As part of my ongoing attempt to evaluate the success of our pilot, I'm pushing myself to post even my little observations so I can build a body of evidence.
One thing I've begun to notice is a sharp uptick in the number of student-initiated conferences in the classes that are doing more drafting, peer review, and self-reflection. This year marks my third round of teaching 10th grade at Staples, and the number of kids conferencing from those 10A classes is definitely far, far higher than it was in the previous two years.
I've also noticed that the increased conference participation seems to be coming from middle-of-the-road kids, not the intense achievement-oriented kids. Those intense kids are still coming for lots of individual help, but there's a huge set of more laid back kids who come and check in. That group's participation encourages me the most when I step back to evaluate what I'm doing this year. They seem to be invested in a way that they haven't been before.
While this change has meant more of my prep time being consumed with one-on-one work with kids, it's a tradeoff I'm willing to make, since a student-initiated conference means a pretty high level of buy-in from a kid and an amazing opportunity to encourage and guide a young writer.
Brian that's awesome. I agree with you about happily putting in more prep time to create an atmosphere that leads to student initiated learning. I love that you are documenting all observations, great and small, the blog has been a great medium to share and shape our pedagogy about the pilot.
ReplyDeleteAhh, empowerment, le mot juste. I really do think it's about feeling power and ownership as a writer that motivates this increased conferencing. I still have the same number of kids who are worried about grades who are coming in to check if they're on the "right track," and those who want to know how to "make this an A paper."
ReplyDeleteBut I'm getting more kids who just show up with a paper they seem to care about, and they ask questions about structure and depth of argument, and that's very exciting.
I think this is great
ReplyDelete"a student-initiated conference means a pretty high level of buy-in from a kid and an amazing opportunity to encourage and guide a young writer."
ReplyDeleteBravo!
These moments are crucial! I believe these moments, these times when "that kid" thinks, "Mr Tippy is really going to help me" breed an air of authenticity classroom writing has often lacked. That is is the moment when the reluctant writer begins to be s/he can actually become a writer, that the effort may actually be worth the struggle.
I may become "unstapled" next semester ... this is an awesome project!
PS ... I always hit "post" too quickly. Grammar, when I am excited, and typing, falls by the wayside ;)
ReplyDeleteDude, go unstapled now. You're already blogging. The fun part of what we're doing is that it's totally scaleable. "I loved reading this because..." is one of the fundamental (the most fundamental?) value we can share. There is nothing more key to the character of a good reader than the ability to derive pleasure from the act of reading itself.
ReplyDelete