# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We are honoring the Top 11 winners of our Student Editorial Contest by publishing their essays. This one is by Megan Ray, age 16.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Preparing Students to Take Their Presentations to the Next Level

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
With the right preparation, students can be ready for any audience question—even if they don’t know all the answers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Want to help your students make strong connections with the material? Ensure you're using all six levels of cognitive thinking. This means asking lower-order thinking questions as well as higher-order thinking questions. Learn more about each here, and find plenty of examples for each.

What are lower-order and higher-order thinking questions?

Source: University of Michigan

Bloom's Taxonomy is a way of classifying cognitive thinking skills. The six main categories-remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create-are broken into lower-order thinking skills (LOTS) and higher-order thinking skills (HOTS). LOTS includes remember, understand, and apply. HOTS covers analyze, evaluate, and create.

While both LOTS and HOTS have value, higher-order thinking questions urge students to develop deeper connections with information. They also encourage kids to think critically and develop problem-solving skills. That's why teachers like to emphasize them in the classroom.

New to higher-order thinking? Learn all about it here. Then use these lower- and higher-order thinking questions to inspire your students to examine subject material on a variety of levels.

Remember (LOTS)

Who are the main characters?

When did the event take place?

What is the setting of the story?

Where would you find _________?

How do you __________?

What is __________?

How do you define _________?

How do you spell ________?

What are the characteristics of _______?

List the _________ in proper order.

Name all the ____________.

Describe the __________.

Who was involved in the event or situation?

How many _________ are there?

What happened first? Next? Last?

Understand (LOTS)

Apply (LOTS)

How do you solve ___________?

What method can you use to __________?

What methods or approaches won't work?

Provide examples of _____________.

How can you demonstrate your ability to __________.

How would you use ___________?

Use what you know to __________.

How many ways are there to solve this problem?

What can you learn from ___________?

How can you use ________ in daily life?

Provide facts to prove that __________.

Organize the information to show __________.

How would this person/character react if ________?

Predict what would happen if __________.

How would you find out _________?

Analyze (HOTS)

What facts does the author offer to support their opinion?

What are some problems with the author's point of view?

Compare and contrast two main characters or points of view.

Discuss the pros and cons of _________.

How would you classify or sort ___________?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of _______?

How is _______ connected to __________?

What caused __________?

What are the effects of ___________?

How would you prioritize these facts or tasks?

How do you explain _______?

Using the information in a chart/graph, what conclusions can you draw?

What does the data show or fail to show?

What was a character's motivation for a specific action?

What is the theme of _________?

Why do you think _______?

What is the purpose of _________?

What was the turning point?

Evaluate (HOTS)

What makes a point of view valid?

Did the character/person make a good decision? Why or why not?

Which _______ is the best, and why?

What are the biases or assumptions in an argument?

What is the value of _________?

Is _________ morally or ethically acceptable?

Does __________ apply to all people equally?

How can you disprove __________?

Does __________ meet the specified criteria?

What could be improved about _________?

Do you agree with ___________?

Does the conclusion include all pertinent data?

Does ________ really mean ___________?

Create (HOTS)

How can you persuade someone to __________?

Make a plan to complete a task or project.

How would you improve __________?

What changes would you make to ___________ and why?

How would you teach someone to _________?

What would happen if _________?

What alternative can you suggest for _________?

What solutions do you recommend?

How would you do things differently?

What are the next steps?

What factors would need to change in order for __________?

Invent a _________ to __________.

What is your theory about __________?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
50+ Higher-Order Thinking Questions To Challenge Your Students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Want to help your students make strong connections with the material? Ensure you're using all six levels of cognitive thinking. This means asking lower-order thinking questions as well as higher-order thinking questions. Learn more about each here, and find plenty of examples for each.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Audiobooks allow students to enjoy books above their reading level, introducing them to engaging stories that will hook them for life.

Not long ago, one of my third graders was struggling to find books he liked. His teacher reported that he kept picking up titles that were far too simple or far too difficult for him to manage successfully on his own. In addition to not being able to find books he wanted, he struggled to read them once he had them.

I'm a pre-K through 6 librarian, so I visited with this student one morning one-on-one to find out what he was looking for. He started telling me that he just didn't like to read. He couldn't specifically tell me that he wanted a particular genre or style of book, but after a bit of conversation, he shared that he loved dragons.

We sat down to read a bit together to see if it was a good fit as an independent reading title. He launched in with gusto, but it quickly became apparent that his decoding skills were not yet strong enough for him to tackle that book. He was dejected, but I told him I had an idea.

We logged into his Sora account (a reading app with e-books and audiobooks) and searched for an audiobook version of the first Dragon Masters book. We checked it out, as well as the print copy, from our library and picked up a bookmark to hold under each line as the narrator read so he could follow along.

His face lit up like a pinball machine! Two days later, he was back in the library doing the "I-gotta-have-the-next-book" dance. We found it on the shelf, and I coached him again through finding it on Sora, downloading it, and following along.

The last time I checked, he was nearing the end of the series. In the meantime, I will encourage him to check them out again and try to read them himself this time until a new one in the series is published. We've now pushed through a major hurdle: the idea that he didn't like to read. He now knows that he does.

Another day, a different student was a bit teary in the library. She told me that she really wanted to read a particular book that her friends were all talking about, but she knew she was not a strong reader.

We found a print copy, navigated to Sora, and checked out the audiobook version. I encouraged her to follow along in the print version as the narrator told the story.

The listening time of a novel-length audiobook can seem daunting. Together, we found out the length of the book and divided that amount of time by 21 days (our current checkout length). She discovered with excitement that in just 20 minutes a day, she could listen to the whole thing in three weeks.

In the future, my hope is that each and every child will have access to science- and evidence-based reading instruction that works, allowing the vast majority of students to successfully navigate the path to becoming confident, independent readers. But my work of connecting children with books must continue in the interim.

Over the years, I've found that a quality audiobook is one of the most effective tools in my librarian toolbox.

That's Not Really Reading, Is it?

I have had teachers push back on using audiobooks with struggling readers. The naysayers claim that audiobooks don't count and are not a substitute for silent reading.

I disagree. Reading, in the traditional sense, is using our eyes to decode symbols while our brains translate those symbols into meaningful language-based information. Reading also involves visualizing, inferring, predicting, and connecting with the text in some way.

When a child struggles to decode, the rest of the process erodes very quickly. Audiobooks bridge that gap, allowing the child's joy of reading to evolve as they continue to strengthen their reading skills in class.

For my new Dragon Masters fan, the audiobook is not the only thing he needs. Decoding and phonics instruction continue to take place. But to hold him back from stories appropriate for his age level prevents him from deepening his comprehension of story structure, figurative language, and overarching themes of literature.

If the only thing he is allowed to read is what he is capable of decoding, I believe he is far more likely to give up than to persevere. After all, what's the point? And then we have two hills to climb: learning how to decode and deciding that reading is worth the trouble.

Creating Independent Readers

"If we give kids an audiobook, won't that make them reliant on them forever?"

This is another question I see often. The answer is, I seriously doubt it. When we used training wheels, they didn't prevent us from learning how to ride a bike. They provided support as we gained confidence, and eventually we learned to let them go and ride off into the sunset at the end of the street.

Others suggest that a reliance on audiobooks allows kids to mask their reading struggles. But no teacher I know would simply look across the room at a child who prefers audiobooks, shrug, and say, "Well, I guess I don't need to talk to that one."

Effective teachers know that working with all of their students individually, listening to them read aloud, and asking them questions to ascertain comprehension are all part of the teaching of reading. Interacting with each child regularly and paying attention to the data gathered through various channels provides a more comprehensive picture of that child as a reader, including identifying any areas of concern, and should guide instruction.

If a child is enjoying audiobooks as part of their learning, then that is only one facet of their work as a reader. If she is struggling, interventions and supports involving printed text are absolutely appropriate (and warranted).

For the girl who wanted to read what her friends were reading, checking out that audiobook changed the game. She is engaged in talking with her friends about the books they recommend and is participating in class discussions with relevant and insightful contributions-and she has started to recommend other titles to her friends. She sees herself as a real reader as she works with her teacher to increase her proficiency with written text.

Isn't that the ultimate goal?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Audiobooks Help Emerging Readers and Inspire a Love of Books

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Audiobooks allow students to enjoy books above their reading level, introducing them to engaging stories that will hook them for life. Not long ago, one of my third graders was struggling to find books he liked. His teacher reported that he kept picking up titles that were far too simple or far too difficult for him to manage successfully on his own.

# data[].attributes.headline
Sec. V English Language Arts Exam: How to Prepare

# data[].attributes.subject
Sec. V English Language Arts Exam: How to Prepare

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Is your child about to finish high school and preparing to write the Secondary V English Language Arts uniform examination? We have some useful tips to help them prepare.

Did you know

This year, the Secondary V English Language Arts uniform examination is weighted at 20%.

Did you know

Exams can be a very stressful time for your child. It is important to help them find ways to relieve their stress and anxiety, such as by practising deep breathing, getting enough sleep, and exercising regularly.

Did you know

To learn more about the Secondary V English Language Arts uniform examination, please consult the official information document.

Collaborators

Writing : The Alloprof Parents' team

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Is your child about to finish high school and preparing to write the Secondary V English Language Arts uniform examination? We have some useful tips to help them prepare. This year, the Secondary V English Language Arts uniform examination is weighted at 20%. Exams can be a very stressful time for your child.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Nurturing Changemakers With an ELA Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nurturing Changemakers With an ELA Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
One way to help students master skills is to let them cultivate their own English language arts content to explore. Here’s how.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Brief writing prompts and responses help students in any discipline.

A panicked student confronts a blank laptop screen late at night. A frazzled teacher sits in front of a pile of yet-to-be-graded essays the following evening. Long writing assignments can cause fear and anxiety for students and teachers.

Some educators avoid assigning writing, believing that they don't have the time to either incorporate such a project or grade it. Thankfully, writing assignments need not be long in order to be effective. If you don't wish to assign a potentially time-consuming project, try these short assignments to help students become better writers and thinkers.

Summarizing for Comprehension

Summaries are an easy way to incorporate writing into any subject. They are a valuable way to challenge students to concisely identify the main details, themes, or arguments in a piece of writing. The longer the reading assignment, the more demanding the process of writing a cogent summary.

Teach students how to engage the text in a conscientious manner, reading the material while noting its most important elements. I periodically ask my students to write a 50-word summary on a textbook chapter, an exercise that many of them find exceedingly difficult at first. Gradually they become more confident in distilling an author's main points.

Share the best work with the class, underscoring the components of particularly effective summaries. When students hear the summaries of others, they develop a greater understanding of how to construct their own.

Prompt with Questions

Part of our jobs as teachers involves giving students the tools to continue learning new information on their own, as well as equipping them with the desire and skills to challenge their own biases. All of this involves teaching young people how to craft incisive questions.

Review with students the importance of questioning, and introduce to them different question-writing techniques, pausing before calling on a particular student to encourage every student to think about the answer.

Have students write a single-sentence question in response to a piece of nonfiction or fiction writing. Then, assign students to answer each other's questions with another carefully constructed sentence. Each student should have a piece of writing-a question and an answer-that is roughly two sentences in length for teachers to review.

Consider employing question prompts such as Bloom's question starters. Teachers can tailor the complexity and specificity of these prompts to the needs of the student.

Encourage Creative Responses

Thomas Jefferson composing a three-sentence response to Hamilton's banking plan.

Theodore Roosevelt tweeting his opinions on modern antitrust investigations of Google, Facebook, and Apple.

A series of text messages between George Washington and Franklin Delano Roosevelt about whether the Lend-Lease Program is a harmful "entangling alliance."

Short writing assignments can also be more imaginative assignments. Consider, for instance, asking students adopt the voice of a historical figure:

English teachers, for example, may want to incorporate fictional characters into their creative-response assignments to require students to practice inferring a character's thoughts. English teachers can use these creative responses as brief, but powerful, assessment tools for reading comprehension.

Keep It Short

A student is never too old to revisit the basics of writing, and educators should not underestimate the importance of teaching students how to construct compelling and grammatical sentences.

Write a sentence-long summary of an article or book.

Describe the main idea of the piece in one sentence.

Complete a one-sentence story or memoir.

Any short writing assignment can be reduced to a single sentence. Some options include the following:

One-sentence assignments push students to meticulously choose the right words and structure to convey their points.

A Chance for Collaboration

Short writing assignments offer many opportunities for collaboration between disciplines.

Try incorporating vocabulary words or techniques that students are learning in other classes into a short writing assignment. A history teacher might ask students to write a summary of a reading using vocabulary from their English class. A history teacher could also integrate a book or short story from an English class. These techniques need not be limited to the humanities and social sciences. STEM instructors could assess informative or explanatory writing skills by asking students to compose a list of sentences outlining the steps they took to solve a problem or create something.

Mechanics Matter

Good writing on any subject demands proficiency in content and form. Short writing assignments allow busy teachers to pay attention to grammar and punctuation.

When assigning a short writing project, a teacher may wish to require some structural element ("incorporate a quote" or "use at least two compound sentences in your response"). Whatever the case, educators should stress the importance of grammar, punctuation, style, and syntax.

Blaise Pascal famously wrote, "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." Trying to get a point across in a few words or sentences is often more challenging than going on for many pages. Short assignments also require students to self-edit-a skill that is valuable throughout school and in their working life.

Short writing assignments allow for fun, quick, and stimulating ways of teaching valuable writing skills.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Brief writing prompts and responses help students in any discipline. A panicked student confronts a blank laptop screen late at night. A frazzled teacher sits in front of a pile of yet-to-be-graded essays the following evening. Long writing assignments can cause fear and anxiety for students and teachers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Penny Kittle shares a lesson plan that uses very short mentor texts to foster students' love of writing and confidence in their work.

Jens Magnusson / Ikon Images

In many classrooms, students labor over writing. They groan when we give assignments. They procrastinate. They lack confidence. Where's the joy? We know it matters. Joy suspends time. When students have it, they will work past the bell.
What is this author doing to make this book so good? I can't stop reading it! How can I replicate those craft moves to give my writing this kind of life and power? Does the author do this in all his books?
We teachers have the power to ignite joy as a regular practice through the study of authors' craft moves. Students will discover the potential of intentionally arranging sentences (in a list, perhaps), or in shaping an image (to show a creepy setting or define a character), or in creating authentic dialogue. Studying passages from great books not only hones writing skills but also generates curiosity.

The answer to these questions lies in the frequent study and imitation of micro mentor texts.

A micro mentor text is a few sentences, a paragraph, or a scene. It is short enough to analyze with students in a mini-lesson but packed with writer's craft that we can teach students how to identify and imitate. The power of this practice lies in its simplicity and its infinite variations. It's a simple idea that I've used with great success in my teaching and literacy coaching, grade two to college, for decades. My students, however, do most of the work, collecting passages to study during independent reading and book clubs. When we unite our students' reading with the study of the writer's craft, we save time and inspire wise young writers.

There is never enough time in teaching, but one important and lasting understanding is that books hold lessons for writers. Let's help our students learn how to discover them.

A few tools and techniques can change your entire approach to teaching writing. I'll share a sample micro mentor text lesson.

BEGIN: Excite your students about the selected text
Three different kids. One mission in common: ESCAPE. Three young people will go on harrowing journeys in search of refuge. All will face unimaginable dangers-from drownings to bombings to betrayals. But for each of them, there is always hope of tomorrow. And although Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud are separated by continents and decades, surprising connections will tie their stories together in the end.
I begin with a book talk, holding up Refugee, by Alan Gratz. I summarize the story in a few sentences from the author's website:

"This book," I tell students, "has won so many awards, I can't list them all. It not only was voted Best Fiction for Young Adults in 2018, but also became a New York Times best seller." I end this book talk, as I do all book talks, with these words: "If this sounds like a book you might want to read next, add it to your list at the back of your writer's notebook."

We must support the ongoing reading lives of all our students. Daily book talks remind students of all the great books available to them.

NOTICE: Passage study engages students through peer discussion
It was like they were invisible. Josef and his sister followed their mother through the crowd at the Lehrter Bahnhof, Berlin's main railway station. Josef and Ruth each carried a suitcase, and their mother carried two more-one for herself, and one for Josef's father. No porters rushed to help them with their bags. No station agents stopped to ask if they needed help finding their train. The bright yellow Star of David armbands the Landaus wore were like magical talismans that made them disappear. Yet no one bumped into them, Joseph noticed. All the station attendants and other passengers gave them a wide berth, flowing around them like water around a stone. The people chose not to see them.
In the following short passage from Refugee, Gratz establishes the setting with artful intention. I encourage students to talk with a partner, not only about what is happening here, but also about what Gratz is doing to create this moment, sentence by sentence.

The claim "like they were invisible" is supported by details of what that means.

The repetition of "no porters, no station agents" to show what was not happening but should have been happening.

The use of a simile ("like magical talismans... like water around a stone") to help the reader imagine what the crowd is seeing and how it is moving.

I wander the room and take notes on what students notice. Below are a few observations that I heard when conducting this passage study:

When we come back together as a class, I share students' observations and add them to an anchor chart (an ongoing, cumulative list) of craft moves we notice. Each book, we soon learn, is a treasure chest of craft moves.

IMITATE: Teacher modeling helps students visualize the use of craft moves in writing
The cement wall was cold against my head and neck and my legs crossed, uncrossed, stretched, and bunched up. I pulled my long blond hair back into a ponytail. I waited. I hated this part. More than the cold lima beans on my plate at dinner or scraping wax off of our hardwood floors at home, I hated this choosing teams thing. Just once, I wanted to be captain.
We pull out our writing notebooks, and I model how I might imitate Gratz's craft moves based on my own topic. My goal is to encourage students to use their observations as they write. I say, "I imagine myself at morning basketball practice in the gym of my middle school. There was only one team at the school, so my best friend and I tried out for the boys' team. I want to describe that setting for readers." I write a few sentences (either on the board or under a document camera, depending on what tools are available) and explain that I'm focusing on details that describe, inspired by Gratz's writing.

THEIR TURN: Drafting and sharing their own written work boosts students' confidence

I ask students to choose their own topics and try imitating Gratz as I continue writing. They do. Pencils fly. Some students go back to the passage to look at it more closely, and then continue writing. Other students read what I'm writing before continuing.
No girls were chosen to be captains in the morning scrimmage. No coach stepped up to make it fair.
I imitate a sentence pattern from the passage. I return to the passage and highlight the "no" sentences, and then I write my own sentences:

Students work in pairs, sharing their creations for a minute or two as I listen in. Sometimes we share our writing as a class. Student confidence blossoms. After all, they are standing next to the craft of expert authors, so they write with confidence. When students share, they discover the many ways that craft moves can be made across experiences and experiments from all the writers in the room. All things seem possible.

PRACTICE: Students learn How to read like writers independently

When students enter independent reading, I see 25 heads bent over 25 books. No matter the novel or nonfiction book each student has chosen, intentional craft moves are at work in it. We read like writers. As I confer with students, I hear what they've noticed.

In book clubs, students share passages they've collected to spur discussion. But they share more than passages. They share the joy of discovery. One student says to another, "Where did you find that?" and suddenly they begin to study the passage together.

This is teacher joy-when we watch students learning from each other. We need more of it. As Decoteau J. Irby says in The Blog of Harvard Education Publishing, "Joy at school and in learning is a foundation from which students gain the confidence that academic struggle is temporary and worthwhile." Let's bring joy back to the teaching of writing. It's there-right there-in the books we love.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teaching the Writer's Craft With Micro Mentor Texts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Penny Kittle shares a lesson plan that uses very short mentor texts to foster students' love of writing and confidence in their work. Jens Magnusson / Ikon Images In many classrooms, students labor over writing. They groan when we give assignments. They procrastinate. They lack confidence. Where's the joy?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by Terry Heick

The title is self-explanatory enough: Let's look at some ways for students to learn from one another in physical or digital classroom.

I've also marked which of these are also 'digital and social media-friendly'-that is, useful online as well as off.

Update: I just realized that discussion strategies don't necessarily have to be grouping strategies. Disagreeing, Devil's Advocate, Redirecting, Extended Thinking, and countless other methods could be considered as collaborative discussion strategies. I'll address those in another post.

22 Strategies For Learning Through Conversation

1. Rings (or 'Concentric Circles')

Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Achievable

This is a strategy I used a lot in my ELA middle and high school classrooms.

The structure is to physically (or digitally) place students in circles of increasing size. The innermost circle may have as few as four students. The next circle or 'ring' might have eight, then the following 16, and so on. In fact, you could even use the same number of students in each 'larger' ring if that fits your application. As an example, a Fishbowl Discussion is a type of Rings Discussion.

The idea is to assign some function to each 'ring.' Some examples? The innermost group can take turns responding to a debatable prompt-the limits of freedom of speech, for example. The next ring would respond to the main points made but the first circle, either extending those points with elaboration or data or refuting each of their points with counter-points. Then the last circle could judge who had the most effective arguments or made important points that, with some clarifying, could have been even more rhetorically impactful.

But it doesn't have to be debate. Each ring could perform a different 'role' much like literature circles: note-takers, researchers, vocabulary experts, paraphrasers, etc. The structure could also be used creatively, where each ring

You could also pick a historical event or figure or fictional character and have each ring explain/defend/describe something from a different perspective. In this way, rings are kind of like traditional groups but the group work is done synchronously and collaboratively.

Another strategy is to assign a different level of Bloom's Taxonomy to each circle and have students use that level to dictate their role in a certain activity. You don't even have to use Bloom's-just increasing complexity and higher order thinking. Define or describe in the middle working toward analyze, evaluate, and transfer on the outside-or the other way around.
2. QFT
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

See What Is The Question Formulation Technique?
3. Stand & Declare
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

In this activity, students 'stand' (this could be at their desk with an elbow partner, in a small group, or in front of the entire class) and make a statement, respond to a prompt, communicate a working thesis, play devil's advocate, take on the role of a historical figure, cite a line of poetry, etc.

The idea is to firmly and clearly articulate/declare something and then have other students participate somehow. They could create concept maps, take sketch notes, agree or disagree-or play some more cohesive function in small groups while the first student 'takes a stand' on some topic or issue. Whether the first student has to defend that statement or whether they simply articulate a clear point and pick the next student to respond is up to you.

This could be content-based, as well-flexible for almost any student to participate. For example, if you were studying calculating the area of a circle, you could ask students to stand and say anything true about the the process. A student struggling with the idea could at least tell you that a circle is 360 degrees while a student who has mastered the process already could
4. Debate
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

This one's simple enough. Formal debate is as much about the process as it is the content itself, so plan accordingly. You could always give simple rules, provide basic question or answer stems, and have students 'debate' one another-or you, the teacher, assuming a person, place, or idea. (See more on that at number 11 below.)

See also Sentence Stems for Higher-Level Discussion
5. Paideia Seminar
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

You can read more about the Paideia Seminar here.
6. Seed Discussions
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

Seed Discussions are a kind of Literature Circle that combine close reading of a text through 'seeds': Adlit.org provides the following explanation:

"A Seed Discussion is a two-part strategy used to teach students how to engage in discussions about assigned readings. In the first part, students read selected text and identify 'seeds' or key concepts of a passage which may need additional explanation. In the second part, students work in small groups to present their 'seeds' to one another. Each 'seed' should be thoroughly discussed before moving on to the next."

Leader: responsible for calling on each person to share his/her discussion seeds

Manager: ensures that everyone has all materials for the discussion (books, , seeds, etc.)

Checker: ensures that every group member has a chance to talk about his/her seed and that each group member comments on each seed before the next person presents a new seed for discussion

Communicator: the only person to leave the group; notifies the teacher when the discussion is complete

You can read more about Seed Discussions here.
7. Socratic Seminar
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

You can read more here in What Is A Socratic Seminar?
8. Pair & Share
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Somewhat

A Pair & Share is a long-standing teaching strategy flexible in a range of contexts. The idea is that students pair-usually, as the name implies, in 'groups' of two-and share something. This could be used before a lesson as a kind of front-loading or after a lesson as an informal assessment or reinforcement and review. (For assessment, you could have students Pair & Share, then leave takeaways on an exit slip.)
9. Affinity Groups
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Somewhat

Another strategy for learning through conversation is to allow students to find certain groups that are 'alike' or 'match' something in your lesson. Students might have to find other people who agree with their stance on a topic or have a similar understanding on the immigration policy lesson you're working through.

The idea is that students have to, through brief conversations, explain their point of view, make sense of the point of view held by their peers, then cluster in groups where their 'beliefs' and understandings are sufficiently parallel.
10. Fish Bowl
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

Read more about Fish Bowl Discussions here.
11. Role-Playing Interview
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

In this discussion strategy, rather than one another, students talk to ideas-and the ideas talk back.

For example, you could 'become' literary symbolism or democracy or a mathematical concept or historical period or figure or Sodium Chloride-then let students ask you questions. You also could debate with students or help them debate one another as well, asking them to debate from their own perspective or, again, from the perspective of others or other 'things.'
12. Oxford Style Debate
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? With high school and university students, yes

Intelligence Squared is a wonderful example of Oxford Style Debate, which you can find here.
13. Agree/Disagree
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Somewhat

As a classroom discussion strategy, Agree/Disagree activities function by a moderator (usually the teacher) making compelling and debatable statements. In response, the students move to one of two (or four) sides of the room to reflect their stance. Before the discussion, the teacher will label either two sides 'Agree/Disagree' or four (Strongly Agree, Agree/Strongly Disagree, Disagree).

A variation is that you could require students to choose a side they don't agree with (devil's advocate) or you could let students choose their 'position,' then (once revealed) as them to take the opposite position.
14. Talking Circles
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

According to Alberta Education, "the purpose of the talking circle, used as part of classroom instruction, is to create a safe environment in which students can share their point of view with others. In a Talking Circle, each one is equal and each one belongs. Participants in a Talking Circle learn to listen and respect the views of others. The intention is to open hearts to understand and connect with one another."

You can read more about Talking Circles here.
15. Spoken Word Poetry or Music
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

Writing poetry or music isn't a widespread skill or tendency most students have, but in certain classrooms-or for certain students in most classrooms-the ability to communicate creatively can be powerful for the student and their peers by establishing confidence, framing academic ideas in creative ways, and bringing joy (and strong emotions in general) to learning activities.

Hip-hop can also be taught as an ongoing cultural dialogic, for example.
16. Degrees Of Meaning
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Limited

In this activity, students arrange themselves in a line or some other shape to reflect the continuum of their beliefs about a topic.

A variation is to use this to teach vocabulary. For example, give students a collection of words that represent a range (or 'degrees') of meaning. Scintillating, Bright, Gleaming, Reflective, Demonstrative, Glittering, Twinkling, etc. In small groups, you can assign a word to a student (or let them choose their own), then arrange themselves in a line that represents what they believe to be an appropriate order they can explain or defend. To do this, students obviously have to know the words and discuss with their peers the distinctions of meaning between the terms.

This strategy can also be applied to other content areas. Use your imagination!
17. Literature Circles
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

Literature Circles are a way for students to assume a specific role in the study of something (usually a text). Students are usually grouped in small groups of 4-6 students, with a range of student roles including Discussion Leader, Note-taker, Word-Finder, Time-Manager, Fact-Checker, Spokesperson, and more.

By being placed in groups, students learn through ongoing discussion with one another in a setting small enough that everyone is able to find a voice-and for many, unable to remain anonymous in the larger setting of whole class discussions.

You can read more about Literature Circles here.
18. Write-Around
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

In a write-around, students aren't 'talking' but rather having a kind of conversation through writing. It is limited in form but useful as both a way for students to build on one another's understandings and as a way for you to informally assess what they know.
19. Podcasting
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

This one is more of a technology tool than a learning strategy, but it also very much functions as a learning strategy if used strategically.

At the most basic level, podcasts can encourage students to learn through conversation by (potentially) providing an authentic audience and product for a conversation. Put another way, the conversation 'goes somewhere.' A secondary function of using podcasts to promote learning through conversation is that they document the conversation. This can allow the conversation to be revisited, shared, analyzed, continued, scored, connected to other projects/media, etc.
20. Student-Led Conferencing
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

The conversation is limited to you and the student (and possibly their parents), but students explaining and defending what they know and describing how they see themselves as students in your classroom can be incredibly informative at any point in the year.
20. Mentoring
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

This approach is usually integrated outside of the classroom, but that's not a bad thing. In fact, if all conversations by students are had inside a classroom, the chances of authenticity, personalization, transfer, etc, are all low. Students learning from intellectually nurturing professionals is among the most authentic learning experiences a student can have.
21. Peer-to-Peer or School-to-School Learning
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

This is a general 'strategy' that's not useful for most teachers as a 'tool,' I added to this list to help illustrate the different forms of 'classroom discussion' that can (and do) occur that lead to students interacting, creating new knowledge, and sharing what they know with their peers.
22. Team-Building Games
Remote Teaching and eLearning Friendly? Yes

Team-building is one of the most overlooked strategies for learning through conversation and I really should have placed it much higher than this. In fact, I'm going to write more on this soon. For now, you can see examples of team-building games for critical thinking and team-building games for a friendlier classroom.
Other Strategies For Learning Through Conversation Book clubs Project-Based Learning
Art (create, criticism, etc.)
Music TED Talk-style monologues in the classroom 22 Strategies For Learning Through Conversation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
22 Strategies For Learning Through Conversation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Terry Heick The title is self-explanatory enough: Let's look at some ways for students to learn from one another in physical or digital classroom. I've also marked which of these are also 'digital and social media-friendly'-that is, useful online as well as off.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Many students struggle with these skills, which are tied to academic success. Here are a few ways to teach them explicitly.

Many students struggle with speaking and listening skills and the ability to work together in the classroom-vital social skills that are also important in academic learning.

In our district, we noticed a particular decline in speaking and listening skills in response to remote and hybrid learning and subsequently took an intentional, district-wide approach to supporting student discourse that has contributed to significant academic gains.

By facilitating professional development, inviting instructional coaches into our school, selecting curricula that centers student talk, and exploring teaching tools such as sentence starters (e.g., "I agree with you because...," "Can you tell me more about that...," and "I know a different way to solve that..."), we promote accountable, respectful dialogue in and outside of the classroom.

If you, too, are looking for specific, systematic steps to get the conversation going in your classroom, here are a few ideas to help get you started.

Create book clubs or literary circles

Pair students based on their interest in a topic, not by their reading levels, and get them talking to each other and the class about the books they enjoy. Provide supports like audio versions of a text if needed, to make the groupings more equitable.

You might ask students to offer a book review upon completing a book, but to do so verbally instead of in written form to boost speaking and listening skills. You can also encourage a question-and-answer session about the book, in which a student reader is considered an expert and is interviewed by their peers to keep the conversation going.

In a recent classroom visit, I saw students involved in literary circles based on student choice. Students chose a book that they found interesting after learning about books during a "book tasting"-an activity in which students walked around the classroom and surveyed information about books that were appropriate for their grade level, presented on different tables.

I returned to the classroom after students dove into the books. The teacher and co-teacher took turns rotating between the groups and asked students open-ended questions about themes and content. The discussion was inspiring, and after teachers posed the initial question, students were able to lead, direct, and continue the conversation organically-an ability that we attribute to the students' ability to choose the books that they found most compelling.

Get started with Socratic seminars in any subject

To make Socratic seminars dynamic and engaging, you can start by writing open-ended questions on a soccer ball. Then, simply start tossing the ball around the room. The student who catches the ball reads aloud the question that is facing them and responds.

This activity incorporates kinesthetic engagement into the curriculum and works well across subjects. You can find examples of open-ended questions to adapt to your particular unit or lesson topic and write them on the ball. For an added challenge, you might invite students to brainstorm open-ended questions for inclusion in this activity, too, facilitating discussion about what types of questions best support critical thinking and discourse.

Teach about Accountable Talk

Accountable talk is an approach to scaffolding responsible, responsive dialogue in the classroom; often, teachers need to model productive discourse explicitly at first, such as using and talking about insightful open-ended questions or sentence frames, but a gradual release of responsibility can then help students succeed in independent discourse.

Reward students with small incentives when you first roll out accountable talk in the classroom. One teacher in our district uses stickers when he hears students using the accountable talk sentence stems that he displays on his board.

Students can then turn these stickers in for a homework pass when they reach a certain number, incorporating an element of gamification that makes speaking and listening an explicit and continuous consideration in the classroom.

Make it equitable

Even when promoting speaking and listening skills with students, it's important to ensure that the loudest voices don't crowd out the others. Collaborative, group-based, or project-based learning are great ways to spark student conversations in an equitable way.

One way to do this is to make sure that everyone has a role in the group and to explicitly teach kids how to work together. The more students are able to collaborate and practice speaking academically and respectfully with one another, the more natural it becomes for them to have productive discussions.

Rearrange the furniture

Flexible furniture allows teachers to group students in different ways and create comfortable learning environments that lead to conversation. Our State Department of Education is funding classroom redesigns in several schools to support flexibility; some will get desks with built-in whiteboards, and others will have chairs with wheels to help students make small groups. Lego walls and STEM-related items will encourage students to work collaboratively. Search for similar grants or funding opportunities in your district to make flexible seating accessible to all, supporting students' speaking and listening skills by extension.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Strategies for Supporting Students' Speaking and Listening Skills

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Many students struggle with these skills, which are tied to academic success. Here are a few ways to teach them explicitly. Many students struggle with speaking and listening skills and the ability to work together in the classroom-vital social skills that are also important in academic learning.

# data[].attributes.body
Found in April for Poetry Month - a cute short that talks about inspiration and all the things that need to happen for us to be who we are...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The NFB's 11th Academy-Award winning film. This short animation follows Kasper, a poet whose creative well has run dry, on a holiday to Norway to meet the famous ...

# data[].attributes.headline
Social and Emotional Learning and Reading Skills

# data[].attributes.subject
Social and Emotional Learning and Reading Skills

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)

Building strong social and emotional learning skills can help set the stage for students to become better readers.

While there are legitimate debates about approaches to teaching reading, there also is growing understanding that students' social and emotional competencies play a strong role in their ability to read up to their potential. Several basic social and emotional learning (SEL) skills are utilized when students are reading.

SEL Competencies Related to Reading

Recognition and proper labeling of feelings in pictures and as conveyed through dialogue and narration in books. When children are relatively undifferentiated regarding their own emotions, such as having difficulty distinguishing between anger, frustration, annoyance, and disappointment, one can see how nuance even in young readers' picture books will be lost, making books far less interesting.

Being able to take others' perspectives and having empathy for characters. Similar to the above, when students are not able to accurately recognize feelings of various characters, their actions will be hard to explain, and the flow of stories will take considerable cognitive work to follow.

Managing strong emotions while reading. Following from the above, students' inability to manage their own feelings as they encounter words they don't understand or story lines and character actions that don't seem to make sense will determine how long they hang in with a given reading assignment. During the course of developing reading skills, frustration, confusion, and annoyance are among the expected feelings that must be managed.

Relating to others, especially in groups. Because reading instruction often occurs in pairs, small groups, or full classrooms, students who are unable to wait their turn, listen carefully to what others around them are saying (including receiving and giving feedback), or pay focused attention to what multiple others are saying will not gain optimally from even the best pedagogical approaches.

Problem-solving around difficulties. The process of acquiring any skill leads to some roadblocks. The ability to handle them and problem-solve around them is a key determinant in making progress. At a micro level, this can happen within a sentence, multiple sentences, paragraphs, chapters, etc. When students are put off by seeing things they don't understand, or that evoke strong emotions they are not able to manage, reading progress stops in its tracks. As these accumulate, negative anticipations become stronger and stronger.

An emeritus professor of English at the University of Southern California, Stephen Krashen, has studied how anxiety, low self-confidence, and negative expectations of success all influence students' language-learning experiences, and this is especially so for non-native English speakers.

University of Central Arkansas assistant professor Anna Park and her colleagues found that these feelings of inadequacy had a profound influence particularly on low-socioeconomic-status Latino elementary school students. Thus, it's clear how shortcomings in SEL skills contribute to processes that derail reading success, especially among students having difficulty.

Strengthening SEL Skills in Reading Instruction

For each person or groups of people, what are some different decisions or solutions to the problem that might have helped them reach their goals?

Do you agree or disagree with their solution to the problem? What would you have done in a similar situation? Why?

What questions do you have based on what you read? What would you like to be able to ask one of the characters?

For young children, emphasize reading the emotions in pictures before diving into the text. Point out the pictures of various characters and ask children how they might be feeling. Literally point to the signs of feelings that are depicted by the amazing illustrators: facial expressions, eyebrows, position of hands, posture, etc.

Use a "book talk" format to build problem-solving skills around understanding stories and story flow. Ask children to think about how characters feel about the situations they are in and what any given character might want to have happen. Here are some possible questions to ask students:

Personal storytelling, where students share stories or personal experiences and respond to classmates' questions, especially about feelings, builds a number of SEL skills.

Require the use of assigned, developmentally appropriate emotion words in student writing.

Teach your class a self-calming strategy to use, as well as a signal to give to the teacher, when they encounter some obstacle as they are reading. Normalize this as a benefit for every student.

When you have students working in pairs or groups, discuss the norms and expectations for how interactions will take place, as well as how to handle difficulties that arise.

Assign personal writing about goals and aspirations, as well as challenges and opportunities. These tasks often are highly motivating to learners and increase their willingness to work through roadblocks.

Literature can involve people showing their emotions through their actions. Have students reflect on the choices that characters make in the stories they read and think about the SEL skills and the character traits that they exemplify. Also, use literature that addresses cultural, ethnic, gender, ability, socioeconomic, and other aspects of diversity.

To help students track and develop strategies to overcome obstacles encountered during reading, use a problem diary.

In many areas of life, SEL strategies and skill building help valued outcomes to happen. This is especially true when it comes to learning how to read, and to read well-one of the most essential life competencies.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Role of SEL in Developing Reading Skills

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) Building strong social and emotional learning skills can help set the stage for students to become better readers. While there are legitimate debates about approaches to teaching reading, there also is growing understanding that students' social and emotional competencies play a strong role in their ability to read up to their potential.

# data[].attributes.headline
Self Awareness - Past, Present and Future

# data[].attributes.subject
Self Awareness - Past, Present and Future

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Letters written to their future selves can strengthen students’ writing skills and encourage them to be more introspective.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
18 Warm-Up Activities to Engage Students Before They Read Nonfiction Texts (Published 2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Here is a collection of our favorite “bell ringers,” “do nows” and “hooks” to grab students’ attention, along with examples from dozens of our daily lessons.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
18 Warm-Up Activities to Engage Students Before They Read Nonfiction Texts (Published 2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Here is a collection of our favorite “bell ringers,” “do nows” and “hooks” to grab students’ attention, along with examples from dozens of our daily lessons.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Podcasting: Single-Point Rubric & Self Reflection

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We don't expect you to be experts. In fact, we expect that most of you are putting a podcast together for the first time.

And even though this is a contest, it's also about learning new skills in a fun way. We want to make that learning easier - so we've put together a guide to help you along the way.
Getting Started Your Toolbox Podcast Examples Planning Your Podcast Getting Your Ideas Together Brainstorming Sounds Podcast Structure Podcast Production What Makes A Good Interview? Preparing For Field Recording Scripting Your Podcast Voicing The Podcast Production Tips Before we get started, we know you might have a few questions. Let's talk about a few basics. What's a podcast?
Podcasts come in all shapes and sizes. That's good news for you, because it means that you have lots of room to be creative and make something you're excited about. Some podcasts, like This American Life, are long - sometimes an hour or more. Others, like Kind World, a podcast from WBUR, are less than 10 minutes. Some podcasts, like NPR's Up First, are about news. Up First comes out every morning, and the hosts talk about the news and feature stories from guests reporting on the news. Other podcasts tell stories. Lots are funny. Some feature people having conversations. Many are educational: They teach listeners about a specific topic. NPR's Hidden Brain is about science and human behavior. And there's Planet Money, a podcast all about money and life.

Think about sound. We're challenging you to work with sounds - interviews, narration and recorded sounds from the world around you.
Don't I need fancy equipment to make a podcast?
Nope! There are ways to make a podcast without buying expensive microphones and recorders. We're writing this guide with the idea that you can make a podcast with two tools: a smartphone and a computer.
How many people do we need, and what roles are involved?
There isn't a set number of people needed to create a podcast, but it helps to have a team of people who work in different roles.

The role of producers frequently varies between podcasts and radio shows. Often, producers are in charge of the sound: They record the sound and edit it to put the podcast together. You'll also need writers to write out questions for interviews or the script. (Sometimes, producers or hosts pitch in to help write for podcasts.) Hosts also "voice" the podcast by acting as the narrator and conducting interviews with subjects. Depending on the size of your class or group, some team members may work as researchers or spend time organizing interviews. After you record the conversations or interviews, your team will want to make sure you talk about what you want to cut out and keep in - that's all part of the editing process. You might choose to have editors on your team or assign editing duties to teammates who have pitched in in other ways.

You can divide up these duties in a way that makes sense for the size of your team. You might decide to have multiple people host and multiple people work as producers.
What does it mean to mix audio?
Mixing is the process of editing and arranging audio clips in a way that sounds seamless and natural to a listener. After you and your team record sounds from interviews, events or other sources, you'll need to arrange them in a sound-editing software, like Audacity, which you can download online free of charge.
I've been reading lots of training guides that use tons of words I don't know. Help!
This glossary from NPR's training site has lots of words that you might come across if you're reading up on podcasting.

Your Toolbox

Before you think too much about your podcast, you're going to want to think about how, exactly, you'll record the sounds you need.

Here at NPR, we use lots of equipment when we leave the office to record interviews or sounds for our stories and podcasts. But we don't expect you to have all that equipment - and you can make a podcast with a few basic tools that you already have.
1. A phone
If you carry a cellphone with you, chances are, you've got a recording device in your pocket. And if you use it the right way, you can record high-quality sounds that work just fine for your podcast.

You can record sounds, conversations or interviews with sound recording apps on your smartphone.

You can also use your phone's built-in recording app. If you've got an iPhone, go to your "utilities" folder and click on "voice memos" to begin recording.

You'll want to make sure you have enough storage on your phone to do this and that you can either email the sound file to yourself or plug your phone into the computer to upload the recording.

If you're recording a person speaking, hold the phone a few inches from his or her mouth. Not too close, but not more than a few inches away, either.
2. A computer with sound editing software
Once you've recorded your interviews or the sounds you want to use, you'll need to put them all together into your podcast. To do this, you need to use audio editing software to "mix" the sound files together. The good news is that there are lots of software options out there.

If your school already provides editing software on the computers, feel free to use that. If not, we recommend Audacity, which is a free software download available online. You can download it here. As you learn to use it, lots of tutorials are available from Audacity.

If your school or podcasting team has other tools available to use, it's important that you use them correctly to create the best product that you can.

Listening

Have you ever listened to a podcast or radio show before?

If you've listened to podcasts before - take a minute to think about them. What keeps you listening? What bores you?

Let's take a few minutes to hear a few examples. As you listen, think about the different ways that these segments are structured. Is there a host? Is it an interview style - or is a narrator telling a story, with clips of interviews in between?
Morning Edition: Hidden Brain: Hidden Brain: How Labels Can Affect People's Personalities and Potential The Haunting Effects of Going Days Without Sleep Reporting Live From Miami: A Bunch Of Fourth-Graders Tell Their Teacher's Story
How I Built This: Instagram: Kevin Systrom & Mike Krieger

Getting Your Ideas Together

Now that you've listened to a few examples, start to gather ideas. We've given you a few prompts to get you thinking. They aren't required, but you may choose to use them.

Here they are again:
Before you settle on one idea for your podcast, ask yourself:

Tell us a story about your school or community: about something that happened there - recently or in the past - that your audience should know about.

What is a moment in history that all students should learn about?

Show us both sides of a debate about an issue that's important to you.

What do you want to change about the world? What's a big change that students today will make in the future?

Explain something to us that kids understand and grown-ups don't.

Before you settle on one idea, take a few minutes to brainstorm. Try to come up with an idea that might work for each of these prompts. Be sure to think about how you might structure your podcast.

Would it be an interview with someone? Would one host narrate the podcast, using clips of interviews to tell a story? What sound would you use to give listeners a full idea of the story you're telling?

Is this podcast idea realistic?

If the idea involves traveling somewhere far away or interviewing someone famous, it might be difficult. Make sure you can do it before you settle on one idea.

Our friends at YR Media have a handy list of sounds that all podcasters should consider recording while planning their podcast. Scroll down to "what sounds to gather" on this page to find that list.

Does the timeline work? Can you complete your interviews or record other sounds well before the podcasts are due - so that you have time to edit the audio and submit it?

Sounds Like You're Making a Podcast

OK, so you've settled on a topic or idea for your podcast.

Now it's time to start thinking about the sounds that you'll use. Regardless of how your project is structured, it helps to feature a variety of sounds.
Here are a couple of examples of radio pieces that use sounds to add to the story.
Try to record sounds relevant to your story. If I'm telling a story about the mayor of my town, I'll try to go record him leading a town hall meeting, talking to his constituents, and even doing day-to-day activities, that I can play during my podcast.

Let's say you're heading to a protest in front of my local town hall. You're heading into a "scene" that you might want to describe - and include sound from - in your podcast. What sounds should you include?

Compile a list of sounds you'd like to record - and bring that list with you when you go into the field.

Listen to this "Radio Field Trip" from New Hampshire Public Radio. What sounds do you hear? There's narration from the show's host, Rick Ganley - but there's a lot more than that.

And here's this one, from Radio Rookies, a series from WNYC. Listen to the sounds that Radio Rookie Edward uses and weaves between his narration.

Let's Talk Structure

Now that you know what your podcast is going to be about, and you've got an idea of the sounds you want to use, it's time to think about structure.

Before we start planning the podcast - before we get to scheduling interviews or scripting pieces - let's ask a few basic questions. Head to this link, from NPR's training site, and think about your answers.
Before you get there ...
Of course, the structure of your podcast will depend on the idea you've chosen. Will hosts from your class narrate the podcast? Then you'll start differently from the way you would have a conversation on tape.

What Makes A Good Interview?

There's a good chance that you're interviewing someone for your podcast. Maybe you're even talking to lots of different people. It's important to make the most out of the time you take to record them.

Do your research.

Make sure you understand why you're interviewing this person. Read up on who the person is, what he or she does, and the subject you're making a podcast about.

Prepare questions.
When you arrive ...

Come up with a list of open-ended questions you'd like to ask during your interview. It's OK to veer off course and good to ask follow-up questions that you haven't planned. But a list will help get things started.

Clarify the terms of the interview.
When you start recording ...

Make sure your interviewee knows you're talking to him or her for the NPR Student Podcast Challenge. The person should understand that you're recording audio.

Meet somewhere quiet (unless you want to record the noise!).

Don't choose to meet for an interview in a busy mall or a windy park. If you're indoors, head to a quiet room and close the door. If you're interviewing someone at an event, it's OK if there's some noise in the background - as long as it's the sound you want to have in the background. But try to avoid recording when there's music in the background - it's hard to edit around that sound.

Ask the interviewee to introduce himself or herself on tape.

The person should give his or her name and job title (what he or she does). A student should give his or her age and grade.

Record your own questions.

You'll want to hear these questions when you listen back to the tape later on.

Be curious.

You'll have some questions prepared - but that doesn't mean you're following a script. If the person says something you're interested in, ask questions. That's why you're there.

Remember: It's normal to be nervous. The person you're interviewing is probably nervous, too. It helps to be prepared. The better you know your questions and the better you know your equipment, the better you'll feel.

Before You Record Sound ...

Make sure you set aside time to:

Whether this is your first podcast or you're an audio pro, some basic tips can make your project a lot easier.

Test your equipment before you start.

Don't get stuck in an interview with a phone that doesn't have any storage or a microphone with no batteries.

Bring a teammate along to help when you're going to an interview or to record sounds.

Ask this person to time the interview and make a note of the interesting or compelling moments. Make a note of the time at these moments. This will help when you're cutting the audio and looking for these moments later.

Listen to the audio soon after you record it.

Save it somewhere you'll remember, and label it so you know exactly what your recording includes.

Checklist For Field Recording

Before you head out for an interview or sounds for your podcast, make sure you've got everything you need.

Download a checklist for field recording here to take with you when you're getting ready to head out to record.
Starting the story
Scripting Your Podcast

At NPR, some podcasts are scripted. That means that we plan the order that everything will be in before the host gets into the recording studio and records the narration. That can happen only after getting "tape" - sound from lots of interviews and audio from other recordings.

Let's take a look at the script of an audio segment. Here's one from the NPR Training team featuring a story from NPR's Ailsa Chang. There's not one correct way to write a script for a podcast - but it helps to indicate where your narrators will speak, and where you'll be using sounds or interview clips recorded beforehand, and how long these clips last.

First things first. So, you've figured out how you want your podcast to be structured and you've gathered the sound you need. Whether you're scripting the entire podcast or not, you probably need to write out at least one part: the very beginning.

Here's a post from NPR Training with some ideas about how to start, no matter how you're structuring your podcast.

Voicing The Podcast

After you've scripted the podcast, it's time to record the narration from the host or hosts from your group or class.

If you're hosting or narrating the podcast, you might be a little nervous about recording your voice. But here's something important to remember: Your voice is what makes you - and your podcast - sound unique. You want to sound natural, alert and energetic. You want to sound like you - the real you. Everyone stumbles over their words. And when that happens here at NPR, we often go back to the script and write shorter sentences that are easier to read and won't leave you feeling out of breathe. The key is to try to sound how you would if you were talking to a friend.
Some tips:
Here's another tip: Keep the frogs out of your throat by keeping a glass of water next to you while you're recording.

Production

Mixing is the process of editing and arranging audio clips in a way that sounds seamless and natural to a listener. After you and your podcasting team record sounds from interviews, events or other sources, you'll need to arrange them in sound-editing software, like Audacity, which is available online as a free download.

Don't leave audio mixing until the last minute. Mixing is time-consuming, especially if you're using new software or listening to long recordings. It can take many hours just to edit a few minutes of a podcast. Give yourself sufficient time to mix audio before you need to submit the podcast. Remember, the deadline for this contest is March 24.

Take the mixing process step by step. Prioritize things you need to do to make your podcast sound the best it can. Before you can do anything else, you need to cut your sound down to the clips you need, get them in order and adjust their volume levels so they're not too loud or too soft in a listener's ears. These are all things you can do in any audio editing software.

If you're already an audio mixing pro and you want some more guidance, check out this guide put together by Rob Byers of Minnesota Public Radio and NPR's training team.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Starting Your Podcast: A Guide For Students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Writing Prompt: What Are Five Things You Want Your Teacher to Know About You?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Creative Writing Idea: Invent Your Own Superhero

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Creative Writing Prompt: Invent a Sport Played with Jet Packs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Creative Writing Prompt: You Just Discovered a Magical Movie Theater

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Writing Prompt: Should Schools Ban Junk Food?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Maker Challenge: Design the Ultimate Tree House

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Creative Writing Prompt: Invent a School for Ninjas

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Maker Challenge: Invent a Sport Using These Random Items

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Maker Challenge: Design a School on Mars

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Maker Challenge: Invent a Creature that Lives Inside of an Active Volcano

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Maker Challenge: Design the Ultimate Tiny House

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Maker Challenge: Invent an Underground Civilization

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Divergent Thinking Challenge: What would you make with this?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Creative Writing Idea: What would be the ultimate Lego creation?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Creative Writing Idea: What will life be like in 2057?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Creative Writing Idea: Time Travel to Prehistoric Ages

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
You Are a Spy Disguised as a Bird Watcher (Creative Writing Prompt)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Creative Writing Idea: You Get an Unlimited Supply of Legos.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
You Get to Have Your Own Genius Hour (A Video for Students)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Writing Prompt: You Are a Real Estate Agent for Magical Homes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Spark Curiosity with a Single Day Wonder Day Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Writing Prompt: Your Shoes Aren't Lost . . . They're Hiding

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Is technology making life better or worse?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Create a To Do List for a Villain (Writing Prompt)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
You Just Received a Velociraptor for Christmas (Writing Prompt)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Van Pulls Up with Your Favorite Book Characters (Writing Prompt)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Should College Athletes Get Paid a Salary?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Hansel and Gretel Are On Trial (Writing Prompt)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
You Just Adopted a Labricorn (Writing Prompt)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Invent an Underwater School (Writing Prompt)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Tell the Story of Your First Pet from the Perspective of Your Pet (Writing Prompt)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Writing Prompt: You Have Just Been Shrunk Down to Two Inches Tall

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Writing Prompt: You Get a Mysterious Box

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Writing Prompt: Create a Utopian Society (That Becomes a Dystopia)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Writing Prompt: You Discover a Smart Phone for Dogs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Getting Started with Blogging (A Prompt for Students)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
You Woke Up Inside of a Video Game (Writing Prompt)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I teach, I write, I travel, I talk—to help students become better readers and writers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Video clips and emojis are rapidly becoming the preferred means of communication in today's digital world. To appease shorter attention spans, marketers must find new and exciting ways to share ideas with their target audiences.

Infographics are fun and easy to digest - when executed properly, that is. Here are 6 essential elements to include when creating your very own branded infographic:

1. Descriptive Title and Subheads

Infographics simplify lengthy or complex data by presenting it into a visually pleasing package. You want readers to know what they're looking at right away by including a descriptive title and subheads, like the ones on this clever infographic that HighJump created for St. Patrick's Day.

2. Informative Statistics

Informative data puts the "info" in infographic. Make sure your statistics are valuable, relevant, and of course - accurate. Attribute all facts to the reputable sources from which you pulled them.

3. Bold, Thematically Appropriate Color Scheme

Choose a bold color scheme that aligns with the message you're trying to send. Infographics should do more than communicate information - they should also invoke a certain feeling. If your infographic is on the lighthearted side, for example, avoid dampening the mood with somber colors.

4. Eye-Catching Graphics

Aside from being interesting and informative, infographics should also be eye-catching. After all, you're competing for the attentions of a digital audience with more than a few choices when it comes to sourcing information relevant to their interests. Make yours the standout favorite.

5. Clearly Organized, Sequential Story

People don't just want to scan through a bunch of data that they could find themselves with a quick Google search - they want a compelling narrative. Infographics should be clearly structured and intentionally ordered, allowing the reader to digest the information they contain within the proper context.

6. Specially Formatted Facts

Make sure to highlight the most pertinent facts in your infographic by formatting them uniquely - whether you choose to highlight, increase the font size, or bold the typeface.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Anatomy of an Infographic: 6 Essential Elements | Thunderfoot

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Infographics are fun, informative and easy to share - but only when executed properly. Here are 6 essential elements to include.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
How you ever used infographics in your classroom? Kathy Schrock has great resources for using infographics in the classroom. I love her definition. "Infographics are a visual representation of data. When students create infographics, they are using information, visual, and technology literacies."

Teachers are always struggling to get their students' attention. It's suggested by neuroscientists that teachers try using stories, images, pictures and visual tools to get their conscious attention. This is where infographics comes in. A very simple example of an infographic is a flowchart. The visuals are the different shapes which represent topics. Then text can be added to the flowchart.

The July issue of Time magazine is full of infographics representing data. There's an infographic on What's the Most Effective Workout?, Where's the Best Beach in America?, Where are the Single Ladies? There can be an infographic for everything with data.

To use infographics effectively in the classroom, I suggest the following,

1. Present your students with different types of infographics. Show them on your Whiteboard for whole group discussion or hand some out to small groups so they can analyze the data presented. Ask your students about the benefits of using infographics instead of just text. What information is gained from the specific infographic? How do the fonts, color and design contribute in gaining information from infographics.

Infographics are great for learning as we process images

60.000x faster than words. (Piktochart)

2. Infographics can be used to make comparisons, show trends, timelines and important or interesting data. Make sure students understand what data is effective in their infographic. Even though students have done their research on a subject, not all the information is relevant for an infographic.

Infographics allow students to share information in a creative way.

3. Infographics can be a great alternative for presenting information. Instead of using PowerPoint or Prezi, try using infographics. Make sure to have a rubric or tool for assessment so students know exactly what your expectations are. Try creating your own infographic before you have your students create one.

4. Before using the infographic application for the assignment, let your students create a sample. It can be about themselves or a general idea for the whole class. The projects can be completed individually or in groups. Students may like one application over another.

Infographic Resources
- Piktochart - Piktochart has lots of templates, symbols, images and shapes available to create an infographic. It even has a teacher guide.
- Easel.ly - is another free resource with lots of templates available.
- Infogr.am
- InfographicCreator - has a great video tutorial
- Glogster - is now an app that is excellent for younger ages.
- Pic-Collage - is another app that can be used for infographics. I would also recommend it for younger grades.
- Canva - Canva can be used for posters and Pinterest boards. I love Canva's templates.

I love this animated infographic about the evolution of shoes. This is created by Discovery Channel. (It's in Spanish but it's easy to follow.)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
4 Effective Uses of Infographics in the Elementary Classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How you ever used infographics in your classroom? Kathy Schrock has great resources for using infographics in the classroom. I love her definition. "Infographics are a visual representation of data. When students create infographics, they are using information, visual, and technology literacies." Teachers are always struggling to get their students' attention.

# data[].attributes.body
Familiarize students with infographics (how they are read, how to gather information from them, what structures and features can guide us, etc.)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What is an infographic? An infographic is a big picture that summarizes a topic. It is a one-page publication that presents information in a graphic way. Simple icons, symbols, maps, and charts combine to explain the data. Text is only used as labels or to briefly describe facts. The viewer explores the content by studying each section of cartoon-like images.

What is an infographic? An infographic is a one-page publication that presents information in a graphic way using simple images and text.

Why Use an Infographic?

An infographic is a simple but powerful way to communicate. There are many reasons to use it:

catches the interest of the viewer

outlines many facts in a compact space

conveys data quickly using images

informs without lots of written information

engages the viewer to think about the topic, because they must explore each part

makes a complex issue easy to understand

How Can Students Make an Infographic?

Now that the question "what is an infographic?" and "why use an infographic?" have been answered, the next question is "how can my students make one to demonstrate learning?" Older students with strong graphic design skills can use professional software such as Adobe Illustrator. Unfortunately, not all schools have access to this software, as it is expensive.

Another option for creating an infographic is to apply the drawing and image tools in Microsoft Word. This does limit the design to a standard-sized piece of paper. Although this is a suitable solution for students who are proficient users of Microsoft Office, beginners or younger learners may struggle with arranging their content.

A third choice for designing an infographic is to use Google Sites. Google Sites is a web creation tool that is typically used to build websites. However, the ability to add sections, combine simple images with text, rearrange the layout, and have an infinite page length make it ideal for students who lack strong graphic design or word processing skills. Please note, this option does require students to have Google Drive accounts. Moreover, if your students have school accounts, they must be granted permission to use Google Sites.

View an Interactive Infographic Designed Using Google Sites

How Can Students Design an Infographic using Google Sites?

Are you interested in designing an interactive infographic using Google Sites? In the TechnoKids project TechnoEarth, students play the role of environmental stewards. They select a real world problem and are guided in the research and design of an engaging infographic.

Google Sites, Slides, Docs, and Drawings are combined to build the document. Simple, compelling graphics and brief, captivating text spark interest. To make it especially appealing, the project is interactive. The viewer can browse a rotating slide deck, explore a map, and click through an image carousel. The web-based infographic is a powerful way to communicate an important issue, promote public awareness, and inspire action.

Integrate TechnoEarth into a geography, science, or digital literacy class.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What is an infographic? An infographic is a big picture that summarizes a topic. It is a one-page publicaton that presents information in a graphic way. Simple icons, symbols, maps, and charts combine to explain the data. Text is used as labels or to briefly describe facts. The viewer explores the content.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
LEARN Blog - learning from each other and building a community

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Dans mon dernier article Évaluation 101 - Partie A, j'ai retracé l'évolution du concept de l'évaluation au Québec afin de mieux comprendre ce que l'on entend par l'évaluation des apprentissages aujourd'hui. Le changement dans la conception de l'apprentissage de la réforme en éducation au Québec (passage du paradigme de l'enseignement à celui de l'apprentissage) amène à considérer l' évaluation comme une partie intégrante du processus d'apprentissage. L'évaluation est alors un moyen pour aider l'élève à apprendre et pour guider l'enseignant·e dans sa démarche.

QU'EST-CE QUE L'ÉVALUATION ?

Les spécialistes dans le domaine et le ministère de l'Éducation du Québec (MEQ) s'entendent pour dire que l'évaluation est un processus qui consiste à porter un jugement éclairé sur les apprentissages des élèves. Ce jugement repose sur des données (informations pertinentes, valides, fiables) qui sont analysées et interprétées afin de prendre les meilleures décisions (pédagogiques et administratives) dans l'intérêt de l'élève.

Cependant, lorsqu'on parle d'évaluation des apprentissages dans le milieu scolaire ou sur la place publique, c'est souvent et encore un synonyme de notes en pourcentage dans le bulletin. Et cela l'est d'autant plus depuis que le MEQ a imposé le retour aux notes avec le bulletin unique en 2010.

Or, le bulletin n'est en fait que la partie visible et publique de l'évaluation. C'est un outil de communication qui " a pour but d'informer les parents sur les apprentissages de leur enfant " (MEQ : 2011). Le bulletin est donc une infime partie d'un long processus (figure 1) qui consiste à porter un jugement sur les apprentissages, c'est-à-dire le développement des compétences et NON PAS le résultat d'un simple calcul mathématique d'une série d'évaluations formelles. Regardons ce processus et attardons-nous à l'étape de planification. À noter que le processus d'évaluation des apprentissages est itératif même s'il est constitué d'étapes et qu'il repose principalement sur le jugement professionnel de l'enseignant·e

Pour aller plus loin...
Évaluer pour que ça compte vraiment- La note, un symbole imparfait

LA PLANIFICATION DE L'ÉVALUATION DES APPRENTISSAGES

L'étape de planification des apprentissages est assurément la plus cruciale du processus, car c'est à ce moment que l'enseignant·e va établir l'intention de l'évaluation (le pourquoi évaluer). Et c'est à partir de cette intention que vont découler les décisions et les choix subséquents. En somme, " la planification est au cœur de la démarche d'évaluation " (Durand et Chouinard : 2012).

Par la suite, l'enseignant·e va déterminer la personne responsable de l'évaluation (le qui va évaluer) ainsi que l'objet de l'évaluation (le quoi évaluer) pour ensuite décider des méthodes pour s'y prendre (le comment évaluer) et des moments où sera réalisée l'évaluation des apprentissages (le quand  évaluer) afin de " soutenir la prise d'information et son interprétation, le jugement et la décision " (MEQ : 2003). La figure 2 présente les grandes questions que l'enseignant·e doit se poser lors de l'étape de la planification de l'évaluation.

POURQUOI ÉVALUER ?

Selon la Politique de l'évaluation des apprentissages (MEQ : 2003), tout au long du parcours scolaire de l'élève, l'évaluation sert à :

* vérifier la progression de ses apprentissages dans une perspective d'aide;
* à faire des diagnostics précis;
* à vérifier le niveau de développement de ses compétences;
* à certifier ses études;
* à reconnaître ses acquis.

La Politique présente ensuite les deux grandes fonctions de l'évaluation (figure 3), soit la fonction d'aide à l'apprentissage et la fonction de reconnaissance des compétences qui agissent en complémentarité pour soutenir l'élève dans ses apprentissages et ainsi contribuer à sa réussite.
La fonction d'aide à l'apprentissage
La première fonction vise à soutenir l'apprentissage de l'élève tout au long de son parcours scolaire. Le but est d'aider et de guider l'élève dans sa démarche d'apprentissage. On parle alors d'une évaluation POUR l'apprentissage ou Assessment for Learning.

Cette fonction favorise une régulation des apprentissages par l'enseignant·e et par l'élève et une régulation des actions pédagogiques. Cette notion de régulation des apprentissages rejoint la vision de l'évaluation formative des années 80. Par contre, ici, l'évaluation n'est plus réalisée que par l'enseignant·e. L'élève prend part à l'évaluation et y détient un rôle actif.

En fait, lorsque l'élève régule son apprentissage (autorégulation), il s'approprie " le processus d'apprentissage, mais développe aussi une compétence métacognitive " (Durand et Chouinard : 2012). Le terme évaluation EN TANT QU'apprentissage* est utilisé pour désigner cette réalité dans d'autres provinces et territoires canadiens (Alberta, Colombie-Britannique, Manitoba, Territoires du Nord-Ouest, Nunavut, Saskatchewan et Yukon).
*Repenser l'évaluation en classe en fonction des buts visés.

La régulation de l'apprentissage faite par l'enseignant·e lui permet, d'une part, d'adapter son dispositif d'enseignement notamment par la différenciation pédagogique (régulation proactive) et, d'autre part, permet à l'élève de s'autoréguler (régulation interactive). De plus, cette régulation permet à l'enseignant·e d'orienter les actions à mettre en place pour aider l'élève à surmonter des difficultés ou à corriger ses erreurs (régulation interactive). Je vous invite à consulter la figure 4 pour en apprendre davantage sur les trois types de régulation qui sont faites par l'enseignant·e.

Pour aller plus loin...
Comment donner une rétroaction efficace aux élèves ?

Quel type de régulation de l'apprentissage faites-vous en classe ?
Une régulation proactive ? Interactive ? Rétroactive ?

Quant à la régulation des actions pédagogiques, elle amène l'enseignant·e à faire un retour réflexif sur les effets de son enseignement sur les apprentissages des élèves afin d'apporter des changements au besoin. Cette capacité réflexive est primordiale et fait partie du Référentiel de compétences professionnelles de la profession enseignante du MEQ, qui réitère que l'enseignant·e doit " adopter une posture réflexive vis-à-vis de son enseignement de manière à inscrire sa pratique dans une perspective d'amélioration continue " (MEQ : 2020).
La fonction de reconnaissance des compétences
La deuxième fonction vise la reconnaissance de la compétence à la fin d'une séquence d'apprentissage (un module, un cours, un cycle) ou à la fin d'une formation. On parle donc de l' évaluation DE l'apprentissage. Le but est de vérifier l'atteinte du niveau attendu du développement de la compétence. Par exemple, à partir des attentes du programme de français, langue seconde, je dois vérifier jusqu'à quel point mon élève est capable d'interagir à l'oral en français. Je dois donc comparer son niveau de développement de compétence avec le niveau attendu du programme en me basant sur les critères d'évaluation tirés des Cadres d'évaluation des apprentissages.

" L'enseignant doit plutôt prendre en compte un ensemble de traces d'évaluation telles que des notes d'observation de l'élève en activité, des projets réalisés par l'élève, des autoévaluations, etc., et en arriver à un jugement professionnel, concept au cœur de la démarche d'évaluation par compétences " (Fontaine, Savoie-Zajc et Cadieux : 2020). On est bien loin d'une évaluation représentée par le calcul d'évaluations formelles !

Dans votre pratique, quelle fonction de l'évaluation privilégiez-vous ?
L'évaluation de l'apprentissage ? L'évaluation pour l'apprentissage ?

Maintenant que l'intention d'évaluation est définie, l'enseignant·e doit se questionner sur le comment évaluer. D'abord, il faut savoir qui évaluera l'apprentissage et quel sera l'objet d'apprentissage.

QUI VA ÉVALUER ?

Traditionnellement, l'évaluation reposait principalement sur l'enseignant·e. Avec sa Politique d'évaluation des apprentissage s (MEQ : 2003), le MEQ précise les acteurs impliqués dans le processus d'évaluation avec la 2e, la 5e et la 6e orientation (figure 5).

L'enseignant·e est toujours le principal responsable de l'évaluation de ses élèves. L'élève et ses pairs ont également un rôle actif lors des évaluations en cours d'apprentissage. De plus, les directions d'école, les professionnels et les parents collaborent également à l'évaluation, et ce, tout en respectant les rôles et les responsabilités légales de chacun.

Qui prend part à l'évaluation dans votre classe ?
Vous, ? Vos élèves ? Les professionnels ?

QUOI ÉVALUER ?

En se basant sur les documents officiels ( Programme de formation de l'école québécoise, Progression des apprentissages, Politique d'évaluation des apprentissages, Cadres d'évaluation des apprentissages), l'enseignant·e doit déterminer les apprentissages qui seront évalués, c'est-à-dire les connaissances (savoirs, savoir-faire, savoir-être) ou les compétences.

À ce moment de la planification, la taxonomie de Bloom (1956) révisée par Anderson & Krathwohl (2001) peut être utile à l'enseignant·e. Cette taxonomie propose une progression des processus cognitifs allant du plus simple au plus complexe (mémoriser, comprendre, appliquer, analyser, évaluer, et créer). Elle peut donc aider l'enseignant·e à cibler et à décortiquer les apprentissages essentiels et à bien les formuler.

L'enseignant·e se posera alors la question suivante : qu'est-ce que je veux que mes élèves apprennent ? Pour l'aider à répondre à cette question, l'enseignant·e peut utiliser ce début de phrase :
" Au terme de cette séquence d'enseignement, j'aimerais que mes élèves soient capables de... "
et la compléter avec un des verbes d'action (figure 7) associés à chacun des six niveaux de la taxonomie. Cela permet à l'enseignant·e de situer son intervention selon le degré de complexité (connaissance ou compétence).

Qu'est-ce que vous évaluez dans votre classe ?
Des connaissances ? Des compétences ?

COMMENT ÉVALUER ?

À cette étape de la planification du processus d'évaluation, l'enseignant·e doit réfléchir aux moyens appropriés (le comment) pour évaluer les apprentissages ciblés (le quoi), et ce, en fonction de l'intention retenue (le pourquoi).

ATTENTION. L'enseignant·e doit s'assurer d'avoir une cohérence entre les apprentissages visés, les stratégies ou les activités pédagogiques réalisées pour les atteindre et les méthodes et stratégies d'évaluation qui seront mises en place pour en valider l'atteinte (figure 8). C'est ce qu'on appelle l'alignement pédagogique (Biggs: 1997, 2004) ou principe de cohérence. De plus, la cohérence, une des trois valeurs instrumentales présentées dans la Politique d'évaluation des apprentissages, permet d'assurer la validité de l'évaluation.

L'enseignant·e a le choix entre diverses méthodes ou stratégies d'évaluation pour faire la collecte de l'information quant aux connaissances acquises et aux compétences développées par l'élève. Et c'est à partir de ces données ( traces ou preuves d'apprentissage) que l'enseignant·e peut alors " porter un jugement professionnel sur les apprentissages et le développement des compétences de l'élève " (TÉLUQ : 2020). Ces preuves d'apprentissage proviennent de trois sources : les observations, les productions et les conversations. Ce procédé se nomme la triangulation de données et permet à l'enseignant·e de " déceler la tendance générale tout en accordant une attention particulière aux preuves d'apprentissage les plus récentes " (CFORP : 2013).

Quel genre de preuves recueillez-vous en salle de classe   Des productions ? Des observations ? Des conversations ?

QUAND ÉVALUER ?

L'évaluation faisant partie intégrante du processus d'apprentissage, chaque moment est propice à recueillir les preuves d'apprentissage des élèves. Cependant, selon l'intention de l'évaluation (fonction d'aide à l'apprentissage ou fonction de reconnaissance des compétences), l'évaluation sera faite soit au début d'une séquence d'apprentissage pour vérifier où les élèves se situent par rapport aux apprentissages ciblés, soit en cours d'apprentissage pour soutenir la progression des élèves ou encore à la fin de l'apprentissage pour rendre compte du niveau de développement des compétences qui ont fait l'objet d'apprentissages durant la séquence (figure 3).

Quand évaluez-vous en classe ?
Au début d'une séquence d'apprentissage ? Pendant l'apprentissage ? À la fin d'un apprentissage ?

FAISONS LE POINT

L'étape de planification du processus d'évaluation permet à l'enseignant·e de se questionner et de réfléchir au pourquoi, qui, quoi, comment et quand évaluer (figure 9). Cette réflexion est essentielle afin d'assurer une évaluation de qualité pour que les élèves soient évalués de manière juste, équitable et rigoureuse.
Alors, êtes-vous prêt·es à réaliser la première grande étape du processus d'évaluation et à passer à l'autre ?
Références bibliographiques

Anderson, L.W., & Krathwohl, D.R. (Eds.) (2001). A taxonomy for Learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Addison Wesley Longman.

APOP. L'alignement pédagogique. Repéré à https://www.apop.qc.ca/fr/lexique/alignement-pedagogique/

Biggs, J. (1996). Enhancing teaching through constructive alignment. High Educ 32, 347-364.

Bloom, B.S. et al. (1969). Taxonomie des objectifs pédagogiques, Tome 1 : Domaine cognitif. Québec: Presses de l'Université du Québec.

Centre de pédagogie universitaire. (2019). Guide de rédaction d'un plan de cours par compétences. Québec : Université de Montréal.

Conseil supérieur de l'éducation et Centre de transfert pour la réussite éducative du Québec (CTREQ). (2020). Évaluer pour que ça compte vraiment. Québec. Le Conseil.

Conseillers pédagogiques du SRÉ et du SIN du CSS Marie-Victorin. (2021). Mico-site sur l'évaluation des apprentissages. Québec: CSS Marie-Victorin.
Repéré à https://sites.google.com/csmv.qc.ca/evaluation/accueil

CTREQ. (2018). Utilisation des données au service de l'apprentissage. Québec: Centre de transfert pour la réussite éducative du Québec.

Durand,M.-J. et Chouinard, R. (2012). L'évaluation des apprentissages: De la planification de la démarche à la communication des résultats. Édition revue et augmentée. Montréal: Marcel Didier.

Fontaine, S., Savoie-Zajc, L. et Cadieux, A. (2020). Évaluer les apprentissages. Démarche et outils d'évaluation pour le primaire et le secondaire. Montréal: Éditions CEC.

Ministère de l'Éducation du Québec. (2003). Politique d'évaluation des apprentissages. Québec: Gouvernement du Québec.

Ministère de l'Éducation du Québec. (2012). Les choix de notre école à l'heure du bulletin unique - Document de soutien à l'intention des équipes-écoles pour la révision des normes et modalités d'évaluation des apprentissages. Québec: Gouvernement du Québec.

Ministère de l'Éducation du Québec. (2020). Référentiel de compétences professionnelles de la profession enseignante. Québec: Gouvernement du Québec.

Ministre de l'Éducation, de la Citoyenneté et de la Jeunesse. (2006). Repenser l'évaluation en classe en fonction des buts visés: l'évaluation au service de l'apprentissage, l'évaluation en tant qu'apprentissage, l'évaluation de l'apprentissage, 2e édition. Manitoba: Gouvernement du Manitoba.

Senécal, I. (2016). Comment donner une rétroaction efficace aux élèves ? Québec : Collège Sainte-Anne.

Université TÉLUQ. (2021). J'enseigne à distance.
Repéré à https://jenseigneadistance.teluq.ca/course/view.php?id=2

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Évaluation 101 - Partie B - LEARN Blog - learning from each other and building a community

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Dans mon dernier article Évaluation 101 - Partie A, j'ai retracé l'évolution du concept de l'évaluation au Québec afin de mieux comprendre ce que l'on entend par l'évaluation des apprentissages aujourd'hui. Le changement dans la conception de l'apprentissage de la réforme en éducation au Québec (passage du paradigme de l'enseignement à celui de l'apprentissage) amène [...]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Digital Reader/Writer Notebook? What is it and Why use it?

# data[].attributes.headline
Theory, design, research,and use of historical games

# data[].attributes.subject
Theory, design, research,and use of historical games

# data[].attributes.body
Theory, design, research,and use of historical games in and beyond history education. Look here for links to current research, lists of available historical video games, reviews, and essays on a variety of topics connected to historical games.

# data[].attributes.headline
ROLE-PLAYING GAMES FOR ENGAGED LEARNING.

# data[].attributes.subject
ROLE-PLAYING GAMES FOR ENGAGED LEARNING.

# data[].attributes.body
ENGAGE. IMAGINE. INQUIRE.
WITH REACTING TO THE PAST.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Reacting to the Past | Reacting to the Past

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Reacting to the Past (RTTP) consists of elaborate games, set in the past, in which students are assigned roles informed by classic texts in the history of ideas. Class sessions are run entirely by students; instructors advise and guide students and grade their oral and written work.

# data[].attributes.headline
 How young people evaluate online content.

# data[].attributes.subject
 How young people evaluate online content.

# data[].attributes.body
SHEG's current work focuses on how young people evaluate online content. SHEG has created a Civic Online Reasoning curriculum to help students develop the skills needed to navigate our current digital landscape.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We're committed to providing educators accessible, high-quality teaching tools. That's why all our lessons and assessments are free. Please consider donating to SHEG to support our creation of new materials. All gifts are made through Stanford University and are tax-deductible.

# data[].attributes.headline
Miranda McKearney and Sarah Mears suggest incorporating reading in their article "Lost for words? How reading can teach children empathy."

# data[].attributes.subject
Miranda McKearney and Sarah Mears suggest incorporating reading in their article "Lost for words? How reading can teach children empathy."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
There's no better feeling than seeing a child losing themselves in the world of a favourite fictional character.

The benefits of reading go far beyond literacy: an emerging body of research highlights the power of stories to help children handle their own and other people's feelings.

A Cambridge University study by Maria Nikolajeva, professor of education, found that "reading fiction provides an excellent training for young people in developing and practising empathy and theory of mind, that is, understanding of how other people feel and think".

Neuroscience backs this up. Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta, US, say that fiction tricks our brains into thinking we are part of the story. The empathy we feel for characters wires our brains to have the same sensitivity towards real people. Carnegie Mellon University studies discovered that when you get lost in a book your brain lives through the characters at a neurological level.

Empathy is increasingly being recognised as a core life skill, and the bedrock for sound relationships and classroom climate. Roman Krznaric, author of Empathy, a Handbook for Revolution, says: "There has been an extraordinary shift ... a concept that has been buried in psychology textbooks for nearly a century - empathy - is coming to be seen as one of the fundamental forces for tackling global challenges."

EmpathyLab is a small start-up that is exploring ways to use stories to boost empathy among students. Here are some approaches teachers could try:

Pick the right books

The first thing is to find the right story. One approach is to find texts exploring familiar life scenarios to help children understand what their peers might be experiencing. At primary and secondary level there's a text for just about every situation. For instance Kes Gray's Mum and Dad Glue helps children empathise with friends' pain when parents separate and Phil Earle's Being Billy gives older readers a profound insight into how it feels to live in a young people's care home.

In general, look for texts with well-rounded, believable characters. Even if they are doing terrible things, the story should help children understand a character's motivations. Feelings should be dealt with subtly and not over-described.

If it's hard to find the best books, search out a librarian. Their deep knowledge is currently on show through the Carnegie Medal, which emphasises the importance of strong characterisation.
Children are also fantastic at recommending books, especially on crunch issues. For instance, certain "being different" books, like David Walliams' The Boy in a Dress, come up repeatedly.

Book groups help children explore new texts and learn how differently other people experience life. You could consider joining a free network, such as Chatterbooks. Writer Roman Krznaric's Empathy Library, which has hundreds of empathy-boosting books and films for children and adults, is a useful resource.

Teach vocabulary for feelings

If children lack the language to share feelings, it's hard for them to understand each other and communicate effectively.

Story-based questioning and discussion works well to build a language for emotions, especially when the teacher and student work together to explore what caused a character to act or feel as they did, and the consequences of their actions and emotions. Take Goldilocks and the Three Bears. You could ask: "Was Goldilocks really just a burglar or was she homeless or hungry?" This could be followed with diary writing or telephone interviews where Goldilocks explains herself to the bears.
Any teacher will attest to the power of meeting a real author. Bringing one into school with a brief to deliberately emphasise feelings can help children learn new emotional vocabulary. We wrote a blog about Sue Hendra's session on her book Norman the Slug. Children loved Hendra's hilarious naming of her feelings when she started writing but found aliens eating her pencils. She helped children learn new words to name Norman's emotions and share them on a huge "feelings wall".

Step into a character's shoes

Getting children deeply engaged with characters is a good way to teach empathy.
Writers like Jacqueline Wilson and Cathy Cassidy spring to mind because of their skill in creating characters with strong, unique voices. But look out too for award winners such as Patrick Ness and Neil Gaiman whose inventive language and robust character development captivates readers. Ivan Brett, year six teacher at Brent's Preston Park primary school, uses Bod from Gaiman's Graveyard Book "because he's a normal boy in a very abnormal situation and it stretches pupils' imaginations to step into his shoes".
Hotseating works well when exploring topics like bullying or prejudice. Start by absorbing related stories or playscripts. Ask children to create a character quite unlike them - the bully or the bullied - then get them in a hotseat for an interview where they really have to be that person. Getting into character like this makes things much more real - in a creative writing class, helping children step into a character's shoes will make their descriptions more lively and nuanced. In a spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) session, the same technique delivers on Ofsted's requirement that children develop an interest in investigating moral issues and an understanding of others' viewpoints.
Miranda McKearney and Sarah Mears both work for EmpathyLab would like to hear from schools interested in using reading, writing and story-making to build children's emotional and social skills. Contact Miranda McKearney if you're interested in taking part. EmpathyLab. McKearney is chair and Mears library lead.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Lost for words? How reading can teach children empathy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There's no better feeling than seeing a child losing themselves in the world of a favourite fictional character. The benefits of reading go far beyond literacy: an emerging body of research highlights the power of stories to help children handle their own and other people's feelings.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Curio suggestions by subjects and themes

Login

ELA (Languages) Elementary Level

Secondary: Canada Reads

English Second Language

Secondary ESL

Math

Science and Tech

Playlists

Climate Change is an important topic on CURIO.

Canadoodaday

Women who kick butt

Reconciliation

Black Lives Matter

Twisted Histories podcasts

ART resources

Remembrance Day

Personal Development and Health

Lil’ Doc

Small Talk

You can’t ask that

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Throughout 2021, we are looking for stories on the urgent messages, community-centred action, or solutions-oriented work that youth are doing for people and for our shared planet. 🌿🙌 Stories can be project-based, reflections or art, and are accepted in a variety of formats, including text, photo, audio and video.

Be sure to check the guidelines on the submission page to ensure that your story and you are eligible to be published on our Storymap. Stories are accepted on a rolling basis.

We invite submissions in all languages, especially English, Español, Français, Kiswahili, Português and العربية!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Throughout 2021, we are looking for stories on the urgent messages, community-centred action, or solutions-oriented work that youth are doing for people and for our shared planet. 🌿🙌 Stories can be project-based, reflections or art, and are accepted in a variety of formats, including text, photo, audio and video.

# data[].attributes.headline
Great resources and tools for spoken word in the classroom

# data[].attributes.subject
Great resources and tools for spoken word in the classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Explore our poem anthology

Discover everything Poetry In Voice has to offer, whether you're looking for a specific poet, tools to analyze your favourite poem, or poetry on a subject you're passionate about. Take some time to explore - there's something for everyone!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Discover everything Poetry In Voice has to offer, whether you're looking for a specific poet, tools to analyze your favourite poem, or poetry on a subject you're passionate about. Take some time to explore - there's something for everyone!

# data[].attributes.headline
Great ideas from the classic Quebec Roots era

# data[].attributes.subject
Great ideas from the classic Quebec Roots era

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Blue Metropolis’s educational and social programs are innovative literary activities that allow children and adults to meet professional francophone and anglophone writers and artists.Thanks to these encounters, as well as to videoconferencing and numerous online activities, our programs provide par…

# data[].attributes.headline
COMMON EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK OF REFERENCE FOR LANGUAGES:LEARNING, TEACHING, ASSESSMENT

# data[].attributes.subject
COMMON EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK OF REFERENCE FOR LANGUAGES:LEARNING, TEACHING, ASSESSMENT

# data[].attributes.body
Comprehensive descriptive scheme of language proficiency and a set of common
reference levels

# data[].attributes.headline
Challenging but Achievable builds Confidence

# data[].attributes.subject
Challenging but Achievable builds Confidence

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Some kids love to write and need little encouragement to put pen to paper. Others, as teachers know well, require ongoing guidance and assurance. New research explains one reason kids differ so greatly: confidence, or a lack thereof, in their own ability.

Researchers from Boise State University and the University of Alabama worked with 48 middle and high school students at a private school, interviewing them about their own writing skills, their perceived ability to complete writing assignments, and the extent to which they viewed writing as a valuable task. Then they met with each student's English-language arts teacher and analyzed their academic performance. Comparing both sets of data resulted in notable, if not completely surprising, findings: A student's motivation to write is strongly correlated with their writing achievement. In other words, those who have already demonstrated competency and confidence in writing are more excited to keep doing it.

Of course, believing in oneself isn't the only factor that informs student performance (there's a range of influences, including teacher writing ability, the researchers point out), but this finding still has big implications for educators. Creating assignments that are challenging but achievable-and that can gradually help students feel more self-assured of their own writing ability-is critical for helping them improve and fueling their interest further, the researchers argue.

"As we demonstrate that writing outcomes are impacted by a writer's self-beliefs, students would benefit from writing tasks that develop their confidence and enhance their self-efficacy," they say.

Some kids may never have a passion for prose, but if they can feel good about their own writing, the research shows, they're much more likely to give it a shot, and get better.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Research Alert / Confidence Is Key to Motivating Student Writers - ASCD

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Some kids love to write and need little encouragement to put pen to paper. Others, as teachers know well, require ongoing guidance and assurance. New research explains one reason kids differ so greatly: confidence, or a lack thereof, in their own ability. Researchers from Boise State University and

# data[].attributes.headline
Learning to Be Prioritized for the 2021-2022 School Year in the Context of the Pandemic

# data[].attributes.subject
Learning to Be Prioritized for the 2021-2022 School Year in the Context of the Pandemic

# data[].attributes.headline
Interesting article that highlights importance of projects that support general knowledge contribute to reading comprehension

# data[].attributes.subject
Interesting article that highlights importance of projects that support general knowledge contribute to reading comprehension

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Schools usually focus on teaching comprehension skills instead of general knowledge-even though education researchers know better.

Every two years, education-policy wonks gear up for what has become a time-honored ritual: the release of the Nation's Report Card. Officially known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, the data reflect the results of reading and math tests administered to a sample of students across the country. Experts generally consider the tests rigorous and highly reliable-and the scores basically stagnant.

Math scores have been flat since 2009 and reading scores since 1998, with just about a third of students performing at a level the NAEP defines as "proficient." Performance gaps between lower-income students and their more affluent peers, among other demographic discrepancies, have remained stubbornly wide.

Among the likely culprits for the stalled progress in math scores: a misalignment between what the NAEP tests and what state standards require teachers to cover at specific grade levels. But what's the reason for the utter lack of progress in reading scores?

On Tuesday, a panel of experts in Washington, D.C., convened by the federally appointed officials who oversee the NAEP, concluded that the root of the problem is the way schools teach reading. The current instructional approach, they agreed, is based on assumptions about how children learn that have been disproved by research over the past several decades-research that the education world has largely failed to heed.

The long-standing view has been that the first several years of elementary school should be devoted to basic reading skills. History, science, and the arts can wait. After all, the argument goes, if kids haven't learned to read-a task that is theoretically accomplished by third grade -how will they be able to gain knowledge about those subjects through their own reading?

The federal No Child Left Behind legislation, enacted in 2001, only intensified the focus on reading. The statute required states to administer annual reading and math tests to students in grades three through eight and once in high school, and attached hefty consequences if schools failed to boost scores. The law that replaced No Child Left Behind-the Every Student Succeeds Act, passed in 2015-has eased the consequences but has hardly weakened the emphasis on testing.

What is tested, some educators say, gets taught-and what isn't doesn't. Since 2001, the curriculum in many elementary schools has narrowed to little more than a steady diet of reading and math. And when test scores fail to rise after third grade-as they often do, especially in high-poverty schools-subjects such as history and science may continue to be relegated to the far back burner through middle school.

To some extent, it does make sense to focus on reading skills in the early years. One component of reading is, like math, primarily a set of skills: the part that involves decoding, or making connections between sounds and the letters that represent them.

But educators have also treated the other component of reading-comprehension-as a set of skills, when in fact it depends primarily on what readers already know. In countries that specify the content to be taught at each grade level, standardized tests can test students on what they've learned in school. But in the United States, where schools are all teaching different content, test designers give students passages on a variety of topics that may have nothing to do with what they've learned in school-life in the Arctic, for example, or the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. The tests then ask questions designed to assess comprehension: What's the main idea of the passage? What inferences can you make?

On a daily basis, teachers have their students practice skills and strategies such as "finding the main idea" or "making inferences." And teachers select books that match the given skill rather than because of the text's content. Rarely do the topics connect: Students might read a book about bridges one day, zebras the next, and clouds the day after that.

Cognitive scientists have known for decades that simply mastering comprehension skills doesn't ensure that a young student will be able to apply them to whatever texts they're confronted with on standardized tests and in their studies later in life.

One of those cognitive scientists spoke on the Tuesday panel: Daniel Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia who writes about the science behind reading comprehension. Willingham explained that whether or not readers understand a text depends far more on how much background knowledge and vocabulary they have relating to the topic than on how much they've practiced comprehension skills. That's because writers leave out a lot of information that they assume readers will know. If they put all the information in, their writing would be tedious.

But if readers can't supply the missing information, they have a hard time making sense of the text. If students arrive at high school without knowing who won the Civil War, they'll have a hard time understanding a textbook passage about Reconstruction.

Students from less educated families are usually the ones who are most handicapped by gaps in knowledge. Another panelist-Ian Rowe, who heads a network of charter schools serving low-income students in New York-provided a real-life example during his remarks. A sixth grader at one of his schools was frustrated that a passage on a reading test she'd taken kept repeating a word she didn't understand: roog-bye. The unfamiliar word made it hard for her to understand the passage. When Rowe asked her to spell the word, it turned out to be rugby.

The implication is clear. The best way to boost students' reading comprehension is to expand their knowledge and vocabulary by teaching them history, science, literature, and the arts, using curricula that guide kids through a logical sequence from one year to the next: for example, Native Americans and Columbus in kindergarten; the colonial era and the American Revolution in first grade; the War of 1812 and the Civil War in second grade; and so on. That approach enables children to make sense of what they're learning, and the repetition of concepts and vocabulary in different contexts makes it more likely that they'll retain information. Not to mention that learning content such as this can be a lot more engaging for both students and teachers than the endless practice of illusory skills.

Another panelist-Timothy Shanahan, an emeritus professor at the University of Illinois and the author or editor of more than 200 publications on literacy-went on to debunk a popular approach that goes hand in hand with teaching comprehension skills: To help students practice their "skills," teachers give them texts at their supposed individual reading levels, rather than the level of the grade they're in.

According to Shanahan, no evidence backs up that practice. In fact, Shanahan said, recent research indicates that students actually learn more from reading texts that are considered too difficult for them -in other words, those with more than a handful of words and concepts a student doesn't understand. What struggling students need is guidance from a teacher on how to make sense of texts designed for kids at their respective grade levels-the kinds of texts those kids may otherwise see only on standardized tests, when they have to grapple with them on their own.

That view was endorsed by Marilyn Jager Adams, a cognitive and developmental psychologist who is a visiting scholar at Brown University. "Giving children easier texts when they're weaker readers," she said during the panel discussion, "serves to deny them the very language and information they need to catch up and move on."

The failure to build children's knowledge in elementary school helps explain the gap between the reading scores of students from wealthier families and those of their lower-income peers-a gap that has been expanding. More affluent students may not learn much in elementary school, but compared to their disadvantaged peers, their parents tend to be more educated and have the money to provide knowledge-boosting perks such as tutoring and trips to Europe. As a result, those wealthy children are far more likely to acquire knowledge outside of school. Poorer kids with less educated parents tend to rely on school to acquire the kind of knowledge that is needed to succeed academically-and because their schools typically focus exclusively on reading and math, in an effort to raise low test scores, they're less likely to acquire it there.

The bottom line is that policy makers and advocates who have pushed for more testing in part as a way to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor have undermined their own efforts. They have created a system that incentivizes teachers to withhold the very thing that could accomplish both objectives: knowledge. All students suffer under this system, but the neediest suffer the most.

The NAEP is a valuable educational barometer, but it's important to understand that while standardized tests can identify a problem, they can't provide the answer to it.

Although some elementary teachers have embraced the approach advocated by the NAEP panel, it's clear that most have been trained to teach in methods that aren't supported by research, and that many are resistant to change. Shanahan, at the University of Illinois, noted that when he speaks to teachers around the country, they're aghast at the idea of giving struggling readers grade-level books-even when their state's literacy standards call for doing so.

Still, schools in some parts of the country are embracing the kinds of insights offered by the panelists. Louisiana has not only created its own curriculum but has also asked the federal government for permission to give tests based on that curriculum rather than passages on a variety of randomly selected topics. If that movement spreads, the NAEP may finally live up to its name, and the American education system may at last be able to unlock the untold potential of millions of students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
national assessment of educational progress

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
endless practice of illusory skills.another panelist

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why American Students Haven't Gotten Better at Reading in 20 Years

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Schools usually focus on teaching comprehension skills instead of general knowledge-even though education researchers know better. Every two years, education-policy wonks gear up for what has become a time-honored ritual: the release of the Nation's Report Card.

# data[].attributes.headline
Questions that invite students to tell stories, describe memories, make observations, imagine possibilities, and reflect on who they are and what they believe.

# data[].attributes.subject
Questions that invite students to tell stories, describe memories, make observations, imagine possibilities, and reflect on who they are and what they believe.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
[Sign up for our free Learning Network newsletter. Receive new writing prompts in your inbox every week.]
We've been posting fresh writing prompts every school day for over a decade now, and every so often we create a themed collection like this one to help you find what you need all in one place.

This fall, in honor of our new narrative-writing unit and our first-ever Personal Narrative Essay Contest for teenagers, we've rounded up 550 evergreen questions on everything from family, friendships and growing up to gender, spirituality, money, school, sports, social media, travel, dating, food, health and more. (They're also all available here as a PDF.)

We hope they'll inspire you, whether you're entering our related contest or just want to improve your writing skills. Like all our Student Opinion questions, each links to a related Times article, which is free to read if you access it from our site.
_________
So dive in and pick the questions that most inspire you to tell an interesting story, describe a memorable event, observe the details in your world, imagine a possibility, or reflect on who you are and what you believe.

_________

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
550 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sign up for our free Learning Network newsletter. Receive new writing prompts in your inbox every week.] We've been posting fresh writing prompts every school day for over a decade now, and every so often we create a themed collection like this one to help you find what you need all in one place.

# data[].attributes.headline
A flexible, seven-unit program based on the real-world writing found in newspapers, from editorials and reviews to personal narratives and informational essays. 

# data[].attributes.subject
A flexible, seven-unit program based on the real-world writing found in newspapers, from editorials and reviews to personal narratives and informational essays. 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A flexible, eight-unit program based on the real-world features found in newspapers, from editorials and reviews to personal narratives, profiles and podcasts.

"The Writer's Block," originally published in The New York Times Book Review in 2019. Credit... Grant Snider

What can the news, features, essays, interviews, photos, videos, podcasts and graphics in The New York Times teach your students about composing for a real audience? So much, we hope, that the units we detail below are just a beginning.

Our annual writing curriculum is both a road map for teachers and an invitation to students. For teachers, it organizes our offerings - lesson plans, writing prompts, mentor texts and student contests - into eight distinct units, each of which focuses on a different genre of writing that your students can find not just in The Times but in all kinds of real-world sources.

For students, it offers confirmation that they have something valuable to say, a wide range of choice in how to say it, and a global audience eager to listen. Promoting student voice has always been a pillar of our site, but in these extraordinary times we think it is critical. Through the opportunities for publication woven throughout each unit, we want to encourage students to go beyond simply consuming media to becoming creators themselves.

Though our offerings are aimed at middle and high school students, we know that they are used up and down levels and across subjects - from elementary school to college. So have a look, and see if you can find a way to include any of these opportunities in your curriculum this year, whether to help students document their lives, tell stories, express opinions, investigate ideas, interview fascinating people or analyze culture. We can't wait to hear what they have to say!

Writing prompts to help students try out related skills in a "low stakes" way.

We publish new writing prompts every school day, and have since 2009. You can find categorized collections of these prompts, or just scroll through to see the latest. Your students can respond on our site, using our public forums as a kind of "rehearsal space" for practicing voice and technique.

Daily opportunities to practice writing for an authentic audience.
If a student submits a comment on our site, it will be read by Times editors, who approve each one before it gets published. Submitting a comment also gives students an audience of fellow teenagers from around the world who might read and respond to their work. Each week, we call out our favorite comments and honor dozens of students by name in our Thursday " Current Events Conversation " feature.

Guided practice with mentor texts.

Each unit we publish features guided practice lessons, written directly to students, that help them observe, understand and practice the kinds of "craft moves" that make different genres of writing sing. From how to "show not tell" in narratives to how to express critical opinions, quote or paraphrase experts or craft scripts for podcasts, we have used the work of both Times journalists and the teenage winners of our contests to show students techniques they can emulate.

"Annotated by the Author" commentaries from Times writers - and teenagers.
As part of our Mentor Texts series, we've been asking Times journalists from desks across the newsroom to annotate their articles to let students in on their writing, research and editing processes, and we'll be adding more for each unit this year. Whether it's Science writer Nicholas St. Fleur on tiny tyrannosaurs, Opinion writer Aisha Harris on the cultural canon, or The Times's comics-industry reporter, George Gene Gustines, on comic books that celebrate pride, the idea is to demystify journalism for teenagers.

But in the 2020-21 school year, we also started asking teen winners of our contests to analyze the craft moves they made that led to successful work. Check out their ideas on how to choose a great topic, embed evidence, use metaphors and more.

A contest that can act as a culminating project.

Over the years we've heard from many teachers that our contests serve as final projects in their classes, and this curriculum came about in large part because we want to help teachers "plan backwards" to support those projects.

All contest entries are considered by experts, whether Times journalists, outside educators from partner organizations, or professional practitioners in a related field. Winning means being published on our site, and, perhaps, in the print edition of The New York Times.

Additional support for teachers.
For each of the eight units in this curriculum, we offer either on-demand or live webinars that feature Learning Network editors as well as teachers who use The Times in their classrooms. Our webinars introduce participants to our many resources and provide practical how-to's on how to use our prompts, mentor texts and contests in the classroom.

We also invite teachers to join our P.L.C. on teaching writing with The Times, where educators can share resources, strategies and inspiration about teaching with these units.

Below are the eight units we will offer in the 2021-22 school year.

September-October

This unit was first developed in 2020 to acknowledge the profound effects of that tumultuous year on a generation of teenagers. Our open-ended invitation to "show us - in words or images, video or audio - how the events of this year have affected you" resulted in a deluge of extraordinary submissions, some of which were featured online and in a special print section.

Now, as schools reopen, teachers have asked us to run the unit and related contest again, this time to acknowledge a new set of issues and concerns. We all hope to return to something that looks like "normal life" soon, yet we will all return changed. How can we make space for students to process their experiences, but be mindful that these months have been traumatic for many? How could a project like this one help bring school communities together? And how might teaching students to document and reflect give them skills they can use, in and out of the classroom, for the rest of their lives?

This time we are asking, Who are you now? How do you think the last year and a half has shaped - and will continue to shape - you and your generation? What can you show or tell us that might help explain what it's like to be a teenager in 2021? In answering these questions, students can choose any aspect, big or small, of what it means to be growing up in this moment, and send us work in almost any medium they can upload digitally.

Writing will be used as a tool throughout the unit to help students brainstorm, compose and edit, and all students will be asked to craft written artist's statements to accompany their submissions. (Contest dates: Sept. 15-Oct. 27, 2021)

October-November

While The Times is known for its award-winning journalism, the paper also has a robust tradition of publishing personal essays on topics like love, family, life on campus and navigating anxiety. And on our site, our daily writing prompts have long invited students to tell us their stories, too. Our 2019 collection of 550 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing is a good place to start, though we add more every week during the school year.

In this unit we draw on many of these resources, plus some of the 1,000-plus personal essays from the Magazine's long-running Lives column, to help students find their own "short, memorable stories" and tell them well. Our related mentor-text lessons can help them practice skills like writing with voice, using details to show rather than tell, structuring a narrative arc, dropping the reader into a scene and more.

As part of our "Annotated by the Author" series, we also spotlight the work of three teenage winners of this contest. We invite students to use their advice, on keeping conclusions open-ended and using metaphors, for example, as inspiration and to submit their own stories to our Third Annual Personal Narrative Writing Contest. (Dates: Oct. 13-Nov. 17, 2021)

November-DECEMBER

Book reports and literary essays have long been staples of language arts classrooms, but this unit encourages students to learn how to critique art in other genres as well. As we point out, a cultural review is a form of argumentative essay. Your class might be writing about Lizzo or " Looking for Alaska," but they still have to make claims and support them with evidence. And, just as they must in a literature essay, they have to read (or watch, or listen to) a work closely; analyze it and understand its context; and explain what is meaningful and interesting about it.

In our Mentor Texts series, we feature the work of Times movie, restaurant, book and music critics to help students understand the elements of a successful review. In these and other guided lessons, we also spotlight the work of teenage contest winners from previous years.

As a culminating project, we invite students to send us their own reviews of a book, movie, restaurant, album, theatrical production, video game, dance performance, TV show, art exhibition or any other kind of work The Times critiques. (Contest Dates: Nov. 10-Dec. 15, 2021)

January-February

How can focusing on one form of journalistic writing teach students cross-curricular skills like researching, asking effective questions, listening, note-taking, fact-checking, storytelling, connecting with local experts, and, of course, writing and editing to compose with clarity, voice and style?

We hope to show students how to do all of this in our related writing unit. First, we will introduce them to Times profiles across sections, inviting them to read pieces about people who range from the world famous to the locally distinctive.Then, our curriculum will help walk students through the steps of choosing someone they are interested in to research, interview, photograph and introduce in their own short profile pieces.

Stay tuned for more information. Contest Dates: Jan. 5-Feb. 16, 2022

February-March

Informational writing is the style of writing that dominates The New York Times as well as any other traditional newspaper you might read, and in this unit we hope to show students that it can be every bit as engaging and compelling to read and to write as other genres.

Via thousands of articles a month - from front-page reporting on politics to news about athletes in Sports, deep data dives in The Upshot, recipes in Cooking, advice columns in Style and long-form investigative pieces in the magazine - Times journalists find ways to experiment with the genre to intrigue and inform their audiences.

This unit invites students to take any STEM-related discovery, process or idea that interests them and write about it in a way that makes it understandable and engaging for a general audience - but all the skills we teach along the way can work for any kind of informational writing. Via our Mentor Texts series, we show them how to hook the reader from the start, use quotes and research, explain why a topic matters and more.

At the end of the unit, we invite teenagers to submit their own writing to our Third Annual STEM Writing Contest to show us what they've learned.(Dates: Feb. 2-March 9, 2022)

March-April

The demand for evidence-based argumentative writing is now woven into school assignments across the curriculum and grade levels, and you couldn't ask for better real-world examples than what you can find in The Times Opinion section.

This unit is, like our others, supported with writing prompts, mentor-text lesson plans, webinars and more. But thanks to the fact that we've run the related contest for eight years now, we also have several lesson plans and videos that focus on winning teenage work, on topics as varied as policing, anti-Asian racism, toxicity in gaming, saving the snow day, the "life-changing magic" of being messy and how "Animal Crossing" might save Gen Z.

At a time when media literacy is more important than ever, we hope that our annual Student Editorial Contest can encourage students to broaden their information diets with a range of reliable sources, and learn from a variety of perspectives on their chosen issue. (Dates: March 2-April 13, 2022)

April-May

Most of our writing units so far have all asked for essays of one kind or another, but this spring contest invites students to do what journalists at The Times do every day: make multimedia to tell a story, investigate an issue or communicate a concept.

Our annual podcast contest gives students the freedom to talk about anything they want in any form they like. In the past we've had winners who've done personal narratives, local travelogues, opinion pieces, interviews with community members, investigative journalism and descriptions of scientific discoveries.

As with all our other units, we have supported this contest with excellent examples from The Times and around the web, as well as with mentor texts by teenagers that offer guided practice in understanding elements and techniques. (Contest Dates: April 6-May 18, 2022)

At a time when teachers are looking for ways to offer students more "voice and choice," this unit, based on our annual summer contest, offers both.

Every year since 2010 we have invited teenagers around the world to add The New York Times to their summer reading lists and, so far, over 70,000 have. Every week for 10 weeks, we ask participants to choose something in The Times that has sparked their interest, then tell us why. At the end of the week, judges from the Times newsroom pick favorite responses, and we publish them on our site.

Our related Mentor Text feature spotlights the work of past winners, explains why newsroom judges admired their thinking, and provides four steps to helping any student write better reader-responses.

Because this is one of our most open-ended contests - students can choose whatever they like, and react however they like - it has proved over the years to be a useful place for young writers to hone their voices, practice skills and take risks. Join us! (Contest Dates: June 10-Aug. 19, 2022)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teach Writing With The New York Times: Our 2021-22 Curriculum

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A flexible, eight-unit program based on the real-world features found in newspapers, from editorials and reviews to personal narratives, profiles and podcasts. What can the news, features, essays, interviews, photos, videos, podcasts and graphics in The New York Times teach your students about composing for a real audience?

# data[].attributes.headline
Summary of ideas and examples like show and tell and think alouds to help students make meaning before putting pen to paper

# data[].attributes.subject
Summary of ideas and examples like show and tell and think alouds to help students make meaning before putting pen to paper

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What's the opposite of scaffolding a lesson? Saying to students, "Read this nine-page science article, write a detailed essay on the topic it explores, and turn it in by Wednesday." Yikes! No safety net, no parachute-they're just left to their own devices.

Let's start by agreeing that scaffolding a lesson and differentiating instruction are two different things. Scaffolding is breaking up the learning into chunks and providing a tool, or structure, with each chunk. When scaffolding reading, for example, you might preview the text and discuss key vocabulary, or chunk the text and then read and discuss as you go. With differentiation, you might give a child an entirely different piece of text to read, or shorten the text or alter it, or modify the writing assignment that follows.

Simply put, scaffolding is what you do first with kids. For those students who are still struggling, you may need to differentiate by modifying an assignment or making accommodations like choosing a more accessible text or assigning an alternative project.

Scaffolding and differentiation do have something in common, though. In order to meet students where they are and appropriately scaffold a lesson or differentiate instruction, you have to know the individual and collective zone of proximal development (ZPD) of your learners. Education researcher Eileen Raymond says, "The ZPD is the distance between what children can do by themselves and the next learning that they can be helped to achieve with competent assistance."

So let's get to some scaffolding strategies you may or may not have tried yet. Or perhaps you've not used them in some time and need a gentle reminder on how awesome and helpful they can be when it comes to student learning.

1. Show and Tell

How many of us say that we learn best by seeing something rather than hearing about it? Modeling for students is a cornerstone of scaffolding, in my experience. Have you ever interrupted someone with "Just show me!" while they were in the middle of explaining how to do something? Every chance you have, show or demonstrate to students exactly what they are expected to do.

Try a fishbowl activity, where a small group in the center is circled by the rest of the class; the group in the middle, or fishbowl, engages in an activity, modeling how it's done for the larger group.

Always show students the outcome or product before they do it. If a teacher assigns a persuasive essay or inquiry-based science project, a model should be presented side-by-side with a criteria chart or rubric. You can guide students through each step of the process with the model of the finished product in hand.

Use think alouds, which will allow you to model your thought process as you read a text, solve a problem, or design a project. Remember that children's cognitive abilities are still in development, so opportunities for them to see developed, critical thinking are essential.

2. Tap Into Prior Knowledge

Ask students to share their own experiences, hunches, and ideas about the content or concept of study and have them relate and connect it to their own lives. Sometimes you may have to offer hints and suggestions, leading them to the connections a bit, but once they get there, they will grasp the content as their own.

Launching the learning in your classroom from the prior knowledge of your students and using this as a framework for future lessons is not only a scaffolding technique-many would agree it's just plain good teaching.

3. Give Time to Talk

All learners need time to process new ideas and information. They also need time to verbally make sense of and articulate their learning with the community of learners who are engaged in the same experience and journey. As we all know, structured discussions really work best with children regardless of their level of maturation.

If you aren't weaving in think-pair-share, turn-and-talk, triad teams, or some other structured talking time throughout the lesson, you should begin including this crucial strategy on a regular basis.

4. Pre-Teach Vocabulary

Sometimes referred to as front-loading vocabulary, this is a strategy that we teachers don't use enough. Many of us, myself included, are guilty of sending students all alone down the bumpy, muddy path known as Challenging Text-a road booby-trapped with difficult vocabulary. We send them ill-prepared and then are often shocked when they lose interest, create a ruckus, or fall asleep.

Pre-teaching vocabulary doesn't mean pulling a dozen words from the chapter and having kids look up definitions and write them out-we all know how that will go. Instead, introduce the words to kids in photos or in context with things they know and are interested in. Use analogies and metaphors, and invite students to create a symbol or drawing for each word. Give time for small-group and whole-class discussion of the words. Not until they've done all this should the dictionaries come out. And the dictionaries will be used only to compare with those definitions they've already discovered on their own.

With the dozen or so words front-loaded, students are ready, with you as their guide, to tackle that challenging text.

5. Use Visual Aids

Graphic organizers, pictures, and charts can all serve as scaffolding tools. Graphic organizers are very specific in that they help kids visually represent their ideas, organize information, and grasp concepts such as sequencing and cause and effect.

A graphic organizer shouldn't be The Product but rather a scaffolding tool that helps guide and shape students' thinking. Some students can dive right into discussing, or writing an essay, or synthesizing several different hypotheses, without using a graphic organizer of some sort, but many of our students benefit from using one with a difficult reading or challenging new information. Think of graphic organizers as training wheels-they're temporary and meant to be removed.

6. Pause, Ask Questions, Pause, Review

This is a wonderful way to check for understanding while students read a chunk of difficult text or learn a new concept or content. Here's how this strategy works: Share a new idea from discussion or the reading, then pause (providing think time), and then ask a strategic question, pausing again.

You need to design the questions ahead of time, making sure they're specific, guiding, and open-ended. (Even great questions fail if we don't give think time for responses, so hold out during that Uncomfortable Silence.) Keep kids engaged as active listeners by calling on someone to give the gist of what was just discussed, discovered, or questioned. If the class seems stuck on the questions, provide an opportunity for students to discuss in pairs.

With all the diverse learners in our classrooms, there is a strong need for teachers to learn and experiment with new scaffolding strategies. I often say to teachers I support that they have to slow down in order to go quickly. Scaffolding a lesson may, in fact, mean that it takes longer to teach, but the end product is of far greater quality and the experience much more rewarding for all involved.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
6 Scaffolding Strategies to Use With Your Students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What's the opposite of scaffolding a lesson? Saying to students, "Read this nine-page science article, write a detailed essay on the topic it explores, and turn it in by Wednesday." Yikes! No safety net, no parachute-they're just left to their own devices. Let's start by agreeing that scaffolding a lesson and differentiating instruction are two different things.

# data[].attributes.headline
An intergenerational writing project with sample letters and art 

# data[].attributes.subject
An intergenerational writing project with sample letters and art 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In every community across Quebec we are seeing examples of people coming together to provide support to people who are staying at home to protect themselves from COVID-19. Support comes in different ways, and we encourage young people to offer emotional support by sharing kind words and helping people know that they are in our hearts.

We invite young people from communities across Quebec to write friendly letters and create art work to send to seniors and vulnerable people isolated from friends and family.

LEARN and ELAN have adapted Semer le Bonheur resources for the English Speaking Community of Quebec.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Letters with Love - An Intergenerational Letter Writing Project In every community across Quebec we are seeing examples of people coming together to provide support to people who are staying at home to protect themselves from COVID-19. Support comes in different ways, and we encourage young