The Hyperdoc

I've Been BUSY!

It's been two years since my last post. In that time, I've moved school, become department head at my school, had a baby boy, and am pregnant with my third child (a second boy, due in a month). Whew!! No wonder I haven't been posting. However, in that time, the classroom has really changed and my teaching has had to change with it. 

Technological Advances

We are living in an age when in only a month we can see leaps and bounds made in technology. I'm old enough to remember moving from VHS/tapes to CDs and finally to iPods and digital music and movies. For each of those generations, I couldn't help but think, "how could this get any better?" But it seems the "betterness" is in making the technology more invisible, less intrusive, and most importantly more portable. We want to be able to access everything we own in all places, at all times. This idea has begun to make its way into my classroom.

Going 1:1

Another big development in my life and going to a BYOD campus to a 1:1 with Mac laptops. I've spent my summer planning lessons that will allow the students to take more ownership of their learning. Take me off the stage, and make them independent, inquisitive learners. I give them the resources, any they explore, ask questions, find solutions, and figure things out. To be honest, this idea isn't new. In fact, it's been a goal of mine since I began teaching 11 years ago, but now with the internet at my students' fingertips, it seems to be more attainable. It's no longer an Everest I hope to achieve one day; instead, it's a hill I plan to hike up this year and just keep getting better at it. And I'me EXCITED about it!

Enter THE HYPERDOC

I didn't like these creatures the first time I was introduced to them. Probably because I didn't understand how people were building them. Staring at that blank white Google Doc, I was at a loss for where to even begin. So, I started where a lot of people started. I found a template and built from there. Now, that blank Google Doc isn't as intimidating. In fact, I've even started enjoying the HOURS that go into creating the hyperdoc. And, it takes HOURS! There's the content of course, but then, there's the structure, the pacing, the fonts, and colors. Getting it just perfect takes time. But just like anything in teaching, the more time you take at the front end of the lesson, the less you have to do during and after the lesson. 

I've made three hyperdocs to use this year. 

Teaching the Anecdote with Barbara Kingsolver's "Going to Japan." Students have a lot of trouble understanding the difference between writing a short story and writing an anecdote WITHIN another genre of writing, specifically, expository and persuasive. The essay "Going to Japan" serves as a mentor text.

James Hurst's "The Scarlet Ibis" is short, but it is jam-packed with short story skills including non-linear plot structure, symbolism, figurative language, character development, conflict and so much more. If you don't have time to teach a bunch of short stories, but you need to get through everything about the genre, "The Scarlet Ibis" is the place to start.

Tim O'Brien's "Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?" is a great introduction to literary realism. I use this lesson before reading difficult texts like Of Mice and Men. Students have trouble understanding why the author felt it necessary to include the topics and language in that particular novel. This short story helps create those discussions about leaving the "grit" in literature. 

Let me know how you use hyperdocs in your classroom!

Until then, Happy Teaching!!

The Writing Muscle

Typical Conversation 

Teacher: "Today we are going to write for..."

Students:  "ughhhhhgughsdknfadf.... whyyyyyyy??" 

Teacher/Students: (all together) "I hate my life." 

We've all been there. Writing is no fun for the students because they have to think (geez how terrible) nor for the teachers because we have to listen to endless complaining (which IS truly the definition of terrible). 

So, what do we need to do to get our kids to somewhat enjoy writing? I'm not sure if there is a silver bullet out there for that, but what I witnessed today on the 3rd day of school was nothing short of miraculous. 

A Little Background

This summer I went to a training with Gretchen Bernabei. She's A-MA-ZING! I wrote about some of the strategies I learned here. Anyway, she mentioned that her kids write everyday... and here's the kicker... they like it. WHAT? How is that even possible. I think if I walked into my classroom with the "let's write everyday" bit the conversation would go something like this:

Teacher: "Okay kids, we are going to do the first of 180 writing assignments right now. Ready?"

Students: "GET THE PITCHFORKS!!"

Seriously, how does she do that and not get murdered everyday of her life? Then she showed us some of the kids' journals. They used composition notebooks for this. If they get full, they have to buy a new one. (Hahaha... like any of my students are going to fill a notebook with solid writing.) As I flipped through, I saw the beginning pages were sparse. In fact, a lot of the kids wrote about how much they hated writing. But as I went deeper into the notebook the entries began to get longer, more involved. Then they were illustrated. Then I saw recurring characters over a long period of time. I saw notes in the margins. I saw writing come to life. It was magical. But Gretchen is magical. I could never do anything like that. Or could I...

Writing Magic

Here's how it went today:

Students entered. Read note on board: "Get out your composition notebook and a pen."

Teacher: "How many of you do any kind of physical activity?"

All but about three kids in each class raised their hands.

Teacher: "Okay. What happens if you don't do that physical activity for a long time, and then you start back up again."

Students: "You are tired, you get sore..."

Teacher: "Right, so if you don't work out your muscles, they get weak, right?"

Head nods. Glazed over eyes. 

Teacher: "Well, did you know writing is a lot like a muscle."

Students: indiscernible mumbling. I assume it was "did she really just say the W word on the 3rd day of school?"

Teacher: "The more you write the stronger you get. So, we are going to write as often as possible." (Still afraid to say "everyday.")

Students: collective eye roll, murmurs along the lines of "Are you kidding me? Writing is dumb. I've never written ever in my whole life." And so on. 

Teacher: "I am going to start a timer for ten minutes. You can't let your pencil or pen stop moving, even if that means you need to doodle a little between thoughts. Write about whatever you want. Questions?"

Crickets.

Teacher: "Ready set write."

Then, I watched and waited for the rebellion. And I waited, and waited. I only had one kid today who I had to get on to about not writing. My other 172 students scribbled away. Some took a break to stretch their fingers dramatically, but that's it. 

The Miracle

When the time ended and I said stop they asked if they could keep writing. They begged, pleaded, and snuck in a few more words after time ended. I'm serious. I wouldn't lie about something this crazy. Really, I don't think I could make it up. I kept telling them no. They had to stop writing now. Which led to their followup question: "When are we going to write like this again?" I answered, "Tomorrow and everyday after that."

And then I died and went to English teacher heaven. 

Writing Strategies Galore

Look at all those tabs!

Last week I had the pleasure of going to a two-day seminar with Gretchen Bernabei. I can't even begin to explain how much I learned in twelves hours. True, most of the things we talked about were things I already teach, but the strategy to teach those things made me wonder how I didn't think of that in the first place. By the end of the seminar, I had a composition notebook full of stuff to take back to my classroom.



Here are a few of my favorite:

The Kernel Essay

Kernel: tiny yellow seed with the potential for yummy, buttery goodness when microwaved. 

Writing kernels are the same minus the butter and microwave. However, they can still be yummy. Sometimes. They are made up of four sentences that become the structure of the essay. 

Here's mine for the prompt "Write an essay about your favorite place" or something like that:

I have used this strategy in class in the past and the kids really latch on and get it. I am going to amp it up this year though. Also, this can be done with any type of writing, expository, narrative, or procedural.

You can go here to see a HUGE list of possible structures kids could use when writing kernels. Or, they could come up with their own. 

Expository vs. Narrative

When we did this together, I nearly face palmed myself. It's so simple and clear that I don't know why this isn't how we all show the difference between writing modes. It also employs our advice of "show not tell." My problem before was always just TELLING them the difference. Then, when I read essays, I would be so frustrated because I would be reading stories instead of essays. Then, I'd tell them again. Rinse and repeat. But this simple T-chart SHOWS instead of TELLS.

Before we did the chart, we chose an object from our childhood to write about. I chose a little stick man made of toothpicks that I used to decorate my Dad's "Over the Hill" cake when he turned 40.

Now, draw a T-chart like this:

We then wrote for two minutes. First on the left side, then on the right. Here's what I came up with:

I didn't finish, but you still get the idea. 

And, BOOM! There's the difference. The kids can actually see the difference in front of them. Then we took those short paragraphs and wrote kernel essays on note cards. 

Here are mine:

Gretchen then took them up and read them aloud having us guess which one was narrative and which was expository. So, the practice could continue from this one activity.


Expository











Narrative 

Pitchforking

Again, an oldy, but a goody. This strategy gives kids a more direct way to add detail to their writing. Take this sentence for instance: We baked a cake. Not terrible, but not great either. It offers so little explanation of my experience baking a cake, that you as the reader have to imagine a time when you baked a cake just to stay interested. That equals not good writing. That's where pitchforking comes in. 

Here's what my paper looked like at the end of this activity just for ONE SENTENCE!

I turned "We baked a cake" into "We laughed, decorated and sweated in the hot kitchen as we baked Dad's birthday cake, a moist, delicious reminder he was over the hill." Ummm.... wow!!

Just imagine if we could get our kids to pour over one sentence like that! But after a lot of practice, this strategy won't be a strategy anymore, it will just become natural.The great writers sitting in my classroom do this naturally, so hoping for that for the struggling writers isn't beyond our reach. 

These strategies only skim the surface of what I learned. For more, you can visit Gretchen's blog. A word of warning: combing through all the strategies there might take hours. So, make sure the kids are fed, all water facets are off, and there's no laundry to do in the near future. 

Be a ROQC STAAR

The SAQ

As an English teacher, I look at the SAQ (short answer question) and think that those are the easiest questions on the whole test. Just give an opinion and prove it. Seems simple enough. But to our kids, it's excruciating work, and several just skip them altogether. And, in my experience, some teachers say that skipping them isn't the end of the world. I have heard a teacher tell a student, "Just get more multiple choice questions right, and you'll be fine." I couldn't believe my ears. When I look at the SAQs, I see multiple choice questions, just without the choices. To me, if a student can't answer an SAQ, then there's no hope of just getting more MC questions right. However, when we look at data, we see the majority of our kids are getting one out of three points for each SAQ. And that's just plain awful. There's no way to sugar coat that. Teachers who believe that the SAQ's are so tricky and misleading that the kids just don't get it, so they should just get more multiple choice correct to counter the low scores they'll get on the SAQ are fooling themselves. So, if they can't skip them, we need to give them the tools they need to answer them successfully. 

The Origins of ROQC (pronounced roxy)

During my years in my inner city school, which will remain nameless, other teachers showed me the APE strategy. It looks like this:

Look, how cute!

     A -- Answer

      P -- Proof

      E -- Explain

But, to get kids to remember what they were actually supposed to do when using this strategy, my cute little APE turned into a massive 400 pound gorilla. I had to write this:

 

Not so cute

        A -- Answer -- rephrase the question and give opinion

        P -- Proof -- quote from the story

         E -- Explain -- connect to life lesson

Needless to say, APE was very cumbersome. The kids could remember what each of the letters meant, but they had to remember even more things to know how to use those letters. It just wasn't working. In my third year trying to manage this APE in my classroom, I had an epiphany. I looked at the letters on all my notes for my pneumonic and realized the solution was there all along, and ROQC was born. 

       
   

          A -- Answer -- Rephrase the question and give Opinion

          P -- Proof -- Quote from the story

          E -- Explain -- Connect to life lesson

But, I had to test it. I tried it on my Saturday school tutoring students first. These were students who had never taken the TAKS before. We were proactive in our remediation (at least I was) and through classroom assessment I decided who should come to Saturday school. I had about ten students coming regularly. So I created a foldable that included notes for ROQC, SAQ questions from excepts, we even did some cutting and pasting just for good measure. Saturday school ran for four weeks before the TAKS.  When the day finally came, I knew they were ready. I had five out of ten of those students pass the TAKS that year. The five who didn't pass all made ones on their essay (back when that mattered so much), but ALL TEN made ALL TWOS on their SAQs and I knew it was because I threw out the APE and gave them ROQC. 

Introducing ROQC to the Masses

After that pivotal year six years ago, I knew I had to use ROQC in all my classes. And now, I have students who are teaching their junior teachers how to do it. It's become a campus wide initiative and it's working. 

I've introduced ROQC a few different ways throughout the years, but my favorite has been through the flip lesson. I made a video on the ELMO going through the steps of ROQC. The kids watch it at home and fill in their fill in the blank notes. Then the next day we read something short and answer the SAQs in class. Getting the notes the night before helps tremendously. 

Each time we do ROQC, the notes look something like this:

Our initial goal is to get a score point 2.  

After score point 2 mastery, we work toward getting a score point 3. 

Update: I made a video that I have the kids watch prior to class as a flip lesson. Here's the link. 

Scoring 

I am a staunch believer that teaching directly to the test is evil. However, not teaching to the test is equally evil. It's like sending a blindfolded kid into a shark tank with a bucket of chum around his neck. Expecting a student to just figure out how to take a test isn't the best test taking strategy. My job as a teacher is to teach ALL aspects, and that includes how to take a high stakes test, that includes, STAAR, ACT, SAT, GRE, LSAT, PPR, MCAT, NCE, BAR, and any other tests included in the educational alphabet soup. So, this means teaching the kids how SAQs are scored. 

My past naive self would hand out the SAQ rubric, have the kids turn it into "kid friendly" language and then say, "OK, now you know what they are looking for. Let's answer some SAQs." Now, I wish I could go back to all those kids and tell them I am so sorry for torturing them like that. I know there's nothing wrong with what I did, but I was missing a step. I showed them the what, but I never showed them the how, which is the most important part. Sure, go ahead, show them the rubric, have them do table talk about it, draw pictures about it, write a skit, whatever it is you do, but the next step should be "And this is how you accomplish all that." For me that's what ROQC did in my classroom. It gave them the how. And, it ended up being very simple. 

R+O= 1

R+O+Q= 2

R+O+Q+C= 3

Kids can see this, remember this, and do this. It's a formula, I know and formulas are of the devil bad. But, for the kid who can't fill those ten blank lines with anything, this formula is empowering. And with enough practice, the training wheels can come off.

Revising

Now, we rarely go through all this without trading papers and grading. I am a firm believer that #1 kids don't see the flaws in their own writing and #2 kids love pointing out the flaws in other kids' writing. 

Part of the fun, is figuring out where all the arrows will take you. 

TAKS vs. STAAR

You may be thinking, "but you created this from TAKS. STAAR is completely different." You are right, wise one. STAAR is more analytical, which makes ROQC work even better with those SAQ questions than with TAKS open-endeds. 

But, here's the real beauty of ROQC. It works with everything. It works with life itself. How often are we called on to make an assertion (R+O), back it up with evidence (Q), and then explain the impact (C)? ROQC puts a framework to the thinking we do everyday as adults. It lets kids in on the secret of how to analyze a situation, problem, argument, or text. This is so much more than a test taking strategy, but only if you show your kids the power it has in it.