Journal 7-2

English 11

I started grading 2nd period essays today, and 2/3 of the essays were unchanged from 1st to 2nd draft. Great. I've already started combating the problem, though. After quotation paragraph, I checked their homework (highlight positive and negative bias in two articles) and then asked students to write one example from each column (pos/neg) on the whiteboard. We discussed the findings and how students had posted biased language of the same incident on the board. Then I handed out the assignment (200-300 word biography of Patrick Henry for use in a British textbook) and asked students to begin making notes on their page about what information should be included in this biography. I allowed them to collaborate on the note-taking phase, but I asked that they write their own drafts. Tomorrow I plan to teach three mini-lessons: organization, parallel structure and embedded quotations (this one for the second time). Then we'll turn to the biographies and I'll help students see the difference between editing and revision. The finalized biography will be due on Monday.



Observations

I've noticed something interesting: students think this class is simultaneously the easiest and the most difficult. For example, a common complaint I heard this morning was that "it's easy to write a normal biography, but you want us to change things." Well, yes. Shouldn't every essay be written with the audience and purpose in mind? Students worked hard, but were often stuck when it came to changing the "spin" of their biography. I referred them again and again to the work we had done over the past two days, but some students were resistant. "Can't I just give you a homework pass?" "Can't I just skip this?" "This is too hard. Why can't we just write a normal biography?" Umm...no. I will have lots of questions for them tomorrow, though.



How did you decide what to include in your biography?

What changes will you be making this weekend (final draft due Monday)?

Do you understand the difference between content and construction?



I have more questions, but these are the ones I plan to ask first. I'm thinking that the discussion will be oral.

reflection
I'm not sure what to make of students' refusal to revise their essays - it's been my obsession today. I've even had top students who did not revise. I mean they didn't change even ONE WORD from their rough draft to their final...yet they indicated by their answers on the revision survey that they know what revision is and how to do it. I'm awaiting angry phone calls...

I also had a discussion with a student today who had designed a T-shirt as part of his extension project for the independent reading. The T-shirt was not great. I think it had a black and white drawing of Boo Radley's house on the back and that was it. I gave him an 80, which I felt was generous, and he was upset. "It's fine?" he complained. "If it's fine, why didn't you give it a 100?" I answered, "Because it needs to be amazing to get a 100. You were fine. An 80 is an acceptable grade. If you want a 100, you have to be amazing, not fine." He sputtered a bit, and then said, "But I'm not good at art." "Well, then you shouldn't have picked that project. You had 21 choices plus anything else you could think of. You should have gone with your strength." He was pretty mad after that. His neighbor, who had drawn Jem, Dill and Scout from the back and written "Best Friends Forever" on the front also got an 80, and she was mad too.

I have questions for myself:

• Am I holding these kids to too high a standard? (It's a rhetorical question.)
• Who taught them that simply showing up was enough for a 100? Why are they mad that I grade for quality?
• Why are they mad when I tell them that some kids are better than others? OK, I don't TELL them, but I do ask, "Do you think your work is as good as the exemplar work?" The exemplar work is exceptional, and I keep it because it's the best example for what they're doing...but do they think their crappy, minimal effort product deserves the same grade as the best example I can find? Really?
• Really?

I will not cave to their incessant whining. They've earned the grades they're getting, and if they want higher grades, then they need to do better work. Bottom line.

I have to clarify, though. A majority of my students are great kids - I just have a larger portion than usual of whiny-babies this year.

I'm very curious to see what comes out tomorrow for the Patrick Henry biography, and I'm very curious to see how they react to my lesson on revision.