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”

Critical Reading Lesson Plans Read article Develop a writing prompt based on the article In groups of 4-6, share writing prompts;

select and refine the best In the same group, outline a lesson plan

using the prompt Time permitting, you can go online to explore

the library databases