The Challenge
Draw inferences and conclusions Analyze conflicting source documents Solve complex problems with no obvious
answer Write multiple 3-5 page papers supporting
arguments with evidence Read far more books, articles & essays than
they now read in high school classes
College Knowledge by David Conley
Brutal Facts
“If we could institute only one change to make students more college ready, it should be to increase the amount and quality of writing students are expected to produce.”
David Conley
College Knowledge
Brutal Facts: Golden OpportunityWorksheets are developed to consume time,
not to teach.
25-30% of class time is spent doing worksheets
This translates to 2 to 3 months of the school year
Brutal Facts: Golden OpportunityWhy Movies?
Video clips or movie segments can enhance a lesson, engage students
Showing a movie in its entirety is one more way to fill time
Brutal Facts ; Golden OpportunityThe Golden Opportunity is presented when we
realize that by replacing the fillers (worksheets, movies, etc.) with more analytical reading and discussion and persuasive writing, we can increase student exposure to the types of assignments they need.
Writing More / Grading Less
Conventional grading practices are too time-consuming for teachers and have a negative impact on students.
Student overload Infrequent writing assignments Delay in feedback
Writing More / Grading Less
Recommendations One trait (voice, transitions, sentence
fluency, conclusions, supporting arguments with evidence) at a time Use rubric and exemplars Assign and grade only 1-3 paragraphs for that trait
only
Writing More / Grading Less:RecommendationsRecommendations Use exemplars!
Professional papers or paragraphs Anonymous student work
Writing More / Grading Less
Recommendations Give short assignments
Not every assignment has to be a term paper
Writing More / Grading Less
Suggestions for longer assignments “Vet” thesis statements
Teach thesis statements every year, at different levels of sophistication
“Vet” outlines Students freewrite or make lists of quotes or
evidence from readings Select best points to create an outline
Writing More / Grading Less
Suggestions Have students evaluate exemplars and
revise poor samples in pairs or by themselves Look for one trait at a time Follow up with own paragraph or two focusing on
same trait
Engaging Students
Teenagers love to express their opinion Teenagers love to discuss “social issues”
Give students a controversial article to read, and develop a
writing lesson around their response to the article.
Engaging Students
Sample pro/con topics Should sodas be banned on campus? Is the bailout good for Main Street? Should there be more testing for drugs in
sports? Do statistics used in a particular article show
bias by the author? Is Dr. Frankenstein culpable for murder?
Finding Articles
Newspaper articles Magazine or journal articles Library databases www.sonorahs.org/library
Go to the Sonora website Select “Library” Select “Online Databases and eBooks”