# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Listen to my interview with Tan Huynh and Beth Skelton (transcript):

Sponsored by Grammar Gap Fillers and Giant Steps

This page contains Amazon Affiliate and Bookshop.org links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. What's the difference between Amazon and Bookshop.org?

The population of English learners in our schools continues to grow every year; if you're a teacher reading this, you have probably taught at least a few students whose first language is not English. In many school systems, students who are newcomers are given lots of support through separate programs or classes with teachers who specialize in building language proficiency, but eventually they move out of these programs and attend regular classes with everyone else. At that point, they are assumed to have enough of a grasp on the English language to perform as well as peers who have spoken English since birth.

But in many cases, that assumption is incorrect. While these students - a group we're calling experienced multilinguals - are probably quite comfortable and fluent with speaking English socially, they may still be unfamiliar with the academic language used in science, social studies, math, and other content areas. There are specific strategies that can make a huge difference in how well these students perform.

Tan Huynh and Beth Skelton, two educators who have had decades of experience working with English learners, have written a new book called Long-Term Success for Experienced Multilinguals ( Amazon | Bookshop.org). The book focuses squarely on this particular population, English learners who are well beyond newcomer status, but who still need some scaffolding to reach their true academic potential. On the podcast, they shared some of the strategies from the book - things you can start to do right away to help these learners thrive. You can listen to our full conversation or read the transcript linked above. Here's a summary of the strategies they shared.

These kids speak English now, so what's the problem?

An experienced multilingual student may present a conundrum to their teachers. In many ways, they appear to have developed all the necessary skills, including fluency in English, to do well in school.

"These students have been in this system for at least five years, so they have experience," Skelton explains. "We don't have to teach them how to open their locker or how to get to the cafeteria. They have friends. They are in the community. They have experience being a student."

Despite this ease in navigating school and their social lives, these students can hit a wall when it comes to certain academic tasks.

Huynh has personal experience with this. Having moved to the U.S. as a refugee at the age of 5, his only school experiences were in the U.S. "I went to the ESL program, and I exited in fifth grade," he says. And that's when his language support ended. "When you listen to me talk, you're like, okay, he's really fluent. We don't need to help him. And this is what happened all the way through middle school and high school."

When it came time to take the SAT, he was confident. "I was like, oh, this is going to be fine. My teachers are great. They really took care of me. I've had mostly A's and B's on most of my exams. I had almost a 4.0 by that time. I had every single award, distinguished, honor, this and that, dean's list, whatever, I got it. I'm going to be fine. And then I got my score back: 910. I was like, wait, you get a 600 just for putting your name on. How did I get a 910 and I have an almost 4.0 GPA?"

For other multilingual students, things like test scores aren't quite as surprising, because their school performance isn't as strong as Huynh's was. "They often aren't the award winners and the honor students," Skelton explains, "and so teachers start to see them as, well, they've been in our system since kindergarten or first grade. They've been learning English that long, and now you're in seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade, and you're still classified as an English learner. There must be something wrong with you. They're still classified as English learners for all kinds of reasons. States require them to have a certain level on an English language proficiency test in order to exit as an English learner. And so when teachers see that, then often that deficit label comes with them."

With this deficit label, many students are subjected to more and more pull-out coursework to improve their English, which means missing out on electives, extracurriculars, and advanced courses.

"Imagine if a kid comes to school and all they love is just design," Huynh says. "All they love is just art. They come to school to be in drama. And they say, No no, because of your English scores, you're out. You're pulled out. " For a student who may have been born in the U.S. and isn't even fluent in their heritage language, this can be heartbreaking.

So what is the problem? If extra English classes aren't helping, what will?

Skelton and Huynh believe the answer lies in academic language. To succeed in all subjects, students need additional scaffolding to understand the unique vocabulary, phrasing, and conventions of those disciplines. When teachers intentionally design instruction and assessments with academic language supports in place, they unlock those worlds for students and give them the tools they need to thrive.

Planning Lessons for Multilingual Learners

If you teach science, math, history, health, technology, even literature - anything other than a class designed to teach a language - your course is built on content-specific standards. You already base your instructional objectives on these standards; Skelton and Huynh recommend adding academic language objectives to those content objectives. This ensures that all students not only get the content, but also the language used to describe and synthesize it.

Here is the process they describe in the book for integrating academic language into what you already teach.

Step 1: Create the Assessment, then Add Scaffolds

Following the backward design approach, start by creating summative assessment that will measure what students should know and be able to do by the end of a unit. Once the assessment is made, add scaffolding in places where the academic language might prevent students from understanding what's being asked of them.

Here's an example: If a test question asks students to hypothesize what would happen if the concentration of oxygen that was consumed inside the glass cylinder increased, they might have a good understanding of the science involved, but some of the terms in the question might throw them off.

"When students encounter a sentence like that," Huynh says, "it becomes not a science test, it becomes a reading test. If a kid doesn't understand the word hypothesize, that's a problem. If they don't know the word concentration and they Google that, that's going to be like, oh, focus? What does that mean? And the word consumed and glass cylinder and increase, all these words now add up to a reading test."

To give students the support they need to do their best on assessments, teachers can "engineer" them by adding these scaffolds:

synonyms: Near the terms that may be unfamiliar, add synonyms that will help define them. If the teacher has already explicitly taught the term, this may not be necessary. So for the example question, it might look like: "Hypothesize (make an educated guess) what would happen if the concentration (amount) of oxygen that was consumed (used) inside the glass cylinder (container) increased (got higher)."

sentence starters: Provide students with the academic language needed to construct quality responses in that discipline.

chunking: Rather than squeeze multiple steps into an essay-type question, break multi-part questions into separate, individual chunks with their own spaces to respond.

images: Add relevant images to questions to aid comprehension.

word banks: Provide banks of key vocabulary terms for the unit that students can access when writing responses.

sequencing: For assessments that require longer responses, provide visual frameworks to show students the sequence in which their response should be written.

While some teachers may feel this is too much hand-holding - for example, they may feel strongly about wanting students to practice reading all parts of a complex question - Huynh and Skelton emphasize that in content-area classes, the focus is on whether students are learning that content; giving multilingual students help with the reading and writing part doesn't take away from that.

"We haven't changed the rigor," Skelton says. "I haven't changed the expectation. I've simply chunked the question. When (teachers) see the difference in response patterns and that kids are able to show more about what they know, most teachers say, You know what? I'm going to do that for everybody. That's not just for my experienced multilinguals. This is a strategy that's probably going to be better for everyone in the class. "

Step 2: Write Daily Integrated Objectives

With a good, scaffolded end-of-unit assessment in place, teachers can then work backward to design the lessons that will lead to success at the end. As in any class, this requires daily learning objectives that can be assessed with a simple exit ticket. For multilingual learners, we can add a specific language piece to that objective.

Skelton describes a physics class she observed where students from many language backgrounds were doing a hands-on activity with focal points and convex lenses. At the end of class, the teacher prompted students with this: "Explain what you learned about finding the focal length."

When one student replied with "It gets bigger when it gets closer," the teacher was thrilled. He knew what the student meant and felt it adequately showed that he understood.

But when Skelton asked the teacher, "Does that sound like what you would want for a scientific response?" he realized that a real scientist would have used the terms focal point and convex lens. She then had the teacher write out his own response, something that would represent a good response to that question, and this gave him a much better idea of what he was looking for.

The revised prompt, integrating language objectives, looked like this: Explain what you learned about finding the focal length using precise vocabulary from the word bank. By adding this to the objectives, the teacher could then plan instruction that would give students practice in using that language throughout the lesson.

Here are a few more examples:

Before: Compare the social inequality in nineteenth-century France to the reality of the twenty-first century Western society.
After: Compare the social inequality in nineteenth-century France to the reality of the twenty-first century Western society using comparative language (both, just like, another similarity, etc.)

Before: Describe how the graph has been transformed.
After: Describe how the graph has been transformed using precise terms and the phrase by a factor of or by ___ units.

Before: Predict what will happen to the main character in the next chapter.
After: Predict what will happen to the main character in the next chapter using conditional language such as might or could.

Step 3: Teach for Comprehensible Input and Academic Output

When it comes time to teach the lessons themselves, use the daily objective as a guide to ensure that students understand the language that is being used to teach them - in other words, that the input is comprehensible to them - and that the students' output is framed in the language of the field being taught.

Huynh gives an example from a 9th grade science lesson on solubility. "Imagine a graph, XY graph, and then there's a line all the way through up. (The teacher) said, 'Above the line, we call that super saturated. It cannot melt anymore. Below this line, we can keep melting things. We call that unsaturated. That line is saturated. Anything on that line means everything can melt, but it can't melt anymore.' So the teacher just drew that, labeled it for kids. She color coded it and made it so comprehensible."

Next, she posed a few questions to make sure students understood how the graph worked. "She said, 'Okay. Let's look at 60 degrees. At what point would we go up, will 60 degrees hit that line of saturation? Let's look over to the left, oh. It's 120. That is the solubility.'"

Up to this point, her focus was on comprehensible input, making sure students understood the terms she was using to describe the graph. Next she shifted to the output, giving students practice using the terms themselves. "She said, 'Now I'm going to give you a question. I'm going to model for you the kind of language I want you to write. Don't just write the answer. Saturated, unsaturated, that's not enough. So this is what I want you to do. Always start your sentence with the word at, then give me the amount of grams. So At 110 grams of potassium nitrate... then give me the degrees, at 40 degrees, the solution is... then add is it saturated or unsaturated? And then say, because it is ... is it above the line of saturation, below the line of saturation, or on the line of saturation? That's it.'"

This kind of explicit modeling gives students guided practice in using this unfamiliar language correctly, integrating the content they are learning and the language needed to demonstrate that learning.

No More Doors Closed

By making these small shifts to help students build proficiency in discipline-specific language, we're helping them reach higher levels of learning. "Instead of lowering the expectations for these students," Huynh says, "we're saying, we're going to keep expectations high, but we're going to give you different paths to get to that mountaintop."

And when we do this, we eliminate the need for extra English classes. We put to rest the question of why students who seem to know English perfectly well still struggle in some classes. And we free up space for these students to pursue extracurriculars, electives, advanced coursework, and beyond.

For Huynh, seeing that shift would have personal significance, helping today's multilingual students reach that mountaintop without the setbacks he had to experience.

"No more doors closed," he says with resolve. "No more paths blocked."

Tan Huynh can be found online on his website at tankhuynh.com or on Twitter at @TanKHuynh. Beth Skelton can be found on her website at bethskelton.com or on Twitter at @easkelton.

To purchase Long-Term Success for Experienced Multilinguals directly from Corwin's website, click here and use the code SAVE20 at checkout for 20 percent off.

Come back for more.
Join our mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration that will make your teaching more effective and fun. You'll get access to our members-only library of free downloads, including 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half, the e-booklet that has helped thousands of teachers save time on grading. Over 50,000 teachers have already joined-come on in.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Supporting Intermediate English Learners in Every Subject

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Students who have learned enough English to thrive socially may still need scaffolding to thrive academically. These strategies can help.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Is the Four Question Method applicable to civics education? Gary and I get this question a lot. As history / social studies people we're often in contact with civic education advocates and organizations, and as a small organization interested in growing we're sometimes advised to make a pitch for ourselves as civics educators. As a friend of mine put it to me over drinks a few weeks ago, "There's a lot of money in the democracy space right now." We're not the sort of people who would misrepresent ourselves for money, but I do actually believe that learning history with the Four Question Method civics education, and in this post I'll explain why I think so.

DEMOCRACY IS DEMANDING

Democracy is an especially challenging form of government, because it requires a lot of its citizens. Every year my tenth grade world history students read John Locke, the English philosopher whose ideas formed the basis for the American Declaration of Independence. And every year they are struck by Locke's ideas that "the people" will decide when their rulers have infringed on their natural rights, and that such an infringement can eventually justify revolution. Someone always points out that since Locke assigns such enormous responsibility to the people, he must think them wise enough to make important political decisions. And that usually leads the class to conclude, rightly I think, that civic education is of crucial importance to a functioning democracy.

Gary and I agree with those who have argued that defining civil education with a narrow focus on the mechanics of government is insufficient . Instead we think history/social studies curriculum built around the Four Question Method provides students with the information and practice they need to fulfill their responsibilities as citizens of a democracy. Each question is important to this endeavor.

4QM CIVICS

Question One, "What Happened?" teaches students some important stories about human societies in the past. Historical knowledge is a crucial base for civic participation. Knowing the important stories of world history gives us a catalog of human behavior we can refer back to as we decide on our course of action in the present. This point is perhaps best made by the satirical newspaper The Onion, in their 2011 article titled " Historians Politely Remind Nation To Check What's Happened In The Past Before Making Any Big Decisions ." It's funny, but it's also true: people use the past as a reference point for what's possible in the future. Of course, we can only do that if we know something about the past. As we like to say here at 4QM, "Story First!"

Once students have learned an important story from history, Question Two slows down to focus on interesting people in the story who did something that seems important or strange to us, and asks, "What Were They Thinking?" The authorities in Salem Massachusetts in 1692 executed twenty people who they had convicted of witchcraft - what were they thinking? Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, even while he owned human beings - what was he thinking? Question Two asks students to use the thinking skill of interpretation to build "historical empathy," which means understanding the world of historical actors as they themselves did, especially when their understanding seems different from our own. We look at what these people said and did, and try to figure out what their purposes and assumptions are.

The same skills that students use to build historical empathy can be applied to civic life in the present day. Politics in a democracy require us to figure out how to work with people who think differently from us, and understanding them is an important step in doing that. We're not naive: we know that understanding the thinking of our fellow citizens may lead us to even deeper disagreements with them. But we are equally confident that misunderstanding them, or not trying to understand them at all, is always bad for the political discourse and decision-making that democracy requires of its citizens. Question Two teaches us how to listen to our fellow citizens.

Question Three pulls back from the particulars of a historical story and looks at underlying context and conditions to ask, "Why Then and There?" Question Three is valuable in civics education because it moves our attention away from the particular actors in a story and onto the circumstances that shaped their choices. This means that students who are familiar with Question Three thinking are less likely to ascribe historical outcomes solely to the virtues or vices of the individual people involved in the story, and more likely to consider the context within which those people operated. This is a valuable perspective to have on contemporary civic life as well. It's easier to work towards policy agreement when you're thinking about the conditions that will bring it about, instead of the personal qualities of your fellow negotiators.

Every 4QM unit is ultimately a practicum in judgment. Judgment is the thinking skill associated with Question Four, "What Do We Think About That?" In a 4QM history class we ask Question Four about important people or decisions in our story: did they do the right thing? Are they admirable or contemptible? And what do assume or believe that makes us think so? The Question is phrased as "we" not because we expect our students to arrive at consensus, but because the question is debated and discussed in community. Our classroom community will almost certainly disagree about our judgments of the past, but because the Four Question Method defines and structures our judgment thinking steps clearly, students will know precisely what they disagree about - and why. This is, obviously, good practice for present day disagreements about politics and policy.

MODELING CIVIC LIFE

The 4QM classroom is a model of civic life in a democracy, and like a democracy, it demands a lot of its citizens. 4QM Teachers and students need a solid understanding of the four questions and the techniques for answering them, which takes practice. But we think that giving students regular practice in historical knowledge, empathy, understanding of contexts, and thoughtful judgment is actually great practice for present day civics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Is the Four Question Method applicable to civics education? Gary and I get this question a lot. As history / social studies people we’re often in contact with civic education advocates and organizations, and as a small organization interested in growing we’re sometimes advised to make a pitch for ou…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What is the name for the part of our ear that vibrates when it gets hit by a soundwave?"

I dream about this question now, and the long pause which follows, as all five students avoid the teacher's gaze. I've seen 89 trainee primary teachers ask it (twice each!). I've watched them respond to their students' silence: some hint, some nominate, some keep talking, hoping a student will eventually raise their hand. No one ever does.

It was an experiment (described here). We invited trainees to ask five Year 4 pupils revision questions about sound. We offered guidance encouraging them to cold call, wait three seconds before asking a student to respond, correct wrong answers, and offer a hint if students couldn't respond.

The experiment controlled possible variables. We gave the trainees the questions and the answers. Trainees were teaching avatar pupils (shown below), voiced by a simulation specialist. The specialist had a script detailing when and how to respond to different prompts: when to say "I don't know, sorry," for example, and when to relent and offer an answer.

Controlling the variables - setting identical questions and responses - and repeating this 178 times, allows you to identify patterns in how teachers ask questions in a way that would be almost impossible through classroom observations. Many trainees pursued these retrieval strategies effectively, particularly after seeing a video model (a finding described here). But I rapidly noticed a handful of common mistakes: tempting but unhelpful ways to ask questions. This post describes the five most prevalent ways not to ask questions for retrieval - and what to do instead.

Mistake 1: Asking for hands up

Most trainees invited and relied on hands up:

What's going on here? Putting hands up is a signature feature of classroom teaching. Trainees do it almost automatically. But a signature feature may not be desirable. In particular, when we're asking students to retrieve existing learning, the goal is not "Who can remember...?" but "Can we all think back...?" On one question, our simulation specialist's script said not to raise any of the students' hands. Some trainees seemed genuinely unsettled as a result. More broadly, relying on hands up means we rely on the most confident or interested students responding. They learn more, while less confident and less motivated students are left out. If they know they won't be called on, they don't need to think about the response. We create a two-tier classroom: those who are participating directly and those who aren't. Some trainees would not nominate a student unless someone raised a hand. When no student raised a hand, some simply kept talking, for two or three minutes even, encouraging, hinting, and eventually giving the right answer, without students saying a word.

A better option... is to nominate a student to respond:

This gets every student thinking when a question is asked, and involves all students in answering and so participating in the lesson at some point. In doing so, it boosts students' confidence and participation.

Mistake 2: Mostly asking the boys

What's going on? If I hear Will called upon one more time, I'll scream. Was it because he was kind-of in the middle? Was it because he was bigger, looked older, or was white? Whatever the reason, trainees seemed disproportionately keen to hear from him.

In particular, trainees seemed to call on him after another student had got the answer wrong. However we choose to explain the underlying dynamics there is decades of evidence that boys, white students and high attainers talk more in the classroom (Howe and Abedin, 2013). If we're not actively working against that to make classroom participation fairer, we're accepting it instead.

A better option... is to select who participates. We could:

Preselect students to ask questions - I'm not wild about this, since I tend to come up with most questions on the spot. But many teachers I deeply respect are adamant you should be planning your questions, so maybe you should. If you plan questions, you can plan respondents.

Many teachers I deeply respect are dead against this, but I still believe lollipop sticks, or some kind of random selection tool, are an invaluable technique for fair participation, and way to communicate the classroom you're trying to build.

Alternatively, you could use a register to track who has talked as the lesson has gone on, and use this to target questions (Will has spoken five times, Mina zero, so my next question goes to Mina).

Mistake 3: Bouncing the question to another student (too early)

Once teachers had picked someone to call on, if a student got an answer wrong, or said they didn't know, most trainees immediately called on another student to answer:

What's going on? The impulse here seems to be an urge to get to the right answer. This may be combined with the teacher wishing to avoid embarrassing the student called upon. But the result is that the student called upon is rarely encouraged to have a go, or to improve their initial answer. Longer term, this may accustom students to (a) giving 'first draft' answers, and (b) opting out if they don't want to try. It's particularly unhelpful if your goal is retrieval: all students have encountered the right answer - we need to push them to recall it. Bouncing to another student - the famous "Pose, pause, pounce, bounce" can be useful in sparking discussion, but only after the first student has offered a substantive answer to discuss.

A better option... would be to encourage students, push them, or offer them a hint:

Mistake 4: Don't round up a wrong answer to a right one

When students gave a wrong answer, we often heard:

What's going on? Teachers were trying to be nice. They succeeded: they communicated to students that they had got the right answer, or as near as makes no difference. But this wasn't true: we had scripted the answer; it wasn't right. The risk is that students hear "Good answer," and assume their answer is indeed good. There's a tension between protecting students' egos and getting to the right answer. The trainees I watched seemed much more concerned to protect egos than get to the right answer. But making students feel good about themselves is only part of a teacher's job. And we can make them feel good about themselves far better if we do so based on students' genuine achievement.

A better option... is to protect the ego, while being clear about the gaps. And/or to offer praise after students have got the right answer:

Doug Lemov has suggested that the reward for a right answer should be another question. Perhaps this is true for a wrong answer too - at least if we know the students have recently studied this topic.

Mistake 5: Talking too much

Ideally, we wanted teachers to pause for three seconds of silent wait time between the question and nominating a student to answer. Much more often, we heard something like this:

"What is the name for the part of our ear that vibrates when it gets hit by a soundwave? So I'm looking for the part of the ear - it's a part of the ear - that vibrates when it gets hit by a soundwave. A part of the ear. What do we think? Does anyone want to have a go? I'll call on... Jayla."

What's going on? Trainees probably thought they were helping by repeating the question. But it felt more like they were filling the silence. A three-second pause for silence, if you're not used to doing it, seems wildly unnatural (as I found when I tried to make myself do it). As with all these techniques, there's a time to repeat the question. There can be value in narrating what you see. "Good to see so many hands up," (if you are using hands up) emphasises a positive social norm. But if the goal is to promote retrieval, to promote individual, effortful thinking, we need to let students actually do that thinking.

A better option... is to say the question clearly and slowly the first time. Pause for three seconds. Then repeat the question if it's really needed. Then nominate a student to respond. If the student doesn't understand, you can always say the question again.

Conclusion

I feel uncharitable. The trainees who worked with us had a tough gig: three months into training, five minutes to read about retrieval questions, and two chances to make it work. Many of them did really well. When we showed them a video model of effective questioning, they got much better.

But their struggles offer insight into what new teachers - all teachers, perhaps - struggle with about retrieval questioning. I think these patterns are common enough, interesting enough, and important enough, to report.

These patterns tell us something about teacher learning.

First, their commonality in novice teachers persuades me that what I've called here 'mistakes' are in fact fairly innate elements of human behaviour when teaching. Perhaps they're biologically primary: they reflect basic interactional patterns we learn early and untaught. Or perhaps they reflect the 'apprenticeship of observation' teachers perform, spending years watching teaching, and learning how teaching works, before becoming a teacher themselves. Perhaps it's both. Teachers will cleave to this model unless or until they are shown something different - and manage to habituate themselves to do it.

Second, the instinct of most trainees, and maybe most teachers, is to avoid children feeling bad. This innate reaction unifies these slipups: trainees are trying to avoid discomfort and social awkwardness. So they pick students who want to answer. They move on quickly where a student says they're stuck. They round up answers. And they keep talking until they think students will have the answer.

A teacher who makes their children feel bad will struggle to teach them anything. But the job of a teacher is to push students beyond what they think they can do. As Deborah Ball and Francesca Forzani have argued, to teach effectively we may have to suppress our instinctive reactions, and our preferences. This may mean teaching books we dislike, welcoming parents we find tricky - and probing where students are uncertain (2009, p.499). The goal was retrieval: trainees would have done better if they had pushed harder for retrieval.

This is hard. But pushing students to do things they may not feel ready or able to do unlocks the door to what Colin Burrow recently described as the main pleasure of teaching: "gently persuading someone else to recognise in themselves what you can see in them."

If you enjoyed this, you might appreciate...

I tried, and struggled, to increase wait time in my teaching, and described the process and results here.

I defended the practice of using lollipop sticks to call on students here.

I've described the wider experiment, and what we learned about using models to help the trainees teach better, here.

References
Ball, D., Forzani, F., (2009) The Work of Teaching and the Challenge for Teacher Education. Journal of Teacher Education 60(5), pp.497-511. Howe, C. and Abedin, M. (2013). Classroom dialogue: a systematic review across four decades of research. Cambridge Journal of Education, 43(3), pp.325-356.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Questioning for retrieval: five mistakes to avoid

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What is the name for the part of our ear that vibrates when it gets hit by a soundwave?" I dream about this question now, and the long pause which follows, as all five students avoid the teac...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Vol. 80

No. 7

Abstract

Ella's First Draft: Writing Just Below the Surface

Ella's Second Draft: Digging Deeper

Beyond the Shallows

Getting students to focus their argument more closely can push them past shallow, five-paragraph-style writing.

Credit: MARY ANN SMITH / IKON IMAGES

Abstract

Ella's First Draft: Writing Just Below the Surface

Ella's Second Draft: Digging Deeper

Beyond the Shallows

Each September, our English department asks students to write diagnostic essays to get a sense of their writing skills. Depending on the prompt, they usually write about multiple characters in a short story or a few reasons why cell phones should be banned from the classroom. While the individual ideas in the essays are promising, the overall effect is superficial-students write about a number of characters or reasons, but none in depth. They skim the surface of the subject, avoiding a deeper, more complicated consideration of any particular character or individual reason. In other words, they write typical versions of the five-paragraph essay.

The persistence and effects of the five-paragraph essay-a widely taught school form where student writers offer three supporting examples sandwiched between an introduction and conclusion-have been well documented (Boecherer, 2018; Campbell & Latimer, 2012; Rorschach, 2004), but my concern lies less with its form and more with the superficial thinking that it encourages.

"When I carefully read my students' essays for depth of content," laments Elizabeth Rorschach (2004), "I find myself terribly disappointed by how shallow and un-thought-out most of the five-paragraph essays are." Indeed, five-paragraph essays lead students to "do away with complex, even messy, arguments in favor of simple theses that can be proven quickly and without counterargument" (Boecherer, 2018, p. 88).

I've seen this type of superficial, simplistic approach in my students' work, and I've begun to push them to think further. My feedback to students on their diagnostic essays is usually about asking them to focus in on their subjects: to write about one character-or, even better, one aspect of one character-or one reason cell phones should be banned from the classroom. This renewed focus demands more thought and specificity from the writer. As Wendell Berry observed, "The discipline of thought is not generalization; it is detail" (2002, p. 87).

My methodology for teaching students to think more deeply, and therefore with more complexity, can be articulated in a mantra: With focus comes depth; with depth, complexity.

My methodology for teaching students to think more deeply, and therefore with more complexity, can be articulated in a mantra: With focus comes depth; with depth, complexity. It is a concept continually practiced and reinforced throughout the year-in assignments, in class discussions, in formative writings, in revision work, and in longer, research-driven writings. The phrase frequently appears in my direct instruction and in my verbal and written feedback to student writers.

In the spirit of focus, I will use excerpts from a research paper written by one of my former 11th-grade students as a representative example. Ella's first draft was 11 pages long, but in its simplicity and superficiality, it still represented the five-paragraph essay form. Her second shifted to focused, in-depth, complex writing. The transition between the two provides a road map for making such a shift.

Ella's First Draft: Writing Just Below the Surface

Ella chose to center her year-long, research-driven writing project on the character Belle from Beauty and the Beast. In particular, she was responding to critics who claimed that Disney princesses were not good role models for girls. So far, so good-she was responding to a generalized assertion by writing about a particular princess.

But the piece quickly lost focus, beginning with her title: "I Want So Much More Than They've Got Planned: Examining Disney's Princess Belle as a Feminist Role Model for Adolescent Girls." Because no one reason is given for Belle being a feminist role model, we can assume that Ella will write about several.

Indeed, Ella does write about several reasons that Belle is a feminist role model, and her first draft follows the typical depth and direction of a five-paragraph essay, as illustrated in Figure 1, with the X axis representing surface-level thinking. Ella begins to delve into a particular idea ("In spite of the fact that Belle does voluntarily submit herself as the Beast's prisoner, and is subjected to harshness from the Beast, she does not fall in love with an abuser, or show that abuse is acceptable"). But rather than pursuing and developing that idea in depth, she returns to the surface to introduce another idea, or additional ideas. ("Belle is a good role model for a variety of reasons; for example, she is more mature than other princesses, and often regarded as the 'intelligent' princess.") This pattern repeats itself throughout the course of the essay.

In her paper, Ella introduces counterarguments: "Sumera goes on to say that 'in spite of [Belle's] feminist quality of being learned and educated through reading, her predilections for romance uncover the mask of feminism,'" but she does not allow them to complicate her assertion. Instead, she repudiates counterarguments in absolute terms-"She also does not have any 'predilections for romance,' as none of her actions in the film reflect this." This oversimplifies her argument.

"Too often," notes scholar Janet Bean Thompson, "inexperienced writers avoid writing about the things that confuse them. Fearing the ambiguous, they overlook troublesome passages in favor of easy generalizations. They feel they have enough problems with reading without creating more for themselves" (1990, p. 175). Like a lot of students, Ella had likely come into class thinking that a good argument was an absolute, decisive argument-one that never wavered in its certainty. As a high-achieving student in her junior year of high school, she had enough on her academic plate without authentically grappling with questions in this essay that might undermine her argument.

Ella's Second Draft: Digging Deeper

When I conferenced with Ella about her first draft, I suggested that she focus the piece more closely. There are many reasons that Belle might be a good feminist role model, but which one should be pursued in depth? Ella decided that she would focus on Belle's reading. Her revised title suggests improved focus and complexity: "Beauty and the Book: How Disney's Princess Belle Is a Good Feminist Role Model Despite Her Reading."

Ella's second draft more closely resembles Figure 2. Rather than skimming along the X axis, writing about several topics superficially, Ella pursues one in depth, relentlessly driving down the Y axis. Her topic sentences reflect a continual sense of focus and show she is genuinely addressing counterarguments. For example:

Although Belle is a "smart and open minded" princess, the subject of her book adds tension to her validity as a feminist role model.

Belle's choice in books imprisons her in yet another gender stereotype and inhibits her critical thinking and growth.

The fact that Belle's book is a fantasy novel is not entirely bad or good.

The romance aspect of the novel, unfortunately, decreases Belle's validity as a truly feminist role model.

Words like book, books, and novel signal that Ella is continually focused on the subject of Belle's reading.

This improved focus allows Ella time and space to complicate her argument. For example, Ella demonstrates that Belle is a voracious reader, a quality that makes her a worthy role model for adolescent girls. "But, upon closer inspection," Ella writes, "Belle's reading sends mixed messages to viewers. Why does a teenage girl read the same romance novel over again and again? Why doesn't she read books that spark her critical thinking in addition to her imagination?"

It might be closer to the truth to say that an increased focus forced Ella to deal with complications and counterarguments, what Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein (2014) call "naysayers":

If you fail to plant a naysayer in your text, you may find that you have very little to say. Our own students often say that entertaining counterarguments makes it easier to generate enough text to meet their assignment's page-length requirements. (p. 80)

We can help students understand that, with greater focus, their subject can become a representative example of a larger concept.

Some students bring up multiple topics in their writing because they fear they won't be able to sustain a longer piece of writing about one specific subject. To counter that fear, we can help students understand that, with greater focus, their subject can become a representative example (Rosenwasser & Stephen, 2011) of a larger concept. Belle as a reader, for example, serves not only as a representative example of Disney princesses, but also of young female readers. Ella's revised draft expanded to draw from research not only on Belle's reading specifically, but also on gender roles, cartoons, Disney animated films, literacy, feminism, and the intersections between and among those fields. She was able to touch upon disparate fields, but only as they related to her focused topic, to which she continually returned, as per the direction of the arrows in Figure 2.

Ultimately, Ella's increased focus and willingness to complicate her argument led her to a more complex understanding of her subject:

Before examining the film deeply, I was convinced that Belle was unquestionably the best princess role model. But, through my research, I began to notice subtle details about Belle's personality that I had not in all of my previous times seeing the film. Now, it troubles me that my favorite princess is not reading Shakespeare or the works of ancient Greek philosophers or helping her father with his engineering creations. Although I admire her determination to continue reading in spite of the jeers of her fellow villagers, I would have wished to see her reading something other than the same fantasy-romance novel for the third time.

It's telling that Ella uses the adverb deeply: her focused, in-depth writing and thinking has led her beyond superficiality and simplicity into a different kind of knowing, one more comfortable with complexity.

Beyond the Shallows

In the introduction to this article, I referenced a prompt about cellphones. They, like laptop computers, are double-edged swords of productivity and distraction in the classroom. In his aptly named book The Shallows, Nicholas Carr decries the internet's effect on thought: "When the brain is overloaded by stimuli, as it usually is when we are peering into a network-connected computer screen, attention splinters, thinking becomes superficial, and memory suffers. We become less reflective and more impulsive" (2020).

My job as a teacher is to encourage students to leave the safety of shallow intellectual waters for the more difficult, but ultimately more rewarding, depth of complexity.

My job as a teacher is to counter shallow thinking, to encourage students to leave the safety of shallow intellectual waters for the more difficult, but ultimately more rewarding, depth of complexity. While we shouldn't supply our students with ideas, we can help them to focus on their best ones. There have been times during class discussions and writing conferences where I have said, "I don't mean to complicate things for you, but ..." before correcting myself: "No, wait; I do mean to complicate things for you. That's my job."

References

Boecherer, V. (2018). The square cucumber: Restoring student autonomy and confidence. English Journal, 107(3), 87-92.

Rorschach, E. (2004). The five-paragraph theme redux. The Quarterly, 26(3).

ASCD is a community dedicated to educators' professional growth and well-being.

Let us help you put your vision into action.

ASCD empowers educators to achieve excellence in learning, teaching, and leading so that every child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Cultivating Complexity in Student Writing

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Vol. 80 No. 7 Abstract Ella's First Draft: Writing Just Below the Surface Ella's Second Draft: Digging Deeper Beyond the Shallows Getting students to focus their argument more closely can push them past shallow, five-paragraph-style writing.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Vol. 80

No. 7

Abstract

Ella's First Draft: Writing Just Below the Surface

Ella's Second Draft: Digging Deeper

Beyond the Shallows

Getting students to focus their argument more closely can push them past shallow, five-paragraph-style writing.

Credit: MARY ANN SMITH / IKON IMAGES

Abstract

Ella's First Draft: Writing Just Below the Surface

Ella's Second Draft: Digging Deeper

Beyond the Shallows

Each September, our English department asks students to write diagnostic essays to get a sense of their writing skills. Depending on the prompt, they usually write about multiple characters in a short story or a few reasons why cell phones should be banned from the classroom. While the individual ideas in the essays are promising, the overall effect is superficial-students write about a number of characters or reasons, but none in depth. They skim the surface of the subject, avoiding a deeper, more complicated consideration of any particular character or individual reason. In other words, they write typical versions of the five-paragraph essay.

The persistence and effects of the five-paragraph essay-a widely taught school form where student writers offer three supporting examples sandwiched between an introduction and conclusion-have been well documented (Boecherer, 2018; Campbell & Latimer, 2012; Rorschach, 2004), but my concern lies less with its form and more with the superficial thinking that it encourages.

"When I carefully read my students' essays for depth of content," laments Elizabeth Rorschach (2004), "I find myself terribly disappointed by how shallow and un-thought-out most of the five-paragraph essays are." Indeed, five-paragraph essays lead students to "do away with complex, even messy, arguments in favor of simple theses that can be proven quickly and without counterargument" (Boecherer, 2018, p. 88).

I've seen this type of superficial, simplistic approach in my students' work, and I've begun to push them to think further. My feedback to students on their diagnostic essays is usually about asking them to focus in on their subjects: to write about one character-or, even better, one aspect of one character-or one reason cell phones should be banned from the classroom. This renewed focus demands more thought and specificity from the writer. As Wendell Berry observed, "The discipline of thought is not generalization; it is detail" (2002, p. 87).

My methodology for teaching students to think more deeply, and therefore with more complexity, can be articulated in a mantra: With focus comes depth; with depth, complexity.

My methodology for teaching students to think more deeply, and therefore with more complexity, can be articulated in a mantra: With focus comes depth; with depth, complexity. It is a concept continually practiced and reinforced throughout the year-in assignments, in class discussions, in formative writings, in revision work, and in longer, research-driven writings. The phrase frequently appears in my direct instruction and in my verbal and written feedback to student writers.

In the spirit of focus, I will use excerpts from a research paper written by one of my former 11th-grade students as a representative example. Ella's first draft was 11 pages long, but in its simplicity and superficiality, it still represented the five-paragraph essay form. Her second shifted to focused, in-depth, complex writing. The transition between the two provides a road map for making such a shift.

Ella's First Draft: Writing Just Below the Surface

Ella chose to center her year-long, research-driven writing project on the character Belle from Beauty and the Beast. In particular, she was responding to critics who claimed that Disney princesses were not good role models for girls. So far, so good-she was responding to a generalized assertion by writing about a particular princess.

But the piece quickly lost focus, beginning with her title: "I Want So Much More Than They've Got Planned: Examining Disney's Princess Belle as a Feminist Role Model for Adolescent Girls." Because no one reason is given for Belle being a feminist role model, we can assume that Ella will write about several.

Indeed, Ella does write about several reasons that Belle is a feminist role model, and her first draft follows the typical depth and direction of a five-paragraph essay, as illustrated in Figure 1, with the X axis representing surface-level thinking. Ella begins to delve into a particular idea ("In spite of the fact that Belle does voluntarily submit herself as the Beast's prisoner, and is subjected to harshness from the Beast, she does not fall in love with an abuser, or show that abuse is acceptable"). But rather than pursuing and developing that idea in depth, she returns to the surface to introduce another idea, or additional ideas. ("Belle is a good role model for a variety of reasons; for example, she is more mature than other princesses, and often regarded as the 'intelligent' princess.") This pattern repeats itself throughout the course of the essay.

In her paper, Ella introduces counterarguments: "Sumera goes on to say that 'in spite of [Belle's] feminist quality of being learned and educated through reading, her predilections for romance uncover the mask of feminism,'" but she does not allow them to complicate her assertion. Instead, she repudiates counterarguments in absolute terms-"She also does not have any 'predilections for romance,' as none of her actions in the film reflect this." This oversimplifies her argument.

"Too often," notes scholar Janet Bean Thompson, "inexperienced writers avoid writing about the things that confuse them. Fearing the ambiguous, they overlook troublesome passages in favor of easy generalizations. They feel they have enough problems with reading without creating more for themselves" (1990, p. 175). Like a lot of students, Ella had likely come into class thinking that a good argument was an absolute, decisive argument-one that never wavered in its certainty. As a high-achieving student in her junior year of high school, she had enough on her academic plate without authentically grappling with questions in this essay that might undermine her argument.

Ella's Second Draft: Digging Deeper

When I conferenced with Ella about her first draft, I suggested that she focus the piece more closely. There are many reasons that Belle might be a good feminist role model, but which one should be pursued in depth? Ella decided that she would focus on Belle's reading. Her revised title suggests improved focus and complexity: "Beauty and the Book: How Disney's Princess Belle Is a Good Feminist Role Model Despite Her Reading."

Ella's second draft more closely resembles Figure 2. Rather than skimming along the X axis, writing about several topics superficially, Ella pursues one in depth, relentlessly driving down the Y axis. Her topic sentences reflect a continual sense of focus and show she is genuinely addressing counterarguments. For example:

Although Belle is a "smart and open minded" princess, the subject of her book adds tension to her validity as a feminist role model.

Belle's choice in books imprisons her in yet another gender stereotype and inhibits her critical thinking and growth.

The fact that Belle's book is a fantasy novel is not entirely bad or good.

The romance aspect of the novel, unfortunately, decreases Belle's validity as a truly feminist role model.

Words like book, books, and novel signal that Ella is continually focused on the subject of Belle's reading.

This improved focus allows Ella time and space to complicate her argument. For example, Ella demonstrates that Belle is a voracious reader, a quality that makes her a worthy role model for adolescent girls. "But, upon closer inspection," Ella writes, "Belle's reading sends mixed messages to viewers. Why does a teenage girl read the same romance novel over again and again? Why doesn't she read books that spark her critical thinking in addition to her imagination?"

It might be closer to the truth to say that an increased focus forced Ella to deal with complications and counterarguments, what Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein (2014) call "naysayers":

If you fail to plant a naysayer in your text, you may find that you have very little to say. Our own students often say that entertaining counterarguments makes it easier to generate enough text to meet their assignment's page-length requirements. (p. 80)

We can help students understand that, with greater focus, their subject can become a representative example of a larger concept.

Some students bring up multiple topics in their writing because they fear they won't be able to sustain a longer piece of writing about one specific subject. To counter that fear, we can help students understand that, with greater focus, their subject can become a representative example (Rosenwasser & Stephen, 2011) of a larger concept. Belle as a reader, for example, serves not only as a representative example of Disney princesses, but also of young female readers. Ella's revised draft expanded to draw from research not only on Belle's reading specifically, but also on gender roles, cartoons, Disney animated films, literacy, feminism, and the intersections between and among those fields. She was able to touch upon disparate fields, but only as they related to her focused topic, to which she continually returned, as per the direction of the arrows in Figure 2.

Ultimately, Ella's increased focus and willingness to complicate her argument led her to a more complex understanding of her subject:

Before examining the film deeply, I was convinced that Belle was unquestionably the best princess role model. But, through my research, I began to notice subtle details about Belle's personality that I had not in all of my previous times seeing the film. Now, it troubles me that my favorite princess is not reading Shakespeare or the works of ancient Greek philosophers or helping her father with his engineering creations. Although I admire her determination to continue reading in spite of the jeers of her fellow villagers, I would have wished to see her reading something other than the same fantasy-romance novel for the third time.

It's telling that Ella uses the adverb deeply: her focused, in-depth writing and thinking has led her beyond superficiality and simplicity into a different kind of knowing, one more comfortable with complexity.

Beyond the Shallows

In the introduction to this article, I referenced a prompt about cellphones. They, like laptop computers, are double-edged swords of productivity and distraction in the classroom. In his aptly named book The Shallows, Nicholas Carr decries the internet's effect on thought: "When the brain is overloaded by stimuli, as it usually is when we are peering into a network-connected computer screen, attention splinters, thinking becomes superficial, and memory suffers. We become less reflective and more impulsive" (2020).

My job as a teacher is to encourage students to leave the safety of shallow intellectual waters for the more difficult, but ultimately more rewarding, depth of complexity.

My job as a teacher is to counter shallow thinking, to encourage students to leave the safety of shallow intellectual waters for the more difficult, but ultimately more rewarding, depth of complexity. While we shouldn't supply our students with ideas, we can help them to focus on their best ones. There have been times during class discussions and writing conferences where I have said, "I don't mean to complicate things for you, but ..." before correcting myself: "No, wait; I do mean to complicate things for you. That's my job."

References

Boecherer, V. (2018). The square cucumber: Restoring student autonomy and confidence. English Journal, 107(3), 87-92.

Rorschach, E. (2004). The five-paragraph theme redux. The Quarterly, 26(3).

ASCD is a community dedicated to educators' professional growth and well-being.

Let us help you put your vision into action.

ASCD empowers educators to achieve excellence in learning, teaching, and leading so that every child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Cultivating Complexity in Student Writing

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Vol. 80 No. 7 Abstract Ella's First Draft: Writing Just Below the Surface Ella's Second Draft: Digging Deeper Beyond the Shallows Getting students to focus their argument more closely can push them past shallow, five-paragraph-style writing.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For centuries, educators have wrung their hands over how to teach critical thinking to young people-just take a look at Socrates bemoaning the lack of self-questioning among the youth of Athens. One explanation for why this has long been a vexing challenge is that, according to cognitive science, applying logic and analyzing ideas (including our own) do not come naturally to us as human beings (Kahneman, 2011).

The good news: A new generation of scientific research conducted in classrooms with a diverse array of students points to powerful strategies that lift all learners precisely because they support students' ability to think deeply and critically about their learning.

Critical thinking skills do not develop via osmosis or incidental exposure to critical thought.

Before we dive into those strategies, though, it may be helpful to understand a few things about critical thinking.

Critical thinking is subject-specific. Art critics and football analysts are, arguably, both critical thinkers in their own right. Yet we wouldn't want an art critic to offer color commentary for the Super Bowl or a sportscaster to serve as a docent at the Museum of Modern Art. The same principle applies to academics. As cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham (2007) notes, being able to solve a complex mathematics problem does not transfer to being able to analyze a historical text or construct a well-reasoned essay. We must help students develop distinct critical thinking skills in all subject areas.

We must teach critical thinking skills directly. As I've noted previously in this column, (Goodwin, 2017), critical thinking skills do not develop via osmosis or incidental exposure to critical thought. A study that compared the effects of providing one group of college students with direct instruction in critical thinking and another with texts that reflected analytical and evaluative thinking found the first group to be far more capable of demonstrating critical thinking afterward (Marin & Halpern, 2011).

Mental models are key to critical thinking. In many pursuits, critical thought depends on our ability to use and reflect on mental models, or schema. Research has shown that one of the biggest differences between experts and novices is that experts use well-developed mental models to solve problems by categorizing them, creating a mental representation of them, retrieving strategies for solving them, and reflecting afterward on the validity of their answers (Nokes, Schunn, & Chi, 2010). So, to help students develop critical thinking skills, we must help them develop mental schema for solving problems.

Three Strategies to Support Critical Thinking

Recently, my colleagues at McREL International identified and analyzed 105 high-quality scientific studies on effective teaching practices that serve as the basis for our book The New Classroom Instruction That Works (ASCD, 2022). Findings from these studies reveal three powerful teaching strategies that support significant gains in student learning and the development and use of critical thinking strategies.

1. Structured problem solving

It can be highly effective to ask students to solve complex real-life problems (such as designing and calculating the costs to construct a skateboard ramp) while helping them develop the mental schema needed to solve these problems. Many studies that support this strategy, in fact, refer to it as "schema-based" or "schema-broadening" instruction, as it guides students through a step-by-step process of learning to recognize what type of problem they are solving, using the appropriate strategies for solving it, reviewing their solutions, and revisiting these strategies if their initial solutions don't make sense.

2. Cognitive writing

Engage students in extended writing tasks by asking them to respond to high-level thinking prompts about prior learning (such as explaining phenomena, analyzing and evaluating evidence, or developing and defending their own ideas). Similar to structured problem solving, this strategy does more than simply ask students to write about their learning; it also provides direct instruction in critical thinking skills by, for example, providing students with "toolkits" of thinking strategies such as reflecting on prior knowledge, identifying main ideas, revising thinking, and self-assessing progress (Olson et al., 2017). Teachers can also provide printed materials that guide students through the process of extracting key ideas from texts, developing original ideas, and arranging their thinking (Collins et al., 2017).

3. Guided investigations

Studies show that engaging students (in both science and social studies classrooms) in a combination of teacher-directed and student self-directed learning can help develop their cognitive thinking skills. These learning activities typically include students reading high-interest texts, conducting experiments and investigations to test hypotheses and assumptions, collecting data and gathering evidence via close observation and reading, and using evidence to support findings and conclusions. Notably, we call this strategy guided investigations because students aren't left to wander on their own. Teachers can give mini-lectures along the way to explain key concepts, build vocabulary knowledge, and demonstrate processes. Moreover, the investigations themselves are framed with teacher-provided questions that prompt students to think about their learning by sharing their interpretation of data through, for example, "think and write" exercises (Lynch et al., 2007).

Toward More Joyful Learning

Some more good news: You don't have to drop everything to teach critical thinking. You can weave it into everyday classroom lesson and units. Giving students opportunities to investigate interesting topics, solve real-world problems, and share their ideas through writing are not only effective teaching strategies, but they are also highly engaging learning activities, which can make the entire process of learning richer and more joyful-for students and teachers alike.

The New Classroom Instruction That Works

An all-new third edition provides a rigorous research base for instructional strategies proven to promote meaningful learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Getting Students Comfortable with Critical Thinking

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Three strategies for weaving critical thinking into everyday learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Tara Laskowski is senior editor for Educational Leadership. Learn More

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Colin Seale on Closing the Critical Thinking Gap

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Vol. 80 No. 7 An attorney and renowned speaker argues that critical thinking shouldn't be a "luxury good" in schools. Colin Seale was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He was tracked early into gifted and talented programs and given opportunities his neighborhood peers were not.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Listen to the interview with Sarah Fine (transcript):
Sponsored by EVERFI and Giant Steps

This page contains Amazon Affiliate and Bookshop.org links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. What's the difference between Amazon and Bookshop.org?

Ask most adults if they remember anything they learned in high school, and what you're likely to hear is a lot of different versions of no. Ask most high school kids if they remember what they learned last year, and you'll probably get the same answer. Although exceptions certainly exist, it's not a stretch to say that a lot of what happens in schools doesn't really qualify as deep learning. In too many cases, what happens in schools today doesn't look much different than it did decades ago: seat work, memorization, and regurgitation of a discrete body of knowledge and skills. Students who are successful are the ones who have learned how to play the game, while everyone else falls short in one way or another.

As educators, we've been able to describe this problem for a long time, and many teachers and schools have attempted to change it by implementing new strategies, changing curriculum, sometimes building whole schools designed to create more opportunities for rich, authentic, relevant learning.

So what's working? Which of these approaches are getting results? What are they actually doing in the places where students are engaged in deep learning?

These were the questions Sarah Fine asked over ten years ago. Sarah was a graduate student at Harvard Graduate School of education, where she and Jal Mehta, an assistant professor, decided to go on a sort of quest, a nationwide search for schools that had created environments where deep learning was happening. The plan was to observe these schools and extract some general principles that others could follow.

While they were surprised (and disappointed) by what they found, they did find deep learning in some classrooms. From these, they were able to extract the "secret sauce" - a kind of formula for cultivating deep learning in any classroom. They shared their findings in their 2019 book, In Search of Deeper Learning.

On the podcast, Sarah Fine talked with me about what teachers and school leaders can do to bring more of that secret sauce into their learning spaces. The episode and full transcript are above; here is a summary of our conversation.

What is Deeper Learning?

To understand Fine and Mehta's project, it helps to get a clear definition of what "deep learning" means to them; as Fine acknowledges, "We are far from the only ones who have thought about that." So what exactly is deep learning in their terms?

"In the book," she explains, "we ended up distilling deep learning to three domains that when interconnected in the experience of learners tend to produce really powerful, rich, enduring learning." Those interconnected domains are identity, mastery, and creativity. When all three of these are present, it's likely that deeper learning is happening.

Domain 1: Identity

"When kids see what is happening in school as connected to who they are, what they know, and maybe what they want to become," Fine says, "there's something very important that happens there. If you have to start somewhere, start with figuring out what kids want to know, what they care about, what they already do know and wonder about the world, who they might want to become, and see if you can use that as a launching point."

Domain 2: Mastery

Fine describes mastery as "developing really rich conceptual knowledge and ability to execute something in some domain. Actually being able to do the work of a discipline, to think in the ways of that field or discipline...getting how something works, not just knowing a bunch of disconnected stuff. So, for example, understanding the role of the human heart in the body is not just about being able to label where the human heart is on a diagram or being able to spit out a definition. It's actually systems knowledge that's connected to other pieces of knowledge."

Domain 3: Creativity

"We think about creativity as not just receiving knowledge but being able to...produce something novel or something that has utility to the world, or meaning, or beauty, or something that hasn't been done or made before," Fine says. "So it's not just creativity in the sense of like the arts, but it's more like, okay, you know something about the human heart. Try to design an artificial heart based on what you know about what the heart needs to do. And too often we don't see that in classrooms. But when we do, it's just incredible what happens for kids."

Fine points out that these three elements are interconnected. "So the more you know about something, the more you might start to see yourself as somebody who has a relationship to that thing, and creating something in a domain similarly might change your sense of self. Like, oh, I'm not just somebody who can solve a math problem on paper. I'm somebody who can use math in the world to solve an engineering problem."

Where is Deeper Learning Happening?

When Fine and Mehta set off to find examples of deeper learning, they assumed they would find it in places that had been ostensibly set up for that purpose, innovative schools built on a foundation of project-based learning, exclusive schools that were known for strong academic programs, and charters that had reported remarkable academic gains.

To their surprise, they found that none of these places offered deeper learning across the board; in fact, in some of them, they were hard-pressed to find much deep learning at all. What they did find, however, were pockets of excellent, deep learning in nearly every school they visited, individual teachers who designed and delivered rich, engaging learning experiences for their students in public schools, private schools, schools with excellent resources, and those without.

One place that was a consistent source of deep learning was what Fine and Mehta referred to as "the periphery," elective classes like art and robotics and extracurriculars like debate and athletics that are outside of what we consider to be the core academic classes. "Nobody talks very much about what's going on in those spaces," Fine says, "and yet they were the places where we saw the richest learning happening." In these spaces, much of what they call the "grammar" of school is different: Students are there by choice, they have opportunities for apprenticeship and leadership, they can specialize in a subdomain of the field, and there's usually a real product being produced for an authentic audience.

In the book, the authors used a school theater program as an example of this kind of learning at the periphery.

"In a place like theater, different kids have different domains of expertise. There are kids who are good at the lights, kids who are good at the staging, kids who are painting the set, kids who are doing the acting, kids who are helping pull it all together, making sure those things are coordinated. So there's room for kids to get good at different things and to lean into their strengths and not have to be good at everything. But also, they all have to work together to produce something that not any one of them could do on their own. Rather than this kind of independent, meritocratic, individualistic way of approaching learning, it's actually, no, we're trying to produce something important and new and, and big, and none of us can do it alone. And we can't do it if we're all doing the same thing at the same time. We actually have to rely on each other's brilliance and skills, and we need to find a way to coordinate those things in order to mount this production. And that's just a really different way of structuring a learning community than what core academic classes do."

What Classroom Elements are Needed to Nurture Deeper Learning?

In every class where Fine and Mehta observed deeper learning, certain elements were present in the instructional design. Teachers who want to add more depth to the learning in their classrooms should start with these.

Depth over Breadth

Rather than rush through the curriculum with shallow coverage of as many topics as possible, go deeper on a smaller number of ideas.

"Marching through a curriculum just to cover it," Fine says, "I don't think there are many teachers out there who actually enjoy or believe in doing that. There's a lot of teachers who feel bound to do it and they feel constrained. But we talked to so many teachers who had a high level of hunger to do things differently. They just didn't feel either able to imagine what it would look like or supported to try it. I think a lot of teachers have at least a little bit of wiggle room to try to be like, okay, we're just going to do less, but what we do do, we're going to go deeper and I'm going to allow for more choice, and I'm going to, you know, think about how kids can really build deep conceptual understandings of something rather than, you know, making it to the end of the chapter."

Student Choice

Even if students don't have a choice about whether to take a class that's required, the teacher of a core academic subject can still offer some choice within that course. Fine suggests that teachers help students identify what aspects of the course are most compelling to them, and then have them go deep on those strands.

"If you're in a history classroom where you're studying revolutions and trying to come up with some theory about why revolutions happen," she says, "you have different kids who might for different reasons that could tie to their identities and their curiosity and their background, pick different revolutions to study." So rather than learning about a series of revolutions over a long span of time, students go deep on one that interests them the most, and then they present their learning to their peers, which spreads more of the content throughout the group.

Authentic Audience

"The difference between turning something in to your teacher and then getting a grade and performing or sharing that learning with an audience that is not just your teacher is really profound," Fine says.

The audience doesn't have to be anything big; it can be people right inside the building. "At the very least, have kids share their work with each other. That's the starting point. Have them share their work with other members of the school community, other grade levels, maybe at an all-school assembly. Have older kids write storybooks to teach younger kids."

At a more ambitious level, you can start looking toward a wider audience. "Invite community members in who have a stake in the questions you are exploring and who might be experts on the thing that you're working on," Fine suggests. "Maybe you're working on a policy dilemma, trying to understand it that's relevant to policymakers or community members or just voters. Bring those folks in to share your work with, or mount a performance, a theater performance or a music performance or something. Or put it up on the web for the world to see. There are all kinds of ways to think about audience, but I think the moment that you start thinking about the work that kids are doing being seen by others, you open up an opportunity for more motivation."

Start by Going Down the Hall

One of the big takeaways from Mehta and Fine's book is that you don't have to be in a special school to design deeper learning experiences for your students; in fact, those experiences are probably already happening right down the hall. So if you're thinking your classroom could use a deeper learning upgrade, start by looking into your colleagues' classrooms.

And you might want to prioritize the periphery. "If you're a core academic teacher, go to an art class," Fine says. "Go to a music class. Go to an elective. And rather than thinking, I have a textbook and they don't, so I can't do that, I think the mentality should be, What is the logic and the stance here? And how can I bring that into my room, given the constraints I work within? "

"If you're a teacher working in a 2,000-kid building," she says, "there are bound to be a lot of colleagues who have figured some stuff out. If you can just get out of your room and get into some other classrooms and just start to absorb some of what you see, that's a really powerful starting place."

Sarah Fine, Ed.D., is the Director of the San Diego Teacher Residency at High Tech High Graduate School of Education. You can find her on Twitter at @sarahmfine.

Come back for more.
Join our mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration that will make your teaching more effective and fun. You'll get access to our members-only library of free downloads, including 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half, the e-booklet that has helped thousands of teachers save time on grading. Over 50,000 teachers have already joined-come on in.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Is the Secret Sauce for Deeper Learning?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Want to add more depth to the learning in your classroom? Start here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When you've got a few minutes left before the period ends, it's only normal to wonder: Do my students really understand what we covered? Do they remember what we started with, as well as what we just discussed?

While cleaning up and going over homework assignments often take up those final moments of class time, effective closing activities allow you to make better use of them by checking for understanding, correcting misunderstandings, and putting a little fun into the process to motivate your students to make sense of what they've just learned.

Closing activities don't need to happen every day, and they don't always require lots of advanced planning. They can occur at the end of a chapter, or even at the end of a large learning unit, and can also take various forms-incorporating movement, technology, and even components of social and emotional learning to build a stronger classroom community.

Here are 10 creative and fun closing activities we sourced from experienced teachers that you can try in your classroom.

1. Two-Dollar Summary: Ask students to write a two-dollar (or more) summary of the lesson they've just learned. Each word they use is worth 10 cents. For extra scaffolding, ask students to include specific words in their statement. For a twist on this, ask students to explain something as if they were teaching it to a first grade student. This will also push them to simplify complex ideas for themselves and therefore understand them better.

For a different spin on this, try educator Sarah Frisby Cook's "six-word summary" of the most important idea or concept. On Facebook, Cook told Edutopia that because students are limited in word choice, "they really have to think about what is most crucial to say."

6. Video Journals: Educator John Thomas uses the free app ChatterPix to get students creating and sharing video journals describing what they've learned. Because this can take a little time to create, this strategy might be best suited as a wrap-up activity at the end of a unit. The videos are playful and fun, and can easily be posted to classroom platforms like Seesaw.

8. Quiz the Next Class: Nikki Cobb-Struzynski gets her students to use the free platform Kahoot! to come up with quiz questions and multiple choice answers to give to their peers studying the same material in other classes. Recent research suggests that generating good questions promotes deeper engagement with content and improves retention. When a person formulates a question, "One has to reflect what one has learned and how an appropriate knowledge question can be inferred from this knowledge," University of Kassel researcher Mirjam Ebersbach told Edutopia.

9. Make Your Classroom a Beach: This activity will get students out of their seats and sharing with the whole class. Educator Eman Bekheet told Edutopia that she writes reflective questions on a beach ball using dry erase markers. Questions might include things like: "What is one thing you learned during today's lesson?" or "What was challenging about today's lesson?"

As the ball bounces around the room, you can come up with a mechanism for deciding which question they have to answer out loud-such as the question their left thumb is touching, or the very first question they see. Use the responses to generate further discussion about the day's lesson.

The Human Bar Graph is another twist that gets students moving. Label points along a line drawn on the floor or across a wall that show different levels of mastery: I'm confused, I'm okay, I got this. Ask students to stand where they feel most comfortable. This exercise requires a certain level of vulnerability, so it's best to try it once you built some trust with students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Instead of cleaning up or going over homework assignments, try these creative activities that can help students make sense of new material-and have fun in the process.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When you've got a few minutes left before the period ends, it's only normal to wonder: Do my students really understand what we covered? Do they remember what we started with, as well as what we just discussed?

While cleaning up and going over homework assignments often take up those final moments of class time, effective closing activities allow you to make better use of them by checking for understanding, correcting misunderstandings, and putting a little fun into the process to motivate your students to make sense of what they've just learned.

Closing activities don't need to happen every day, and they don't always require lots of advanced planning. They can occur at the end of a chapter, or even at the end of a large learning unit, and can also take various forms-incorporating movement, technology, and even components of social and emotional learning to build a stronger classroom community.

Here are 10 creative and fun closing activities we sourced from experienced teachers that you can try in your classroom.

1. Two-Dollar Summary: Ask students to write a two-dollar (or more) summary of the lesson they've just learned. Each word they use is worth 10 cents. For extra scaffolding, ask students to include specific words in their statement. For a twist on this, ask students to explain something as if they were teaching it to a first grade student. This will also push them to simplify complex ideas for themselves and therefore understand them better.

For a different spin on this, try educator Sarah Frisby Cook's "six-word summary" of the most important idea or concept. On Facebook, Cook told Edutopia that because students are limited in word choice, "they really have to think about what is most crucial to say."

6. Video Journals: Educator John Thomas uses the free app ChatterPix to get students creating and sharing video journals describing what they've learned. Because this can take a little time to create, this strategy might be best suited as a wrap-up activity at the end of a unit. The videos are playful and fun, and can easily be posted to classroom platforms like Seesaw.

8. Quiz the Next Class: Nikki Cobb-Struzynski gets her students to use the free platform Kahoot! to come up with quiz questions and multiple choice answers to give to their peers studying the same material in other classes. Recent research suggests that generating good questions promotes deeper engagement with content and improves retention. When a person formulates a question, "One has to reflect what one has learned and how an appropriate knowledge question can be inferred from this knowledge," University of Kassel researcher Mirjam Ebersbach told Edutopia.

9. Make Your Classroom a Beach: This activity will get students out of their seats and sharing with the whole class. Educator Eman Bekheet told Edutopia that she writes reflective questions on a beach ball using dry erase markers. Questions might include things like: "What is one thing you learned during today's lesson?" or "What was challenging about today's lesson?"

As the ball bounces around the room, you can come up with a mechanism for deciding which question they have to answer out loud-such as the question their left thumb is touching, or the very first question they see. Use the responses to generate further discussion about the day's lesson.

The Human Bar Graph is another twist that gets students moving. Label points along a line drawn on the floor or across a wall that show different levels of mastery: I'm confused, I'm okay, I got this. Ask students to stand where they feel most comfortable. This exercise requires a certain level of vulnerability, so it's best to try it once you built some trust with students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Instead of cleaning up or going over homework assignments, try these creative activities that can help students make sense of new material-and have fun in the process.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
We know student effort matters, so let’s start acting like it

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Student effort is the secret sauce at Success Academy charter schools, says their founder and CEO, and they teach and celebrate it religiously. Indeed, after seventeen years of educating tens of thousands of students, careful analysis of homework, classwork, and assessment data has taught the Succes…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When psychology professors Angela Duckworth and Ethan Kross began working on a secondary school curriculum that merged the science of academic self-regulation and the latest research on student learning, they felt that a critical piece was missing: the development of good study habits.

"That's when they called me and said: 'Would you be interested in working on this project?'" says Daniel Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia specializing in neuroscience and education-with a focus on memory and learning-and author of the new book, Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy.

Once Willingham joined the team, developing and distributing a research-based study skills curriculum geared to middle and high school students, teachers began asking him for printed resources. "It would be great to have something written, something to put in our hands so that when you're not here, we have another resource," Willingham says, recounting a typical conversation with teachers. "I did a pretty exhaustive search of what was available on study skills, and I didn't love any of them. There really was a need for something that's up-to-date and comprehensive."

The additional context for Willingham's new book is that students often don't know the best methods to study for tests, master complex texts, or take productive notes, and it's difficult to explain to them why they should take a different tack. In the book, Willingham debunks popular myths about the best study strategies, explains why they don't work, and recommends effective strategies that are based on the latest research in cognitive science.

I recently spoke to him about why listening to lectures isn't like watching a movie, how our self-monitoring of learning is often flawed and self-serving, and when it's too late to start teaching students good study skills.

McKenna: In the introduction to Outsmart Your Brain, you write that it's intended as a "user's guide to your brain that will allow you to fully exploit its learning potential." Part of your inspiration for writing it is based on your own experiences in classrooms, is that right?

Willingham: Yeah, absolutely. I started my professional life as a researcher, at the intersection of neuroscience and cognitive science, looking at questions in memory theory that were pretty technical.

As a professor, my students were coming to me because they were frustrated in my class, and things weren't going that well. I started to offer advice about trouble spots, but I was struck by the fact that their grades weren't getting any better. So I followed up and asked, "Okay, so we had that meeting. I suggested you do X, Y, and Z. Just be honest with me: Are you doing that? Does it feel like it's helping?"

And what I frequently heard was, "Yeah, I know you told me that. And I tried it, and it just seemed stupid. It didn't feel like it was working at all."

That's an aspect of memory that's so interesting and so puzzling: we have this self-monitoring where it feels like we know what's going on with our memory-but we frequently don't. What you're doing feels like it is working, feels natural and maybe somewhat effective, but it's not really the optimal way to perform that task.

McKenna: Why do we do that?

Willingham: Suppose that you've got a friend who wants to be able to do lots of pushups. So one day you watch him train and he's doing pushups on his knees, and you say, "Why are you doing pushups on your knees? If you want to be able to do a lot of pushups, you should be doing regular pushups. In fact, it's even better if you practice really difficult pushups, like the ones where you launch yourself off the floor and clap."

Then your friend says, "I want to be able to do a lot of pushups. But when I do those really hard ones, I can barely do any of them. But look, when I do pushups on my knees, I can do lots of them, and I can do them really fast!"

Students gravitate towards cognitive strategies that are the mental equivalent of pushups on your knees. It feels like things are going great, and it's also not that difficult, so it seems like a great strategy-but a more challenging approach will pay off more in the long run.

McKenna: What grade levels did you have in mind when you wrote the book?

Willingham: I was writing for high school students, and I would argue that some of these tasks really start in middle school or even upper elementary.

By the time children are in grade 12, our expectations are very high regarding independent learning. They're supposed to know how to resist distraction. If we send them home with complicated reading and they don't understand it, we expect them to be resourceful and try some things to comprehend it. They're supposed to be able to avoid procrastination and commit things to memory.

But the brain doesn't come with a user's manual, and independent learning calls for many separate skills. Once they're expected to read something and commit it to memory because there's going to be a quiz, for example, we need to be teaching them how to read hard texts and commit things to memory.

McKenna: Your first chapter is about lectures. In high school, what should students know about understanding lectures?

Willingham: I'll start with what they're likely to do and then explain why it's not optimal.

Students are likely to listen to a lecture the way they watch a movie: It's a performance and their job is to pay attention. A movie is meant to be easy to understand, and you're going to see Event A lead to Event B, which makes Event C happen, and so on. So it's all very straightforward to follow.

Lectures are not structured that way, they're structured as a hierarchy, not a narrative. So if you envision a tree diagram in your mind, lectures typically have a main topic and between three and seven main conclusions.

Every lecture has facts and connections among those facts. The connections are very important to instructors: I don't just want you to know the details of the experiment, I want you to understand that there's a causal connection between those details and the conclusion of the experiment. But because these points are presented at different times in the lecture, it's hard for students to make those connections.

As the teacher, that hierarchy is in my head, but I can't lecture in a hierarchy-so it's up to the student to reconstruct the hierarchical organization. That's actually serious mental work. Once students understand the way lectures are structured, they can make headway on aligning the facts and understanding the teacher.

McKenna: Students often struggle to take good notes, ones that will actually help them study and recall information later. Why is that, and how can teachers help?

Willingham: Note taking is mostly a problem of pace; there's a lot of mental work that has to be completed.

You have to listen to content which is new to you-and usually quite complicated. You have to decide what's important enough to write down, and then decide how you're going to phrase it. You have to then either type it or physically write it out. You're shifting attention between the instructor and your notes and visual aids. And crucially, you don't get to decide how quickly or slowly you do it. The teacher is setting the pace. So most students are in mental overload, so they cut corners.

Sometimes they just write down exactly what the teacher is saying. They think, "I actually don't even need to understand it right now. I'll understand it later, but right now I need to make sure I get all of these details." The consequences of that are pretty predictable.

One piece of advice for students is that instead of trying to write down exactly what the instructor says, you should write down what you're thinking. That will ensure that the notes are actually serving the purpose. You're actually going to be listening, processing, and understanding, and that's going to help you remember better.

McKenna: You say that when students spend hours reviewing and highlighting their notes, it gives them the "illusion of mastery." They really should be using different tools to study-like flashcards or Quizlet. Why?

Willingham: You need to actively engage with content for it to stick in memory. You need to think about what it actually means. Actively trying to retrieve things from memory is a good way to cement things into memory.

As a student, there are two things you want to do: You want to think about meaning, and you want to test yourself, not just to see whether or not you know the material, but actually as a way of committing things to memory.

This is where we go back to pushups on your knees versus pushups where you're launching yourself off the floor. Studying this way is mentally difficult. Thinking about what things mean is hard. Quizzing yourself is hard when you are still learning the content. It's unpleasant. It feels like it's not going very well as you're doing it, but it's really, really good for memory.

McKenna: And simply reading over notes-even good notes-just isn't enough?

Willingham: We've all had the experience of reading something, but your eyes are just passing over the words and you get to the bottom of the page and you're like, "Oh my God, I've been thinking about lunch. I have no idea what I just read." So you can "read" something and not really think about what it means or cement information into memory.

Reading over notes may make content feel more familiar, but it won't help students pull stuff out of memory and explain it to other people. Reading over your notes and re-reading the textbook is like a double whammy: It doesn't really support memory, but it makes you feel like you're learning.

McKenna: Students tend to cram the night before a big test-how effective is that?

Willingham: The research shows there is very rapid forgetting when students cram. The opposite of cramming is what's called distributed practice, where if you've got a quiz on Friday, you don't just study Thursday night. You're studying a little bit Monday, a little bit Tuesday, and so on. And doing that requires planning-and a lot of students are not very good with planning.

It's a steep ask for students to suggest that they don't cram, because they have the sense that it's effective. Refraining from cramming requires skills that a lot of them don't have.

Another problem with cramming is you might do okay on the test, but then you're going to completely forget everything.

McKenna: You dedicate an entire chapter to focus. It's pretty typical for students to do homework with their phones nearby, reading texts from friends and watching videos in the background. This probably isn't an optimal way to do homework?

Willingham: The research is pretty clear on this: There's always a cost to multitasking.

This is, again, an instance where your brain is going to fool you. Most students think, "I'm just ignoring it; it's background noise and doesn't affect my ability to get my work done." But we know from experiments, that's not the case. Demanding tasks, like texting your friend, have huge costs.

For listening to music, the story is a little more complicated. It turns out that music has two effects simultaneously that conflict with one another. On the one hand, music distracts you just like all the other content, but music is also arousing. It leads to autonomic nervous system activity. There's an increase in your heart rate and you feel a little more pep. Whether it ends up helping or hurting academic work depends on a bunch of things, including how hard the work is, how energetic you are feeling, and how motivated you are to work.

McKenna: Starting in middle school, kids are expected to read increasingly complex texts-often without much reading support built into the curriculum. How can teachers prepare students to manage tougher reading and really comprehend it?

Willingham: Readings, like lectures, are structured hierarchically. Students tend to have reading habits that were groomed by reading narratives, but textbook chapters with very complex material are organized hierarchically.

You need to apply some strategies when you are engaged in this type of reading. SQ3R is probably the best known, but if you look at the research literature, there's not one strategy that's superior to others.

There are two common threads that are effective. You should do some preparation before you plunge in. Look at the headings and subheadings and generate some questions. What is this going to be about? What am I likely to learn from this? What questions can I expect will be answered by the time I'm done reading this?

Also, make sure you're mentally engaging: You're thinking about, comparing, and connecting the ideas. You're not just slogging through sentence by sentence; you're actually trying to make sense of the whole.

Then, if you've generated questions, as you read you can be looking for answers. Students should be asking themselves: Did I ask good questions? Did my prediction turn out to be wrong?

And students, of course, don't just sit and read, they also have a highlighter in their hand.

McKenna: Right, there's a lot of research about how students use highlighting for studying.

Willingham: Generally, the evidence on highlighting is that it's not very effective if you are a beginner and it's your first time through unfamiliar content. You probably don't have the background and expertise to select the important ideas for highlighting. Students usually highlight a bunch of stuff, but it's not necessarily the most important ideas.

Highlighting makes sense if you've got a lot of background and expertise. For example, if you're an experienced teacher reading a book about teaching, you can highlight with fair confidence because your understanding of the text is going to be quite deep.

But if you're an absolute novice in the topic of the book, there's no reason to be confident that you're highlighting the right thing.

McKenna: Do you think we should be doing a better job in middle and high school teaching students about studying and learning? Should there be standalone classes on study skills, for example?

Willingham: When you ask students why they study a certain way, their answer is usually "I just sort of figured it out on my own" or they got some advice from YouTube or a friend. They're not taking study skill classes in high school and they're not using optimal strategies.

You could do a standalone class, but I think it makes much more sense to weave study skills into the curriculum. And high school is probably late to be doing that anyway.

I think of it in terms of: in what ways are they being asked to be independent in fourth grade? How does that increase in grades five, six, and so on? As you watch the demands for independent learning increase-support that with instruction.

So, rather than a standalone study skills class, right when you start placing greater demands on students, teach them how to meet those demands.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why Studying Is So Hard, and What Teachers Can Do to Help

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When psychology professors Angela Duckworth and Ethan Kross began working on a secondary school curriculum that merged the science of academic self-regulation and the latest research on student learning, they felt that a critical piece was missing: the development of good study habits.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By testing students twice, first without their notes and then with them, a high school teacher fosters strong note-taking skills.

wavebreakmedia / Shutterstock

How do we encourage students to study for tests and teach them valuable note-taking skills at the same time? If you're like me, you value careful note-taking, a crucial skill that students will take with them to postsecondary education and the workforce. Yet, many students resist taking notes.

I've begun using a new test-taking strategy that I've found encourages my high school government students to take comprehensive notes, as well as study for tests.

Using the learning management system Schoology, my students take their tests twice. The first time, they complete the assessment using only their own brainpower. On the second attempt, however, I allow them to use their notes and then average the scores. This method incentivizes studying and conscientious note-taking.

The importance of note-taking

In a perfect world, my students would take notes on what they read and heard in class. These notes would be organized and thorough, and successfully identify the main points of the topic covered. The students would then use these notes to study for the test.

We don't, however, live in a perfect world.

Research indicates that handwritten notes improve retention and understanding. I've written before about the importance of taking thoughtful handwritten notes and the reasons why I promote, and sometimes mandate, note-taking.

With this in mind, I ask my students to use a traditional notebook in my class. Letting students know that they'll be able to use their notebooks during the test is a great motivator for them to keep orderly and well-maintained notes. They know that the better the notes, the better they'll do on the assessment.

What's more, students become more receptive to learning note-taking strategies. When I give lectures and pointers on ways to keep a more useful notebook, students are often eager to listen. After all, they want their notebook to serve them well come test time.

Setting up the test

Administering my tests using Schoology allows me to modify the settings so that students have two attempts. I also adjust the automatic grading so that the average of the two attempts is taken as the grade.

The bulk of the test consists of matching, multiple choice, and true/false questions. Schoology grades this immediately upon completion. The short-answer and essay questions require my review.

Studying is still key

The term open-notebook test may conjure up thoughts of students frantically copying down the whole textbook and never once stopping to actually learn what they write. The test-averaging method avoids this scenario by requiring students to first take the test sans notebook. They use only the knowledge they've acquired through classroom work, homework, and studying.

Students know that to secure a higher grade, they must first do well on the test using their knowledge alone. This determines their first score.

When students understand that the two test scores will be averaged, as opposed to the highest score being taken, they're motivated to do well the first time, and they prepare accordingly.

After they're finished taking the test without notes, I allow the students to use their handwritten notebooks. The repetition of taking the exact test twice also helps them to internalize the material.

Points to remember

Note-taking is a learned skill. Too often teachers tell their class to "take notes." Kids need to learn how to take good notes. Consider ways to help your students take better notes by doing the following:

Give a lecture, with examples, of effective note-taking

Grade notes

Provide feedback on notes

Give periodic open-notebook quizzes that will help students get a feel for how to prepare beneficial notes

Use it often or sparingly. Every class is different. Teachers should gauge on a classroom-by-classroom, assessment-by-assessment basis whether this method is appropriate.

I use the test-averaging method for several key assessments I feel would profit the class as a whole.

Each teacher has to judge when this method would be the most useful.

My students know from the start of the semester that they might be able to use notes on tests, but I don't always tell them for which assessments in particular they'll have the privilege.

I've taught my subject enough to know that this method works particularly well for a few assessments that ask the students to learn some rather tricky historical details.

Technology is essential. Let your learning management system do the heavy lifting.

I couldn't employ the test-averaging method without my learning management system. It does the hard work for me. That said, all short-answer, essay, and open-ended questions must be graded by me.

If you don't have a learning management system, consider doing this on a short quiz, only periodically. Otherwise, you'll burden yourself with too much work (you're essentially doubling your grading).

Think about time. Taking a test twice in a row can be taxing for students, as well as time-consuming. Keep this in mind when creating the test.

Gauge how much class time you have.

Create a test that allows students enough time to think about questions deeply without having to rush.

Remember that students will be taking the test two times.

I still grade. Not all questions can be answered by a machine.

My tests almost always include subjective short-answer questions. I tell the students that if they're comfortable with their first response, they need not answer the question again on their second attempt.

However, if they wish to rewrite the question using their notes, I will review and grade each response.

Because of the time constraints of taking the test twice, I eschew lengthy essay questions and incorporate questions that require a paragraph response.

The test-averaging method has been very successful in my class. It's essentially a test retake. Students, especially those who struggle, benefit from taking certain assessments a second time using their notes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Testing Strategy That Promotes Good Note-Taking

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By testing students twice, first without their notes and then with them, a high school teacher fosters strong note-taking skills. wavebreakmedia / Shutterstock How do we encourage students to study for tests and teach them valuable note-taking skills at the same time?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Today's schools need to prepare a generation of learners for a world that is constantly changing. Knowledge is expanding exponentially in many fields. New and often disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence, CRISPR, and the metaverse, continue to shape our environment, presenting novel challenges and opportunities.

Accordingly, a modern education should involve more than simply having students acquire a fixed body of knowledge presented by teachers and texts. To prepare students for a dynamic, unpredictable future, educators must help them develop an essential life-long skill-the capacity to independently direct their own learning, in school and beyond. To do so, we recommend schools and districts take the following four actions:

1. Prioritize self-directed learning as a fundamental goal of schooling.

2. Identify the key skills associated with self-directed learning and map them out across grade levels.

3. Explicitly teach and reinforce these skills.

4. Provide students with regular opportunities to self-direct their learning.

1. Prioritize Self-Directed Learning

The skills required for self-directed learning are unlikely to develop on their own. Nor will these skills fully blossom from the actions of one or two teachers working alone. Helping learners achieve effective self-direction requires a comprehensive approach that systematically develops key skills across grades and disciplines.

Here's one example of such a coordinated approach: The Ramsey School District in New Jersey directed staff and community members to formulate a profile of a graduate that articulated desired competencies students should exhibit as a result of their preK-12 school experiences. Self-direction was one of these key competencies. To signal their importance, the district designed posters highlighting each of the competencies and displayed them prominently throughout schools. The poster in Figure 1 includes a description of four elements of self-direction and a set of associated essential questions meant to guide the development of this competency across grades and subject areas.

Of course, the creation of a poster is insufficient to ensure that all students develop the capacity for self-directed learning. Such an important competency must be cultivated deliberately. Let's examine how schools can do just that.

2. Identify Key Skills of Self-Directed Learning

The ability to direct one's learning involves a constellation of skills, including setting learning goals, developing a learning plan, making needed adjustments, and reflecting on the learning results. Effective self-directed learning also requires perseverance in the face of obstacles. These skills and habits of mind can, and should, be cultivated by design.

That design begins with schools and districts clearly identifying the key self-directed learning skills they aim to foster in their students. A great example of targeting and mapping self-directed learning skills is the Self-Direction ToolKit developed by the Building Essential Skill Today (BEST) research-practice partnership (BEST, 2020). The toolkit includes a set of rubrics that identify key independent learning skills arranged developmentally for grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. In addition to highlighting specific skills, the rubrics describe proficiency levels to guide assessment by teachers and self-assessment by students. This kind of resource not only makes it easier for teachers to focus on self-directed learning generally, it enables schools to track student progress over time.

3. Teach Self-Directed Learning Skills Explicitly

Research recommends a direct instruction approach to the development of self-directed learning that calls for teachers to:

Map out key self-directed learning skills to teach explicitly.

Break down complex skills into their components.

Provide strategies and scaffolding tools to support learners as they acquire skills (Rosenshine, 2012).

It's best to model independent learning skills and allow students to practice them using a gradual release of responsibility approach.

Map out key skills to teach explicitly.

Once schools have identified the skills they want to target, they need to articulate what the development of each skill looks like by designing a set of rubrics across developmental levels. Well-developed rubrics provide clear and age-appropriate learning targets, support focused instruction, and guide assessment, including self-assessment by learners. In Figure 2, we see a rubric developed by BEST that focuses on goal setting and planning in grades K-2. This rubric clearly identifies the stages of mastery and describes each stage with clear, student-friendly language.

Break down complex skills into their components.

Each self-directed learning skill needs to be deconstructed into "teachable" parts. For example, goal setting and planning can be broken down into: setting specific and measurable goals, articulating the steps needed to attain the goal, identifying needed resources and tools, seeking feedback, and monitoring progress along the way.

Teachers can support students by setting objectives appropriate to their age and directly teaching the targeted skills. For example, younger students benefit from a guided goal-setting lesson with the teacher in a small-group setting, while middle school students can use a graphic organizer, like the one pictured in Figure 3. High school students can use more sophisticated aids, such as a SMART goal-setting tool and time-management forms to guide their independent work.

Once students gain confidence in setting meaningful goals and planning their actions, they should be encouraged to regularly monitor and reflect on their progress. Here are some sample prompts:

How much progress have I made toward my goal(s)?

Might I need to adjust a particular goal?

Which actions, strategies, tools, and feedback have been most helpful?

What obstacles or challenges have I encountered? How did I respond to them?

What will I do differently next time I work toward a goal?

Teachers need to model self-directed learning skills and support students as they practice them. Teachers may use a simple "I do, we do, groups do, you do" format (as outlined in Figure 4 on p. 61) to gradually release responsibility to learners (Kilbane & Milman, 2014; Tucker, 2022).

4. Provide Opportunities for Self-Direction

It is unlikely that students will become better at self-directing their learning if they have limited opportunities to practice. Sadly, the academic lives of many learners are completely directed by teachers. Always being told what to do and how to do it undercuts self-direction and can lead to students becoming increasingly passive and disengaged. Indeed, many secondary teachers have observed students who develop a "minimum compliance" mentality, evidenced by queries and complaints such as: "How many words do you want?" "I don't know what to do," or "How many points is this worth?"

To foster confident and capable self-directed learners, teachers should prioritize student agency in their classrooms by creating opportunities for students to make decisions about their learning. We recommend that teachers think about student agency in terms of content (what they learn), process (how they learn), and product (how they demonstrate their learning). See "The Elements of Student Agency" (on p. 63) for strategies to help students make agency happen.

Two Strategies for Student Agency

Teachers may initially feel overwhelmed by the prospect of giving students agency over content, process, and product, so it is important to think big but start small. It can be helpful for teachers to use the "Would You Rather ...?" strategy by presenting two options for students to choose from. For example, teachers may offer students the option to listen to a podcast or watch a video to learn about a topic or take traditional notes or draw sketch notes as they read.

Offering "Would You Rather ...?" choices requires minimal planning time, but can enhance student motivation, engagement, and academic performance (Anderson et al., 2019). This simple strategy helps students get comfortable making decisions about their learning and can be especially beneficial for learners who feel overwhelmed when deciding between multiple options.

To get started designing for self-directed learning, teachers can also use the GRASPS protocol. GRASPS is an acronym used to develop a performance task or project (McTighe, Doubet, & Carbaugh, 2020). The acronym stands for: a real-world goal; a meaningful role for the student; a target audience(s); an authentic (or simulated) situation that involves "real-world" application; culminating products and/or performances that provide evidence of learning; and success criteria for assessing student work.

The Role, Audience, and Product/Performance elements of GRASPS can be varied to provide structured opportunities for student choice. For example, students could choose between playing the "role" of historian, book critic, or opinion writer in a given task or project.

The Audience and Product/Performance variables often intersect to allow for differentiation and student choice. For example, 6th grade students learning expository writing could draft a picture book for primary grade children, a news article for middle school students, or a policy paper for adults. For a math, science, or economics project involving statistical analysis, students may have the option of developing an infographic or a slide show presentation.

But when students produce varying products and performances, won't a teacher need to have multiple rubrics to evaluate these various options? Our answer is a qualified "no." If the goal of GRASPS is the same, then the success criteria should be the same. Thus, a single rubric can and should focus on the key qualities embedded in the goal rather than on the surface features of a particular product or performance. For example, a performance task involving argumentation would include success criteria such as:

Regardless of whether students produced a position paper, presented an oral argument, or completed some other assignment, their work would be judged by the same success criteria.

Shifting Teacher and Student Roles

In classrooms that prioritize self-directed learning skills, students shift from passive observers to active agents making decisions about their learning. Teachers shift from being the expert at the front of the room orchestrating the lesson to spending more time facilitating and coaching, offering feedback, and providing support.

As students develop confidence in their ability to direct their own learning, they can assume more responsibility for tasks that have traditionally fallen on the teacher, such as planning, feedback, assessment, and communicating progress with families. This increased autonomy can motivate learners and free teachers to spend more time and energy supporting their students. Not only do these shifts develop more dynamic learning communities, they also provide students the skills to continue learning independently long after they leave school. In a world where knowledge and technology change at staggering speeds, today's students need to be nimble and able to thrive in a future that will look very different from their reality today.

Copyright © 2022 Jay McTighe & Catlin Tucker

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Developing Self-Directed Learners by Design

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By following four key actions, educators can prepare students for a lifetime of continuous and autonomous learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
4 Questions to Measure — and Boost — Customer Trust

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Customers who give a brand high trust scores are three times more likely to stick with it through a mistake. Eighty-eight percent say they’re more likely to buy from that brand again, and 62% will buy almost exclusively from the brand. The authors have developed a simple, four-question survey that a…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
4 Questions to Measure — and Boost — Customer Trust

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Customers who give a brand high trust scores are three times more likely to stick with it through a mistake. Eighty-eight percent say they’re more likely to buy from that brand again, and 62% will buy almost exclusively from the brand. The authors have developed a simple, four-question survey that a…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
How can teachers not only foster a growth mindset, but also create an environment in which this mindset can thrive?
We're in a high school classroom in the basement of an old institutional-looking school building. There's framed artwork on the walls rather than posters, and a large wooden desk in the corner - it feels like a college classroom. The students are preparing for a calculus exam, and the stakes are high. One student, Mary, looks up to the teacher and asks, "Did you say that x can be from 1 to infinity?" By asking this question, is Mary demonstrating a growth mindset? Does she believe that her intelligence or abilities can be changed through practice and learning?

Mary's question could have several possible meanings. Perhaps, at the beginning of the semester, Mary's teacher said, "Anyone who doesn't ask a question each day will fail my class." In that case, Mary's question may have little to do with her mindset around learning; instead, she may have asked her question simply because she didn't want to fail. Conversely, what if Mary never asked a question? Would this mean that she didn't have a growth mindset? Not necessarily. She could very well believe that she can learn and grow through practice and hard work but is shy about speaking up in class. In short, having a growth mindset and displaying the behaviors associated with a growth mindset are not quite the same thing.

Although 77% of teachers have claimed that they are "familiar" or "very familiar" with the concept of growth mindset (i.e., the belief that it's possible to change one's intelligence or abilities), many teachers conflate growth mindset with other terms or concepts or have difficulties understanding how to best foster growth mindsets in their students (Beaubien et al., 2016). One concept that is associated with, but separate from, a growth mindset is intellectual risk-taking (IRT), which students demonstrate through behaviors such as contributing ideas, questions, or creative thoughts even when they might make a mistake or be judged by a peer or teacher (Beghetto, 2009; Soutter & Clark, 2021).

We spent a year observing 52 full-length classes and interviewing 23 students and teachers at a northeastern U.S. secondary school. All teachers at the school used a discussion-based pedagogy known as the Harkness method, which is centered on the egalitarian notion of students and teachers engaging in discussions to foster problem solving, collaboration, and deep comprehension (Williams, 2014). Growth mindset and IRT are consistent strengths of the school, and our research helped us discern the differences and overlaps between a growth mindset and IRT and understand what kinds of classroom environments foster both.

Mindset vs. behavior

A growth mindset represents a belief in the malleability of one's intelligence and abilities. It stands in contrast to a fixed mindset, or a belief that one's intelligence and/or abilities are predetermined at birth due to luck or other innate factors (Dweck, 2006, 2016; Farrington et al, 2012). Having a growth mindset is associated with a wide variety of positive academic outcomes, including curiosity (Dickhäuser et al., 2016; Jirout, Vitiello, & Zumbrunn, 2018; Ng, 2018; Ritchhart, 2015); resilience (Dweck, 2006); and academic achievement (Claro, Paunesku, & Dweck, 2016; Haimovitz, Wormington, & Corpus, 2016; Sisk et al., 2018; West et al., 2016). Growth mindset research has often focused on the positive impact of brief psychological interventions, such as teaching students that their brains can grow larger, to help students shift from fixed to growth mindsets (e.g., Sarrasin et al., 2018; Yeager et al., 2019). However, a body of literature also points to the importance of creating an environment where growth mindsets can thrive (Bardach et al., 2020; Yeager et al., 2019). For example, mastery-oriented classroom climates - those focused on learning over performance - tend to be more associated with students who have growth mindsets (Bardach et al., 2020).

Intellectual risk-taking refers to actions and behaviors, whereas a growth mindset refers to beliefs about oneself.

Intellectual risk-taking involves engaging in certain learning behaviors regardless of potential errors or judgment (Beghetto, 2009; Soutter & Clark, 2021). While these risk-taking behaviors are often associated with having a growth mindset, intellectual risk-taking refers to actions and behaviors, whereas a growth mindset refers to beliefs about oneself. IRT behaviors might include sharing ideas, asking questions, speaking up in class, exploring viewpoints contrary to one's own, or attempting to learn something new (Beghetto, 2009; House, 2002). Like growth mindset, taking intellectual risks at school is linked to beneficial academic results for students, including higher levels of academic achievement (Beghetto, 2009; Streitmatter, 1997); positive studying behaviors (Cetin et al., 2014); engagement, motivation, and enjoyment of learning; problem-solving skills; and perseverance through difficulties (Cetin et al, 2014).

Growth mindset and IRT often are found in tandem, which suggests that helping students to grow in their beliefs about learning can help influence their learning behaviors. But how do we foster these beliefs and actions? Do we have to start by fostering a growth mindset, or could we begin by trying to cultivate students' risk-taking behaviors in hopes that this, in turn, bolsters their belief in learning?

Carol Dweck (2006) has noted that a growth mindset is inherently linked to one's ideas about risk-taking and failure, noting that "people's ideas about risk and effort grow out of their most basic mindset" (p. 9-10). However, fostering a growth mindset with students does not guarantee that those students will display intellectual risk-taking behaviors. For this reason, we aim to disentangle the two constructs so that we can implement pedagogical practices targeted to each.

Promising practices

Fostering a growth mindset by normalizing confusion

The literature on growth mindset emphasizes the importance of valuing the learning process rather than focusing on the final product (Dweck, 2016). In nearly every class we visited during our research project, we saw students working together not necessarily to come to a single conclusion, but to welcome multiple perspectives. As one student explained:

You concentrate on understanding the thought process where most of the work is happening, not the solving. It's where you're getting from point A to point B, not point A to Z. You really get to learn about how to think.

However, building this kind of culture can be difficult. How did the teachers authentically create this kind of environment? One thing that we repeatedly saw and heard was that teachers did not try to avoid confusion and disagreements, but actively embraced them. One teacher shared:

I teach them that it is their confusion that is in a way the engine driving the learning. [I tell them to] be sensitive to those moments where you're going, "Wait I don't get this" and mark that . . . And if you can bring that [confusion] to us in class, you're gonna help us all get this. So, I privilege confusion. I privilege questions.

This sentiment of "privileging confusion" reflects a completely different way of conceptualizing school and learning from what most students are used to. Rather than seeking to hastily move past problems to come to a solution, to squash disagreements in order to arrive at a compromise, or to create shame around confusion, teachers encouraged students to fully embrace and work through these crucial elements of learning.

Similarly, teachers gave students multiple opportunities to solve problems on their own so they could practice problem-solving and collaboration skills. One student explained what this looks like in a math classroom:

You're given problems you haven't really learned how to solve yet. You solve them on your own, and then if you didn't understand a problem, you could still write it on the board. You can go up in front of the class and say, "I kind of understood it, but I also didn't understand fully how to solve it. I got to this point, and I didn't know where to go next." And the class will help you and that's normal.

In the classrooms we observed, not knowing the answer, confusion, and even failure were treated as normal and even worthy of celebration. This aligns with the research on how a growth mindset develops (e.g., Dweck, 2016).

Foster intellectual risk-taking through explicit instruction

In our research, we identified pedagogical moves that fostered intellectual risk-taking behaviors associated with a growth mindset. For example, teachers coached their students explicitly on how to engage in productive dialogue using the Harkness method employed at the school. One teacher explained:

I give them very explicit training in how to frame a question. I have them write discussion questions and then I give them written feedback and we talk about them: "Why is that less fruitful and less open than that? How can we change that? Let's open that up a little bit."

Similarly, another teacher shared how she coaches students who may be struggling to enter classroom discussions:

Question-asking is the safest way to enter a conversation; it's the lowest risk. The kids who are quiet, often I tell them two things. I say, "Come in with the first question. You don't have to worry about synthesizing your idea to somebody else's." And the other piece is I say, "Think of me like a linebacker, and I'm gonna block for you, and then you come in right after." Because oftentimes right after the teacher speaks - because we don't speak that much - there's a little couple of beats while kids are thinking about it. . . . So those are the two places where I recommend kids who are struggling with Harkness to participate until it becomes intuitive and natural.

Teachers also described how they set students up for success by allowing them to observe a discussion and to discuss what they notice so that they can have a foundation to build on when joining discussions themselves:

At the very beginning of the year, we bring in the entire 9th-grade class to a Harkness demonstration. . . . We ask our 9th graders to watch, to observe. What do you see? What surprised you? So that's how we begin, that's in a way our text. And it's, you know, "Oh my gosh, they didn't raise their hands!" "Oh my gosh, two people spoke at once; one said: Oh no, you go ahead!" "I really like the way they used each other's names." "I really liked the way they disagreed when they said I see where you're coming from . . . however I also think this, so what do you think of that?" So, we're giving them, very explicitly, a model.

Teachers did not expect 9th graders to enter high school already knowing how to have a meaningful discussion where risks are encouraged and opposing viewpoints embraced. They approached the construction of this kind of environment in a systematic, step-by-step way to establish classroom routines and expectations and helped students build the skills they would need (see also Ritchhart & Church, 2021).

Fostering growth mindset and intellectual risk-taking by creating a safe classroom environment

Our research found that one of the ways teachers can support the development of both a growth mindset and intellectual risk-taking is to thoughtfully and intentionally create a safe classroom community where students have opportunities to support one another and where students and teachers alike genuinely value mistakes. This is, of course, much easier said than done. The teachers approached this critical and complex task by employing specific strategies to build a sense of camaraderie and trust among students. One teacher shared:

For me, the fundamental ingredient is interpersonal chemistry and trust, so a lot of what I do is oriented toward developing that from the first day. I begin every class with some sort of activity that requires them to physically stand up, change seats, and engage with somebody in the class. I do a lot of very brief exercises that have nothing to do with text but everything to do with eye contact and conversation and expression of self because these are for me the nonnegotiables. . . . If you can get kids trusting each other, if you can get kids enjoying the space with each other, it's gonna manifest in far deeper, far better intellectual conversations later. So for me that's the core of everything that I do: comfort with self, trust, and enjoyment of each other.

Students told us that this kind of environment allowed them to risk being vulnerable, which in turn allowed for more meaningful discussions in which they experienced growth. For example, one student shared:

My history teacher this term has said a lot of our best discussions come from being vulnerable: Say something if you think it, even if it's not something most people will agree with, because that's what creates the best discussions.

Finally, students also spoke about the power of a classroom driven by student learning and questioning. Teachers we spoke to stayed out of classroom discussions as much as possible so that students could build on one another's points, and students told us that this made them more willing to speak up and take risks:

When I'm being posed a question from a peer versus when I'm being posed a question from a teacher, I kind of have a different approach, or I react differently. When you're in the very conventional teacher-student dynamic, it's a lot more formal, and you have to get the right answer; otherwise, the teacher will judge you. . . . But when you're posed a question from your peer or challenged by a peer, I find myself more free and willing to dig deeper and maybe make some mistakes. There's no conditions on the thoughts you put out.

Targeting instruction to what students need

Perhaps you are a teacher who already engages in many of these practices with your students - you create a trusting, safe classroom where students feel like they belong, you value mistake-making and confusion, and you deliberately teach your students strategies for taking risks. Is there still value, then, in knowing when a student is displaying a growth mindset versus when they are only taking intellectual risks? We would argue yes, because this knowledge allows teachers to better target appropriate follow-up practices or interventions to specific students.

We hope all students can understand that learning is just right around the corner when we all take risks and explore together.

Perhaps you have a student who rarely takes part in class despite the use of best practices. What could you do? First, you could investigate whether the student feels like they will learn anything by engaging in class. You might ask the student questions about their thoughts on learning in general, or about your particular subject or topic, and discover that the student doesn't understand that the mind can grow and change or has always been told their intelligence was innate. For students like this, who don't have a growth mindset, a first course of action would be showing them that confusion is a normal part of learning and not a sign that they can't ever understand the topic.

On the other hand, you might find out that your student does have a growth mindset but remains reluctant to participate in class. What then? You could question why the student does not feel confident in taking risks: Is it because they do not feel that they have the skills needed to engage? Do they need more help in forming questions, or do they feel the need to better understand the subject? Or perhaps they are quieter than their classmates and need their teacher to serve as "linebacker" by creating space for them in the conversation.

Ultimately, we hope all students can understand that learning is just right around the corner when we all take risks and explore together, just as this student did when posing a question about cell specialization: "I don't think we ended up answering the question because it's kind of not an answerable question - yet. But it felt cool to ask and find that other people were curious about it, too."
References
Bardach, L., Oczlon, S., Pietschnig, J., Lüftenegger, M. (2020). Has achievement goal theory been right? A meta-analysis of the relation between goal structures and personal achievement goals. Journal of Educational Psychology, 112 (6), 1197-1220.

Beaubien, J., Stahl, L., Herter, R., Paunesku, D. (2016). Promoting learning mindsets in schools: Lessons from educators' engagement with the PERTS Mindset Kit. PERTS: The Project for Education Research That Scales.

Beghetto, R.A. (2009). Correlates of intellectual risk taking in elementary school science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46 (2), 210-223.

Cetin, B., Ilhan, M., & Yilmaz, F. (2014). An investigation of the relationship between the fear of receiving negative criticism and of taking academic risk through canonical correlation analysis. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 14 (1), 146-158.

Claro, S., Paunesku, D., & Dweck, C.S. (2016). Growth mindset tempers the effects of poverty on academic achievement. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113 (31), 8664-8668.

Dickhäuser, O., Dinger, F.C., Janke, S., Spinath, B., & Steinmayr, R. (2016). A prospective correlational analysis of achievement goals as mediating constructs linking distal motivational dispositions to intrinsic motivation and academic achievement. Learning and Individual Differences, 50, 30-41.

Dweck, C.S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.

Dweck, C.S. (2016). The remarkable reach of growth mindsets. Scientific American Mind, 27 (1), 38-41.

Farrington, C.A., Roderick, M., Allensworth, E., Nagaoka, J., Keyes, T.S., Johnson, D.W., & Beechum, N.O. (2012). Teaching adolescents to become learners. The role of noncognitive factors in shaping school performance: A critical literature review. University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research.

Haimovitz, K., Wormington, S.V., & Corpus, J.H. (2011). Dangerous mindsets: How beliefs about intelligence predict motivational change. Learning and Individual Differences, 21 (6), 747-752.

House, D.J. (2002). An investigation of the effects of gender and academic self-efficacy on academic risk-taking for adolescent students [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Oklahoma State University.

Jirout, J.J., Vitiello, V.E., & Zumbrunn, S.K. (2018). Curiosity in schools. In G. Gordon (Ed.), Psychology of emotions, motivations and actions. The new science of curiosity (pp. 243-265). Nova Science Publishers.

Ng, B. (2018). The neuroscience of growth mindset and intrinsic motivation. Brain Sciences, 8 (2), 20.

Ritchhart, R. (2015). Creating cultures of thinking: The 8 forces we must master to truly transform our schools. Jossey-Bass.

Ritchhart, R. & Church, M. (2021). The power of making thinking visible: Practices to engage and empower all learners. Jossey-Bass.

Sarrasin, J.B., Nenciovici, L., Foisy, L.M.B., Allaire-Duquette, G., Riopel, M., & Masson, S. (2018). Effects of teaching the concept of neuroplasticity to induce a growth mindset on motivation, achievement, and brain activity: A meta-analysis. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 12, 22-31.

Sisk, V.F., Burgoyne, A.P., Sun, J., Butler, J.L., & Macnamara, B.N. (2018). To what extent and under which circumstances are growth mind-sets important to academic achievement? Two meta-analyses. Psychological Science, 29 (4), 549-571.

Soutter, M. & Clark, S. (2021). Building a culture of intellectual risk-taking: Isolating the pedagogical elements of the Harkness method. Journal of Education, 1-12.

Streitmatter, J. (1997). An exploratory study of risk-taking and attitudes in a girls-only middle school math class. The Elementary School Journal, 98, 15-26.

Yeager, D.S., Hanselman, P., Walton, G.M., Murray, J.S., Crosnoe, R., Muller, C., . . . & Dweck, C.S. (2019). A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement. Nature Research, 573, 364-369.

West, M.R., Kraft, M.A., Finn, A.S., Martin, R.E., Duckworth, A.L., Gabrieli, C.F., & Gabrieli, J.D. (2016). Promise and paradox: Measuring students' non-cognitive skills and the impact of schooling. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 38 (1), 148-170.

Williams, G. (2014). Harkness learning: Principles of a radical American pedagogy. Journal of Pedagogic Development, 4(3), 58-67.

This article appears in the September 2022 issue of Kappan, Vol. 104, No. 1, pp. 50-55.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Growth mindset and intellectual risk-taking: Disentangling conflated concepts - kappanonline.org

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How can teachers not only foster a growth mindset, but also create an environment in which this mindset can thrive? We're in a high school classroom in the basement of an old institutional-looking school building. There's framed artwork on the walls rather than posters, and a large wooden desk in the corner - it feels like a college classroom.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We all have that little voice in our heads that weighs in on everything we do or say. If we let it, it can make us feel demoralized, belittled or just less capable. The end result is that we wind up not accomplishing what we want.

It's never easy navigating challenging times, but as word experts and hosts of NPR's award-winning podcast "You're Saying It Wrong," we've found ways to reframe our thoughts and change our attitude.

Here are 11 negative phrases to ditch if you want to think more positively and feel more confident, according to behavioral scientists, researchers and psychologists.

What to say instead: "I can try to do that."

Don't admit defeat before you've begun! When you tell yourself that you can try, you're not only giving yourself a chance to accomplish something, you're also not setting up excessively high expectations, which makes it easier to actually succeed.

What to say instead: "I can deal with it anyway!"

Sure, life can feel unfair sometimes, butthat doesn't mean you have to keep repeating that negative mantra to yourself and feel beaten down. Face that perceived unfairness head on and look for solutions that will get you to where you want to be.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Want to sound and feel more confident? Ditch these 11 phrases from your vocabulary, say psychologists

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We all have that little voice in our heads that weighs in on everything we do or say. If we let it, it can make us feel demoralized, belittled or just less capable. The end result is that we wind up not accomplishing what we want.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Want more meaningful classroom management? Here are 8 questions teachers can ask themselves. - MindShift

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Educator Carla Shalaby provides back-to-school strategies for teachers who want to manage their classrooms more effectively.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
10 decision-making principles that will help you make tough calls

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A conversation with the CEO of Meetup reveals perspectives and processes that help make challenging decisions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
How can schools help students envision a rewarding future and a pathway to achieving it?

Getty Images

In 2013, when I was teaching in the Morrisania section of the Bronx, I had a student named Angel. Angel was hardworking and kind. He had lived most of his life in the Bronx, though his family was from Puerto Rico. None of this made Angel particularly unique. Many of Angel’s classmates were similarly kind and diligent, and most were Puerto Rican or Dominican. What made Angel stand out was that at just 16 years of age he knew what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to be a pilot. It was all he talked about, all he read about, and — when given the choice — all he wrote about. And because Angel knew that becoming a pilot required a high school diploma, and earning a high school diploma required passing my 11th-grade English class, Angel (a pseudonym, like all student names in this article) showed up to English class every day ready to do the work.

Every school has a handful of Angels, students who — without the school’s support — have identified a vocational, social, or other type of long-term goal and begun making a plan to achieve it. I now see that Angel had what scholars refer to as a “purpose” or, more specifically, a “career purpose orientation.” He had a sense of what he wanted to accomplish after high school, and this intention oriented how he behaved in the classroom and the experiences he sought out after the school day ended. In short, Angel envisioned a meaningful future and took steps to manifest it. He wasn’t constantly asking, “Why are we doing this?” or “Why do I have to do this?” because he saw how his current work connected to where he was going. In this way, Angel differentiated himself from many of his classmates in the Bronx and across the country, who are just going through the motions, working hard because it’s what their parents want, or not working much at all because they just don’t see the point.

How unique is Angel? Research into adolescent purpose is still relatively spare, but in a seminal five-year study led by Stanford psychologist William Damon (2008), researchers found that approximately four-fifths of young people ages 12-26 lacked purpose. Other researchers have found that students lacking purpose have higher levels of depression and are more likely to abuse substances, while students who have a purpose are more motivated to learn and to engage in positive social behavior (Brassai, Piko, & Steger, 2011; Hill et al., 2018).

Understanding purpose

What do we mean by purpose? Purpose here refers to a student’s constellation of long-term life goals or aims that are “meaningful to the self and of consequence to the world beyond the self” (Damon, Menon, & Bronk, 2003, p. 121). In recent years, scholars have developed a variety of approaches to understanding adolescent purpose. In a 2010 study, researchers at Ball State University found that some students don’t have any long-term aims, some have self-oriented long-term aims, some have other-oriented aims, and some have both self- and other-oriented aims (Bronk & Finch, 2010). More recently, Gitima Sharma and colleagues (2017) combed through the 2002 Education Longitudinal Study, a nationally representative study of adolescents, and found that students had one (or more) of four orientations: career purpose (a desire to realize career aspirations); interpersonal purpose (a desire to cultivate happy relationships and provide for their children); altruistic purpose (a desire to support their community or society at large); or self-oriented purpose (a desire to fulfill personal aspirations). I believe this taxonomy offers great promise for working with students.

As I think back through the students I have worked with over the years, it is easy for me to map these purpose orientations onto them. Interpersonal purpose? That’s Jayvar, the most extroverted and ebullient student you could imagine. Altruistic purpose? That’s Anya, a youth leader and activist who plans to start organizations that will teach students about the role of imperialism and how the colonized ultimately ejected their colonizers. Self-oriented purpose? That’s Mohammad, the budding scientist, who takes every possible opportunity to develop his skills. Career purpose? That’s Angel of course.

The college-for-all movement has led us to skip the crucial steps of engaging students in thoughtful conversations about who they are as people, where their interests lie, and how a postsecondary institution can help them get where they want to go.

These four purpose orientations help us understand that there are multiple pathways to student engagement and fulfillment. A student with an interpersonal orientation, for example, might recognize the need to find a career that involves a lot of interaction with others and put their energy into developing strong communication and conflict-resolution skills. And someone with an altruistic orientation might look into careers in social justice fields — or prioritize building a life that will allow time for volunteer work.

Cultivating a sense of purpose in school does not mean that all high school students should be expected to identify their one true life’s purpose before graduating. This would be both unrealistic and misguided. Major life changes, such as having a child, a parent falling ill, or the emergence of a global pandemic, force each of us to periodically reevaluate our purpose. Similarly, students should not be expected to hold firmly onto aspirations formed in high school as they grow and mature. Developing purpose is about identifying areas of passion, whether they involve a specific career or more general life path, and then building the kinds of skills that will be of value on that path. Some of those skills might be directed toward a particular career, while others might be more general socioemotional competencies that will be valuable to students on a variety of paths.

I don’t know if Angel ever became a pilot. He may be high in the skies, flying a 737 as I write this sentence. Or he may have chosen a different career pathway. After all, people change. If Angel never became a pilot, or if, after becoming a pilot, he determined that it wasn’t for him, we oughtn’t think that Angel’s pursuit was a waste of time. The career competencies that pilots need, and that Angel worked to develop — including the ability to comprehend technical information, communicate clearly, make decisions under difficult circumstances, and work well with a team — are broadly transferable to other fields and useful in all sorts of life pursuits that go beyond careers.

Not every student comes to school with a forward-thinking mindset like Angel’s, but the good news is that there is a lot that adults can do to support students in cultivating a sense of purpose across all four orientations. The not-so-good news is that today — as in the past — there is no shared belief that schools should support students’ cultivation of purpose.

High schools and the dereliction of purpose

Given the centrality of individualism to American culture, it is curious that U.S. high schools do not do more to develop the individual, let alone help individual students identify a postsecondary purpose. Curious, but not surprising given the broader contours of U.S. history. Public high schools, as the historian William Reese (2007) puts it, were built “to educate young people for the world of work and to reinforce middle-class sensibilities’’ (p. 79). In the early 19th century, when the first high schools were established, capitalism and democracy were the twin animating forces of the era, and the high school was tasked with transmitting these values to students, regardless of student interest. If the transmission of these values served to reinforce racial, class, and gender hierarchies, this did not perturb the predominantly white male educational leaders of the day. Which isn’t to say that these values were universally held, or that the ideologies and policies that have shaped teaching and learning have been static since the founding of the first high school in Boston in 1821. In fact, as educational historians David Tyack and Larry Cuban (1995) have written, the past 200 years of U.S. schooling has been characterized by a continuous churn of policy cycles and educational trends: “In the politically conservative 1890s, 1950s, and 1980s, policy talk about schooling stressed struggle for national survival in international competitions . . . while liberal eras such as the 1930s and 1960s stressed an ideology of access and equality” (pp. 44-45).

During the Progressive Era of the early 20th century, the most far-reaching trend to capture the educational community’s attention was vocational education (Kliebard, 2004), but its appeal was not universal. The philosopher and educator John Dewey, for example, emphasized a child- and community-centered approach to education that explicitly critiqued the stance that education was primarily about preparing young people for the world for work. Dewey was less interested in preparing young people to work the factory lines than he was in fashioning an educational system that would build up families, strengthen democracy, and contribute to civic life. Similarly, W.E.B. DuBois was also a vocal critic of vocational education, particularly for Black students. He argued that a focus on “practical” or vocational skills would ultimately be harmful to Black students, as this focus would inevitably deny them the intellectual training necessary to achieve equal rights. In the end, however, the proponents of vocational education — such as Booker T. Washington, who led the renowned Tuskegee Institute, and his allies in the white corporate philanthropic community — won the day (Anderson, 1988; Kliebard, 2004). Teachers, because school counselors did not yet exist, had an additional responsibility: prepare students for the world of work.

One hundred years later, when I was working with students like Angel, the vocational education movement had lost its sheen. The new educational trend to capture the attention of the policy and philanthropic world was “college for all” (Carr, 2013). In 2010, President Barack Obama, in a major speech at the University of Texas at Austin, declared that “in the coming decades, a high school diploma is not going to be enough. Folks need a college degree.” Large urban districts like the New York City Department of Education set aside millions of dollars to promote college access for all. Across the country, college access organizations were multiplying. In the same way that high school graduation rates had long been the organizing principle for high school leaders, college enrollment became the central metric around which we in the postsecondary access community organized our work.

These efforts, by some measures, have been successful. In 1990, before the college-for-all movement gathered steam, the immediate college enrollment rate for high school graduates was 60%. By 2012, the overall enrollment rate for high school graduates had increased to 66%, and while significant gaps remained between students from high-income and low-income families, and between females and males, the measurable differences between white, Black, and Latinx students had disappeared, at least for the time being (National Center for Education Statistics, 2014). At the time, this was cause for some degree of satisfaction. Ten years later, we have come to understand that much work remains. This hawkeyed focus on college may have contributed to the increase in college enrollment over the past 30 years among students of color and low-income students. The problem is that many of these students haven’t been persisting. Too many are leaving college before earning a degree, all too often after accruing mountains of debt.

I don’t wish to argue here, as some conservative researchers do (Caplan, 2018), that too many students are going to college. I don’t think this is the case. Rather, the problem is that the college-for-all movement has led us to skip the crucial steps of engaging students in thoughtful conversations about who they are as people, where their interests lie, and how a postsecondary institution can help them get where they want to go. When students engage in such conversations and participate in experiences that help hone their interests, they are more likely to identify a college program that they have a reason to stick with or to choose instead a workforce training program, service program, or other postsecondary option that will point them in the direction of their life’s purpose(s).

A path for cultivating purpose

I noted earlier that Angel developed his purpose on his own, with little support from his high school. Our school counseling office — the entity most commonly tasked with supporting students’ postsecondary preparation — did not do much. Angel did not meet with his school counselor until his senior year and, together, they identified a small set of schools that included the study of aeronautics, to which Angel applied. As I think back at my time in the classroom, I wonder, how might we, as a school community, have done better?

There need not be any conflict between purpose exploration, college and career preparation, and socioemotional development. It is all interconnected.

Research by Complete College America (2019) suggests that when community colleges foreground academic and career advising and support students to begin college with a clear sense of purpose, students are more likely to graduate on time and pursue majors that align with their interests and connect to potential careers. Could such a “purpose first” approach to postsecondary support work in high school? I believe it could. At New Visions for Public Schools, a New York City school support organization, my colleagues and I are in the early stages of developing just such an approach. We have worked with dozens of schools across New York City to identify students’ strengths, interests, and goals and then support educators in using what they have learned to structure and inform learning experiences in school, as well as college and career exploration outside school. As I think through the work we have done, and the work that remains, four key areas of support seem particularly important.

Student interest inventories and curricular resources

Schools interested in pursuing a purpose-first postsecondary support model need to know what their students are interested in and curate or create curricular resources to support learning relevant to those interests. One place to start this work is by systematically administering student interest or career interest inventories; these online career exploration and planning tools enable students to connect their interests with college and career options and allow educators to analyze these interests at the group level to inform lesson planning, course scheduling, and internship programming. Career One Stop (www.careeronestop.org), My Next Move (mynextmove.org), and Career Explorer (www.headed2.com) are examples of online interest inventories with flexible pricing models that schools can use. Inventories such as these help students learn more about themselves and help educators see the distribution of purpose orientations (such as career, interpersonal, altruistic, and self) across their classroom and school. And students love these tools because the focus is on their questions and their interests. Many counselors across the New Visions network have begun using them with students to jump-start postsecondary planning conversations in the 11th grade, while others are looking to start the conversation as early as 9th grade.

A student interest inventory is a strong way to launch postsecondary exploration. From there, schools will need curricular materials to develop students’ socioemotional learning competencies and to build students’ college and career knowledge. In Teaching for Purpose, Heather Malin (2018) profiles schools across the country that have implemented curricular materials rooted in purpose. One school that Malin describes, eStem High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, partners with the Noble Impact program to offer a three-year curricular sequence that supports students to develop purpose and share this purpose with others. Students engage in classroom activities such as journaling, class discussions, and a variety of student-initiated projects; and, in the third year of the sequence, they participate in an apprenticeship that directly connects to an area of their interest. While most of the schools Malin profiles partner with organizations that offer fee-based curricula, Malin also describes how schools can take advantage of open educational resources such as the free Fostering Purpose Toolkit (www.fosterpurpose.org) that educators can download and modify as needed to meet the needs of their school population.

In-school group learning opportunities

Few of the nation’s high schools devote significant amounts of time to teaching students about college and career opportunities and helping them explore how their interests and passions might map onto such opportunities. All too often, such topics get crowded out by academic subjects and other classes required for graduation. For students of privilege, this is not a major problem. I know, for example, that if my own white, middle-class children’s public schools do not provide them the opportunities to develop a postsecondary purpose, I can help them fill in the gaps. However, for students from low-income communities and communities of color that have been systematically deprived access to important types of social capital, the school’s lack of support can have significant ramifications.

To ensure that students have access to postsecondary guidance, many schools in the New Visions network take the initiative to schedule every student for college- and career-prep classes and/or advisory. During these classes, students explore topics such as the postsecondary landscape across New York City, how two- and four-year colleges differ, what to look for in a workforce training program, and the importance of self-awareness and responsible decision making. Why self-awareness and responsible decision making? Our educators know that awareness of oneself and the ability to make sound decisions are socioemotional competencies that are not only critical to college and career preparation but also have broad relevance across the curriculum and beyond the school. Schools in the New Visions network have exhibited great creativity with how they schedule students for college-and career-prep and/or advisory. Some schools provide these classes two or three times a week for one or two years, while others find a way to offer the opportunity to students during each of their four years of high school.

Work-based and extracurricular learning

In-school learning experiences can help students define a sense of purpose, but school is not the only, or even the best, site for adolescents to explore their interests. Self-chosen extracurricular opportunities — such as athletic programs, dance, or Model United Nations — often enable students to extend their learning and discover areas of passion. Similarly, work-based learning experiences — in the form of internships, service learning, apprenticeships, and paid employment — can allow young people to explore their interests, likes and dislikes, and careers that might be a good fit for them. Plus, both extracurricular opportunities and work-based learning experiences help students build social capital, develop workplace skills and socioemotional competencies, form positive relationships with adults, and sometimes even earn a paycheck—which is rewarding and self-validating for all students and can be critical for students from low-income families. Because accessing these opportunities can be a challenge, though, schools should take an active role in connecting students with relevant programs.

In 2014, I conducted research at a high school that required students to complete 120 internship hours over their four years. But students weren’t left to their own devices — rather, they were asked to share their interests with school counselors, who did their best to connect them to opportunities that would likely interest them. For example, Yessica, who had dreams of becoming a nurse, was sent to a nursing home called Hebrew House to explore her interests. Once there, she not only had a chance to work with and learn from nurses, but she also received postsecondary preparation support that included  tutoring, college counseling, and a résumé-writing workshop (Greenfield, 2015). Yessica had a fabulous experience at Hebrew House. She loved the counselors and loved working with senior citizens. In many ways, this internship was more meaningful to her than any of her academic classes.

I don’t mean to suggest that schools can, or even should, do this work on their own. Some countries, like Germany, Singapore, and Switzerland, have integrated apprenticeship ecosystems that connect learning academies to the workforce. The United States is a different place, and more work is needed to build the kinds of connections necessary to give students the kinds of opportunities Yessica had. Not long ago, I was on a call with principals from across New York City who described their efforts to secure internships for their students and the value they placed on career-connected learning. They explained that there were not enough internship opportunities to meet their students’ needs, and their budgets prevented them from hiring a staff member — such as an internship coordinator — who could take on the responsibility of moving this work forward. There is a lot schools can do to promote work-based and extracurricular learning, but they cannot do it alone.

School counseling support

Inventories and curricular materials and opportunities to explore areas of interest in and out of school are essential, but the most important ingredient in a purpose-first model is educators, the individuals on the ground implementing the work. In a purpose-first high school, administrators, teachers, and non-pedagogical staff all play important roles in ensuring that students have frequent and systematic opportunities to explore purpose. A principal is needed to set the vision, distribute responsibility across their staff for enacting the vision, and ensure that systems and structures are in place to support students and families. Teachers need to enact culturally relevant and sustaining instructional practices that help students find themselves (or their future selves) in the curriculum.

While the role of teachers and school administrators are undeniable, I focus here on school counselors and college and career counselors because, like former school counselor (and now a university professor) Mandy Savitz-Romer, I believe school counselors play a unique and indispensable role in a school’s ecosystem. In Fulfilling the Promise, Savitz-Romer (2019) draws an analogy between our nation’s medical system and our educational system. Primary care physicians, she explains, serve as a node, not only providing one-on-one care to patients but coordinating patient care and connecting patients to specialists when necessary. In a purpose-first postsecondary model, counselors play an analogous role. They provide one-on-one counseling, and with care and precision, support each student in their caseload to develop a postsecondary plan, adjust that plan as their interests change, and, ultimately, pursue their plan. And like the primary care physician, they also make connections. They guide students to relevant coursework and internships. They organize virtual college trips, chaperone in-person college tours, work closely with families and caregivers, and support students’ financial aid application process.

It’s a lot. It may even sound like too much. However, with reasonable caseloads, strong teams, and equally strong systems, this vision can become a reality. To ensure reasonable caseload size, districts and schools need to prioritize the recruitment, hiring, and development of counselors. This is no easy task. Across the country, there is a counselor shortage. According to a report from the National Association for College Admission Counseling (Patel & Clinedinst, 2021), in 2015-16, only two states (Vermont and New Hampshire) had average counselor caseloads below the recommended ratio of 250 students per counselor. In Arizona, the average counselor caseload is 902, and in Michigan it is 744. Certainly, individuals are unlikely to flock to the counseling field if wages remain as they are.

In the face of these structural challenges, principals across the New Visions network have become increasingly creative at addressing this problem. They are hiring one or two dedicated college and career counselors and — with the support of the central New Visions office — hiring recent high school graduates to serve as part-time near-peer advisers. When these near-peer advisers are hired, they join existing teams that meet regularly to review the progress of students, identify which students need additional support, and create plans to carry out and track the completion of this support. In this way, groups of adults take responsibility for subgroups of students and develop systems to ensure all students take the steps necessary to prepare for and transition into their chosen postsecondary path.

Making the connection

The concept of grounding postsecondary support in purpose, rather than tracking students into college-only or career-only pathways, may appear lofty and even unrealistic. Certainly, this was the reception that the great John Dewey received when he argued for the centrality of purpose in the 1930s. In Experience and Education (1938/1997), Dewey wrote:

There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his [sic] activities in the learning process. (p. 67)

In the 1930s, the Deweyan approach of foregrounding liberal studies and student interest lost out to the efforts of its supposed rival, the vocational educational movement. But there need not be any conflict among purpose exploration, college and career preparation, and socioemotional development. It is all interconnected. The task before us is to design coherent high school programs that interweave these elements and are nimble enough to respond to changes that will consistently and inexorably come our way.

References

Anderson, J.D. (1988). The education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935. The University of North Carolina Press.

Brassai, L., Piko, B.F., & Steger, M.F. (2011). Meaning in life: Is it a protective factor for adolescents’ psychological health? International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 18 (1), 44-51.

Bronk, K.C. & Finch, W.H. (2010). Adolescent characteristics by type of long-term aim in life. Applied Developmental Science, 14 (1), 35-44.

Caplan, B. (2018, January/February). The world might be better off without college for everyone. The Atlantic.

Carr, S. (2013). Getting real about high school. The Wilson Quarterly, 37 (3).

Complete College America. (2019). College on purpose: A guide to implementing the purpose-first strategy. Author.

Damon, W. (2008). The path to purpose: Helping our children find their calling in life. Simon and Schuster.

Damon, W., Menon, J., & Cotton Bronk, K. (2003). The development of purpose during adolescence. Applied Developmental Science, 7 (3), 119-128.

Dewey, J. (1997). Experience and Education. Simon and Schuster. (Original work published 1938)

Greenfield, J.S. (2015). Beyond information: College choice as a literacy practice. City University of New York.

Hill, N.E., Liang, B., Price, M., Polk, W., Perella, J., & Savitz‐Romer, M. (2018). Envisioning a meaningful future and academic engagement: The role of parenting practices and school‐based relationships. Psychology in the Schools, 55 (6), 595-608.

Kliebard, H.M. (2004). The struggle for the American curriculum, 1893-1958. RoutledgeFalmer.

Malin, H. (2018). Teaching for purpose: Preparing students for lives of meaning. Harvard Education Press.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2014). Immediate transition to college. In The Condition of Education (pp. 148-150). U.S. Department of Education.

Obama, B. (2010, August 9). Remarks by the president on higher education and the economy at the University of Texas at Austin. Obama White House Archives.

Patel, P. & Clinedinst, M. (2021). State-by-state student-to-counselor ratio maps by school district. National Association for College Admission Counseling.

Reese, W. (2007). History, education, and the schools. Springer.

Savitz-Romer, M. (2019). Fulfilling the promise: Reimagining school counseling to advance student success. Harvard Education Press.

Sharma, G., Kim, J., & Bryan, J. (2017). The effects of purpose orientations on recent high school graduates’ college application decisions. Journal of College Access, 3 (2), 98-117.

Tyack, D.B. & Cuban, L. (1995). Tinkering toward utopia: A century of public school reform. Harvard University Press.

This article appears in the May 2022 issue of Kappan, Vol. 103, No. 8, pp. 37-42.

JEREMY S. GREENFIELD(jgreenfield@newvisions.org; @edomnivore) is the deputy director of college access and success at New Visions for Public Schools, New York, NY.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Toward a purpose-first model of postsecondary support - kappanonline.org

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How can schools help students envision a rewarding future and a pathway to achieving it?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
5 Ideas for Developing Real-World Thinking Skills - ASCD

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Not too long ago, pollution-monitoring satellites from NASA and the European Space Agency detected a significant decrease in nitrogen dioxide levels over a city of 11 million people. An air-quality researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center remarked, “This is the first time I have seen such a

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I've collaborated with numerous school leaders around the country, and they all want the same thing: high student engagement, high student success, and high graduation rates. Additionally, I would say 99% of the schools that I have visited all struggle with the same thing: knowing their data. To me, as a leadership coach and former secondary school principal, this seems very counterintuitive-to have schools call me and know where they want to go but not where they have been or where they are now. The first step to increasing student performance is that school leaders must understand their data. This article examines the data sets and systems that school leaders should be examining over the summer to set their schools up for a successful 2022-23 school year.

My first question when working with a new school is, "What's your data?" The answer is often, "This is my graduation rate." Most secondary school leaders can rattle off their most recent graduation rate data in a heartbeat. Then I ask:

What about your 5-year, 6-year, or 7-year graduation rates?

What is the graduation rate of subgroups broken down by race and gender?

What is your course-passing data, test score data, attendance rate data, and behavior data?

Most of the time the answer to these questions is, "Why are these data sets so important?" If we do not know where we have been, it is very difficult to know where we are going. A case in point? The common practice of an employer asking to see the resumé of someone interviewing for a job. The past is a great indicator of the future.

As a leadership coach, I would be remiss if I did not mention my awareness of the current state of education. The last two academic years for school leaders have been brutal. According to NASSP's December 2021 nationally representative survey of principals, job satisfaction among school leaders is at an ultimate low, with almost 4 out of 10 principals (38%) expecting to leave the profession in the next three years.

I believe in the power of a great, well-informed school leader-and that if they are supported, they will keep serving their schools. My job is to help educators with the necessary skills to continue the work they are doing. By understanding your data, I guarantee your school will be better positioned for success next school year and for years to come.

ABC Success Metric Tool

This summer, analyze your data by using the ABC Success Metric Tool. ABC stands for Attendance, Behavior, and Course-Passing Data. As you prepare for the new school year, it is imperative that you have a solid understanding in these three areas.

Attendance

You must know your attendance data. Why? I liken it to understanding the basic concept of gravity. Sir Isaac Newton explained to us that "what goes up must come down." Although we may have a working knowledge of gravity, most of us cannot explain inertia or the law of motion that allows planes and helicopters to stay in the air. I say this because it is not enough to just have a working knowledge of our data; we must know our data. We need to know our attendance data for every grade level broken down by month and week and by race and gender. Further, we should also know the attendance data of our administrative team, student support team, and faculty. Knowing the data helps us to identify trends of the school. Attendance data tell stories.

The easiest thing to do as a school leader when examining data-if it is negative-is to blame the students and teachers. The hardest thing to do is to look in the mirror and say, "What kind of culture am I creating so that students and teachers do not want to be here?" Attendance is a big indicator of a school's culture. People show up to school when they feel loved and welcomed.

As I work with school leaders across the country, I'm asked all the time, "Do you have an attendance program we can use? What is the secret for getting students to school?" My response is always the same, "Love your teachers; make them feel valued, appreciated, and that they are needed for the school, and students will, in turn, feel the same way." Why? School leaders have an impact on student achievement and increased student attendance. As leaders, if we take care of our teachers and students, success will follow. When school leaders do not examine their attendance data, it's because they either don't know how to do so, or the importance of it has never been explained to them.

Behavior

As school leaders, we need to know everything about the behaviors in our building, both positive and negative. We need to know who our students are, whether they struggle following the school rules, or if they are the ones with the most room to grow behaviorally. When I speak to school leaders and work with them to improve their schools, I ask, "Who are your best-performing and best-behaved students within the building?" The second question is "What makes those students the best?" Most times, principals and their administrative teams can only name a handful of their high-performing students. Then I ask specifically, "Who are the top 15 students in each grade level?" I can usually hear a pin drop because the room is so silent. On the contrary, when I ask about their students with the most room to grow behaviorally, they can give me a list a mile long. That signals that the school leaders focus more on negative behaviors than on positive ones.

Knowing the data gives the administration a balanced picture of the school. When schools are in crisis, the adults say things like "the school is out of control," or "these students' behaviors are horrendous." The words are quite sensationalized. Hearing these types of comments can throw a leader into a panic. But, when you are tracking the data, you can speak from a supportive, informed, and data-driven point of view. "No, the school is not actually out of control. Last month, we had seven nonviolent offenses that were all from boys playing around, and we had only four real fights in the last six months." As the leader of the building, you must have a pulse on what is taking place within the walls of your school.

School leaders must have strong systems and protocols for reporting and capturing behavior data. This system must be written and clearly articulated to all staff. After school leaders capture their behavior data, they must then be able to interpret it. To do so, they can use the ABC Success Metric Tool. This method is a system that assists school leaders with truly understanding the root cause of their behavior concerns and how to address them. As behavior data is captured, we disaggregate it by months and weeks, and the following questions are asked to provide clarity to the school leaders:

How many write-ups were submitted this week?

What areas had concerns?

Who was the adult who generated the write-up?

What was the gender and race of the student?

What was the consequence?

Knowing this data allows you to understand the biggest issues within your building and can help to support initiatives that will move the school forward. If bullying does not show up in your data, then it's not a problem in your school. Follow the data.

Course-Passing Data

Creating a system within your school to track how students are performing in real time will change your school for the better-forever. As a principal coach, I ask school leaders to collect course-passing data twice a semester, once at the 5-week marking period and once at the 10-week marking period. Course-passing data is broken up into several ranges: 0-54, 55-64, 65-74, 75-84, 85-94, and 95-100. Each teacher is responsible for identifying where students fall into each category by class period. They are asked to reflect on the grades and to create an action plan for how they are going to support their struggling students. In education, we always talk about students "owning" their learning. This same concept holds true for educators. We must empower our teachers to own their data within their classrooms.

To be clear, data should not just be isolated to how students are performing in their classes alone. Under the course-passing data level, other aspects of student achievement need to be examined: state assessments, district benchmark assessments, and formative/summative assessments. When examining course-passing data, all the data sets should be examined regularly with the leadership team. Doing so will give you a clearer picture of how your school is performing and which teachers need your support.

Knowing your data is important. The 2022-23 school year will be amazing for you, your teachers, and your students because you now know how to lead a data-driven school. The hardest part of creating a successful school is setting up systems and maintaining them, but the summer is a great time to brainstorm and plan out how you will implement those data-collecting systems. And when you do, your school will thrive.

Marck Abraham, EdD, is the president of MEA Consulting Services, LLC, a motivational speaker, and the author of  What Success Looks Like: Increasing High School Graduation Rates Among Males of Color.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I've collaborated with numerous school leaders around the country, and they all want the same thing: high student engagement, high student success, and high graduation rates. Additionally, I would say 99% of the schools that I have visited all struggle with the same thing: knowing their data.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Taking stock of the science of reading: A conversation with Amanda Goodwin - kappanonline.org

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Past debates about reading instruction have been heated, but there's a lot of consensus among researchers today, especially around the idea that the science of reading is a broad body of research. Amanda P. Goodwin is co-editor of the academic journal Reading Research Quarterly and an associate professor of literacy at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College of Education, Nashville, TN.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nearly three decades ago, researcher Gloria Ladson-Billings set out to understand what effective teaching of Black students looks like. Too often, she said, Black children were considered deficient and deviant-but in some classrooms, they were thriving. What were those teachers doing differently?

The need for Ladson-Billings' work still holds true today, as Black students continue to lag behind their white peers on standardized test scores and are disciplined at higher rates, particularly by white teachers. A body of research has affirmed Ladson-Billings' conclusions-that the practices of culturally relevant teaching can lead to students, and especially students of color, having more academic success, increased engagement in the content, better attendance, and a stronger perception of themselves as capable learners.

Even so, some of this work has come under the microscope, as conservative lawmakers across the country push to restrict how race is discussed in classrooms. The crusade against the academic concept of critical race theory-of which Ladson-Billings is a leading scholar-is underpinned by the fear that children are being taught to view themselves as oppressors or the oppressed. Some school programs or curricula that refer to culturally relevant teaching have been called into question by parents, policymakers, and other community members.

Education Week spoke to Ladson-Billings, who is a professor emerita of urban education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about what culturally relevant teaching looks like in the classroom and her thoughts on the national debate about critical race theory and schools. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How do you define culturally relevant teaching in 2022? Is it different from how you originated this work?
I think it's still the same. There are three components. One, of course, is student learning-you have to have a focus on student learning, that's the reason people send their kids to school, that's our reason for being.

The second is what I call cultural competence. By that, I mean the ability of students to draw on their own backgrounds, languages, histories, customs, and experiences as they gain fluency and facility in at least one other culture. If you think in terms of Black and brown kids, that one other culture is usually going to be the mainstream culture, but we don't want their home language denigrated, we don't want their home customs denigrated. We often use those home customs and traditions as analogies or metaphors for understanding this new culture. Also, I want to be clear that when I say cultural competence, it doesn't leave white middle class kids off the hook. Even though schools are pretty much organized around their culture, they are going to have to be able to communicate with people in a lot of different places, in a lot of different circumstances.

The third piece is the piece that I call the most-ignored-critical consciousness. People think, "Oh, I don't want to get involved in that. I shouldn't have anything to do with politics." Well, you shouldn't have anything to do with partisanship. But the truth of the matter is, we live in a political context. The critical consciousness is what I call the "so what" piece. We teach kids all kinds of things, and kids will say, "OK, so we learned this, so what? We're not going to have to use this, what is this any good for?" And we tend to give them very weak answers. We tell them things like, "Oh, you're going to need this one day." Well, somewhere around 4th grade, they figure out, "I'm not ever going to need this." So we've got to be able to show our students that what they are learning can have applications to the problems that they are confronting in their daily lives.

What I think has changed over time is when I did this research starting in the late 1980s, I was in elementary classrooms. What I was missing was the influence and the impact of youth culture. You can be talking about contributions of Black people-Rosa Parks, Sojourner Truth, whatever-but teenagers are making culture. They are making culture through music, through art, through fashion, through language. So I would say that in this iteration of my work, I've been looking very carefully at the role that youth culture plays in informing students and in shaping what I would call a culturally relevant approach to teaching.
You wrote in the '90s that people may ask, "Well, isn't what you described just good teaching?" And your response was, "Indeed, but why does so little of it seem to occur in classrooms with mostly Black students?" Do you think that's still the case, almost 30 years later?
I wish I could say no, but if there's anything that I think Black and brown children suffer from, it is under-teaching. So much of their school day is caught up in policing their bodies-"sit here, keep your mouth closed, put your hands there"-that very little of it is really pushing them intellectually. Even just the insistence that everything has to be geared toward a standardized test so bankrupts the educational experience. ... It's as if we believe we can punish our way to success.

Particularly in those districts serving our most-vulnerable kids, all we keep hearing about is, "We gotta get the reading scores up. We gotta get the math scores up." With that particular mandate, it's very difficult to do more-innovative, more-creative-not just teaching, but assessments. Why does the assessment have to only be a test? Why couldn't it be a performance? Why couldn't it be an exhibit? That's exactly what happens to kids in private schools-they get all kinds of opportunities to display their knowledge and skills.
I've seen critics saying that culturally relevant teaching is a rebrand or a part of critical race theory. What do you make of that?
Well, I have to laugh at that. I really do. Critical race theory doesn't have anything to do with K-12 curriculum. At all. It's interesting because Christopher Rufo from the Manhattan Institute said in his own words that we're just going to make the whole brand toxic. Guess what else they said is critical race theory? Social-emotional learning. It's everything. If I don't like it, it's critical race theory. It's probably feminism. It's probably special education. It's probably bilingual education. It's whatever I don't like.

I just think it's very sad that people are not reading deep enough to see that they are being misled, and that this is misinformation that is being fed to them.
You're one of the first scholars to apply critical race theory to education policy research. Was your work with culturally relevant pedagogy informed by critical race theory tenets?
No. I started that work earlier. Culturally relevant pedagogy, I wrote that proposal in '88, it got funded by the Spencer Foundation in '89. I didn't start reading critical race theory until '91 when I got to Wisconsin, and I didn't publish anything until '95.
Yet some of the legislation that's been introduced could limit culturally relevant teaching in schools. How do you respond to that?
The attack on anything that allows more participation and moves us toward equity is going full force. I don't know that there's anything that will persuade someone who is convinced that somehow they're not getting a fair shake. That giving someone else an opportunity diminishes them. I mean, that's the mindset. If you do this with these kids, then you're not giving my kids [the same opportunity], or you're indoctrinating my kids. Those sentiments really reflect the larger public debate, and what's starting to happen is, no matter what the issue is, we have people who decided they're going to take the opposite side. ... It's hard to have an actual deliberative debate if people don't even know what they're talking about.
So where does that leave schools that are trying to do this work?
I think that schools that are segregated for the most part-and unfortunately 60 percent of Black and brown kids do attend segregated schools-will be fine because nobody cares what we teach them. We [as a society] really don't. We spend little time in their classrooms. The only thing we care about with these kids is that they're not out in the streets hurting somebody. That's our image of those kids.

The place that becomes difficult is the place where I think the work is most needed, and that is in segregated white schools. Schools in the suburbs, schools serving the wealthiest kids. Unfortunately, what happens is we avoid these topics. We avoid these issues, and then [the students] go to college, and they're confronted with people from all over and experience people who've had different experiences. And then they're angry because, why didn't I know this? Why didn't anybody tell me this?

I think a perfect example of the conflation of the notion of critical race theory and "anything I don't like" is the 1619 Project. That woman [author Nikole Hannah-Jones] has nothing to do with critical race theory whatsoever. And in fact, nobody was [saying it was] until someone decided we're just going to put this in here with all the stuff we don't like.

I did a talk for Stanford about this debate about 1619 versus the 1776 [Report, released by a commission appointed by then-President Donald Trump that emphasizes "patriotic education"]. And I said if I were still teaching the adolescents U.S. history, they'd have to read both documents. I don't have a problem reading a document that disagrees with my perspective. But we've got to be able to look at, what does the evidence say? What is it that is so objectionable about one versus the other? That's how you develop this critical consciousness. The idea is not to have students come up believing what you believe, but it is to have them in a place where they can defend what they believe.

Culturally relevant teaching is probably one of the biggest [drivers] of parent involvement and parent engagement. While the debate is about, "you're not letting parents have their say," culturally relevant pedagogy has always encouraged parents and community members to participate in schools and classrooms. If that's something people feel like they've been walled off from, culturally relevant pedagogy is not what's done it for them. I've always said that parents should be in classrooms and engaged in what's happening and raising questions and participating and sharing.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Should Culturally Relevant Teaching Look Like Today? Gloria Ladson-Billings Explains

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"The attack on anything that allows more participation and moves us toward equity is going full force," the scholar said.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sponsored by Listenwise and Spinndle

Over the past year, the internet has been full of stories of teachers leaving teaching. A recent NEA survey revealed that 55 percent of currently employed teachers are seriously thinking about leaving their jobs, and that number is even higher for teachers of color. These numbers have spiked sharply over the 21-22 school year: In August of 2021, only 37 percent of those surveyed said they were thinking about leaving. Even more alarming, more teachers than ever are breaking their contracts and leaving in the middle of the school year, a decision many thought they would never make.

It's no exaggeration to say that a big shift has occurred, and it happened very, very recently. If you are in a leadership position-a school administrator, a district superintendent, or even an official at the state level-and you're concerned about this shift (which you definitely should be), I'm hoping to offer something helpful here.

We'll start with the stories of four teachers who recently made the decision to leave their jobs and finding the common threads between them. These are the cautionary tales, the ones from which we can learn what not to do. Think of this part as "How to Lose a Teacher in One School Year or Less."

Part two will be about teachers who stayed, and the administrative decisions that made this possible. For this section, I looked specifically for teachers who stayed because of administrative support. At this point in history, I refuse to gaslight teachers into "doing it for the kids" or being some kind of heroes for mankind. We are so beyond that. The reality is, teaching can be a satisfying, sustainable career if and only if policies are put in place to make it so. The policies are possible and they are being put in place in small pockets all over the country. All it takes to make it happen are brave, insightful leaders who set their egos aside and stand up for what is right. Those are the people who are keeping their teachers, and my goal here is to spell out exactly what they're doing to make that happen.

Part One: The Teachers Who Left

Jamie's Story: Blatant Disregard for Safety

Jamie was an English teacher and librarian in a southern state who taught for about eight years before leaving. Like most teachers, she understood that the job was going to be challenging, and she was prepared for that.

"Teaching is never a profession that you enter thinking, This will be easy!," she says. "You know that you're in it for kids, you know that you're in it to build a better world, you know that you're in it to pay it forward. And there were always moments where I thought about other professions, but there was never trouble like the brutality of the treatment by our own leadership in the pandemic."

Like schools all over the world, Jamie's school went fully remote in March of 2020, and everyone did the best they could. But when they returned to in-person in August of 2020, teachers were concerned about a lack of cleaning supplies, poor ventilation, and inadequate masking. Meanwhile, public support for teachers was quickly eroding. Small groups of vocal parents attended school board meetings demanding full-time in-person learning and elimination of mask mandates, calling teachers lazy for wanting to continue teaching from home. Teachers who pushed back on these demands were called bullies and hecklers, even by the school board members.

In the Spring of 2021, the new availability of vaccines kept Jamie's hope up. Despite being exhausted every day from covering extra classes for quarantined colleagues and all the other associated tasks, she still felt optimistic. When the Delta variant arrived, that optimism vanished: Rather than reinstate safety measures, her school district went the other direction, completely ending mask mandates and adding to that the removal of any quarantining.

"When you're not even pretending to try to keep the students in your care safe," she says, "I couldn't do it anymore."

When asked how administrators could stop the flood of teachers leaving the profession, Jamie said give teachers a voice.

"Teachers need seats at the table where all decisions are being made. Every school board should have a teacher who is elected. Every school board should have a student who is elected. The bus drivers, the cafeteria workers-there are so many people in the everyday life of school-the people who have to answer the front desk who's arguing with people about masks, the bus drivers who have to hand masks to kids every day, there's so many people that need seats at the table."

Denise's Story: Abuse from Parents and Empty Equity Promises

An art teacher in a private school on the West coast, Denise used to love her job. "It was amazing, and it was amazing for a really long time. I loved being a space where kids could come and just take a breather for a minute, seeing kids create and using a different part of their brain. For a long time things were great."

And even at the beginning of Covid lockdowns, things were tolerable. "At the beginning, everyone was like, Yay, teachers are the best! You got all these Starbucks gift cards and people were really nice, and then it just flipped really quickly. The biggest things that pushed me out of teaching were-I'm gonna call it what it was-abuse from parents. Abusive language, harassment-I had a co-worker who had seven emails from a parent between the hours of midnight and five a.m. demanding things-I mean this is a person who's like literally asleep in those hours. I had parents throw in my face how much they paid for their students' education and therefore I worked for them and I should be responding faster."

Rather than advocate for the teachers, Denise's administrators often acquiesced to parents. She described a culture where parents were more or less in charge, and the school leadership bent over backwards to please them for fear of having them go elsewhere. This atmosphere, along with the increased demands from Covid, meant more and more demands placed on teachers. Although self-care was given lip service, very little was done to make it possible.

"There was no opportunity for self-care for teachers," she says. "It was like the pandemic didn't exist and we were expected (to act) like everything was normal."

Along with these issues, Denise found herself increasingly disappointed by her school's weak efforts toward equity work. Although the school had what Denise calls a "glowing diversity statement" on its website, she found their actions didn't really align with it. She would attend trainings and come back to her school full of energy, only to find very few people wanting to get on board.

"Folks are kind of like, well, that's cool, yeah yeah, we'll talk about it later you know? And I'm like no, we've got to talk about this now! And summer of 2020 things spiked again and then kind of it became like trendy and then it sort of went away, and I wanted to keep having these conversations and talk about why do kids keep getting misgendered? Why do we not have bathrooms for all folks? Why is our school not disability accessible? And no one really wanted to talk about it."

Despite her drive to make things better for her students, and to be the best teacher for them, the burnout eventually took her down.

"You want to make things better," she says. "I think all teachers want to do that, but at some point you have to say okay but what is the result of this? I'm burnt out. I'm grumpy. I'm tired. I'm not treating my partner super great. I'm angry. I had told myself that I never wanted to be that grumpy high school teacher that I had, because it was such a turn-off for me as a student, and I told myself if I ever started to feel that way that I would leave, because it wasn't fair to my students."

Sarah's Story: No Appreciation or Trust

Sarah has been teaching high school-mostly English along with a handful of other subjects-for 8 years in a southern state. She recently made the decision to leave her job at the end of the school year. At Sarah's school, the number of teachers who have quit in recent years is in the double digits.

Before Covid, Sarah loved teaching, but things changed dramatically when her school shifted to remote learning. Like so many other teachers all around the world, she adapted to the changes and put in the extra work needed to keep things running, but none of her efforts were ever recognized. This lack of appreciation was just one piece of an overall shift in feeling devalued as a teacher.

"When we went virtual, we had a day's notice to get everything ready. Our IT administrator was new and I became the de facto liaison for teachers. And that's totally fine with me-I just got a degree in this, I love technology, I'm very comfortable with it." After months of doing the equivalent of two jobs, Sarah got no appreciation from her administration, and she says that even a simple, sincere thank-you would have made a big difference in whether she decided to stay.

Another post-pandemic shift in Sarah's school was a re-emphasis on test scores. Rather than recognize the unprecedented trauma students had been through and focusing on healing that with patience, her school's leadership pushed a message of full steam ahead, especially when it came to testing. When her students weren't performing on benchmarks the way they were expected to, Sarah's principal came into her class and reprimanded them. Test scores take precedence over just about everything in Sarah's school, and she believes this actually interferes with the quality of their education.

"We have to stop every now and then, stop every couple of weeks for a benchmark for one of the state area classes," Sarah explains. "Those benchmarks are tied to grades, and so if you've fallen on a benchmark, then you might be moved into a different enrichment."

What is "enrichment," exactly? It sounds like a good thing, an opportunity to explore new topics or go deeper on areas of interest. It turns out "enrichment" is just a euphemism for test prep.

"They hate it," Sarah says. "They think it's dumb, they think it's useless, especially my seniors, because we just sit there we don't really do anything. In one subject area they just look at vocabulary.com. And it's like, while that stuff is beneficial, you have to have it within a certain context, and if they're just sitting there for 30 minutes on vocabulary.com they're not getting any more context."

The final straw for Sarah came down to micromanagement. For years, she had kept the lights in her classroom low, which created a calming atmosphere. When she was told her classroom was too relaxed and she needed to keep the bright overhead lights on, it was just enough to tip her over the edge. Some might think this wasn't that big of a deal, but the physical environment of the classroom is one of the last few things a teacher still has some control over, and when that was taken away, Sarah was done.

For her it all comes down to trust in teachers' professional judgment. In her school, the message she and her colleagues got was that teachers were the last people whose opinions mattered. Had that been different, she might have stuck with it.

"We're the professionals," she says. "We're the ones who have studied this, we're the ones who have spent literal years creating things and tweaking things and making things- trust us to know we're not gonna do anything to jeopardize. Unfortunately, the parents have more of a say in what's happening when they have no idea what's actually going on. I understand that the administrators have a really difficult job and I could not imagine; however, I feel like some of them forget what it's like to be in the classroom."

Erin's Story: Nobody Asks Teachers

For most of the 11 years she taught middle school ELA and social studies, Erin described her job in a west-coast state as "gruelling, but doable." She taught over 150 students every year and was accustomed to the hard work and fast pace, but when Covid hit, everything changed, and the message she received from her administration was that ultimately, she simply didn't matter.

She adjusted to teaching online through a pregnancy and with a first grader at home, but when it was time to come back into the building, she was shocked to find that many of the same problems her school had before Covid were worse.

"Our classes were packed, they were filthy, there was mouse urine and feces all over my equipment that I had to come in and wipe off day one, and it was really frustrating to see that the inequities and the lack of even just the facilities, just lacking basic hygiene, it was the same if not worse post-Covid."

After all the months of lockdown, keeping her family safe, Erin was now faced with teaching crowds of unvaccinated children in small, poorly ventilated rooms. "I expressed my concerns to my administration and she said well if you have a problem with it, take a leave. She didn't say I know this is difficult, I know you have two children at home that are unvaccinated, you know, what can I do to make you feel better? She said, Just take a leave."

So many of the incidents that led to Erin's resignation were exacerbated by the attitude of that administrator, who came on board during the pandemic. When Erin learned she was exposed to a co-worker with Covid, her administrator said, "I don't know what you expect me to say." When students were abruptly pulled out of class to go home, she was told that the reason was none of her business.

"It just, it felt so disrespectful. It felt like I'm giving everything in my life to this profession, to this career, to my classroom. Even just the courtesy of letting us know what is happening with our own health would be great."

Other decisions made at the district level compounded these problems. One popular tool, NewsELA, that was used by many teachers to provide leveled reading materials to students, was pulled, leaving teachers to scramble for replacement texts. Even worse, at a time when students were already comfortable with Google Classroom in remote learning, the district signed a contract with another learning management system, forcing everyone to switch over right in the middle of an already stressful period of remote learning.

"I don't know any other profession where the tools that you need to do your job are taken away from you without your consent. You wouldn't tell a nurse to go in and do her job and take away her stethoscope and her computer that's needed to administer medications and be like, Well, you're just going to have to figure this out."

Erin believes that most of these problems could have been avoided if teachers had been asked to give input prior to reopening, but that never happened. "Nobody asks teachers," she says. "Nobody asked us what school should look like when we came back from the shutdown. Not one, not a single person."

Finally, Erin did something she thought she'd never do, breaking her contract and leaving her job in the middle of the school year.

"I got to a point where I thought, I'm a mess emotionally, I'm worried about getting Covid, I'm stressed to the max, I can't do my job in the hours that I'm being paid for. It affected my relationship with my husband, it affected my relationship with my own two children, it affected my mental health. I would come in every morning and wipe mouse urine off of my computer before I started for my day-what other job is that acceptable? But we have a shortage of custodians, so you just do it and you move on. And you think wow, that really sucks, this sucks, this is my life. But then there just comes a day where you're like, I don't want this to be my life anymore. I want a better life for myself."

Part 2: The Teachers Who Stayed

Those are the stories of schools where things went wrong, and you may have heard pieces of your own story in them. If so, I hope you're finding some validation in them, an affirmation that you're not the only one. On the other hand, you may be someone in school leadership who is here to learn how to avoid something like this happening in your school, or to stop it if it's already started.

That's where we'll turn next, to examining what is going right in schools where teachers have stuck around.

The good news is that we have a lot of information that can help. I sent out a request via email for teachers who had decided to stay in their jobs despite the increased challenges. While I'm aware that there are many reasons why a teacher might choose to stay in teaching-including financial need, loyalty to or support from colleagues, or a feeling of duty to students and community that outweighed the difficulty-for the purposes of this piece I specifically asked to hear from those who stayed mostly because of supportive decisions their administrators had made, because those are practices that can actually be replicated in other schools. In two days, I got over 200 responses, most of which are summarized in this spreadsheet. (Some responses have been removed because they are either off-topic or they contain information that might identify respondents; we wanted to keep them anonymous.)

In reviewing the responses, a few themes continued to emerge, leadership moves that made the biggest difference. In order of frequency, here's what they were:

1. Appreciation, Listening, and Emotional Support

An overwhelming number of teachers who remained in the classroom talked about the supportive attitudes of their leadership as a key reason they stayed. Even in cases where circumstances remained extremely challenging and not much could be changed, having an administrator who offered genuine appreciation, a listening ear, and emotional support made the difference. While simple tokens of appreciation like food and gift cards helped a lot, it was the overall attitude of administrators that had the biggest impact.

This stands in stark contrast to the administrators described in the stories we shared earlier of teachers leaving; the common denominator in all of them was a callous, ego-driven attitude that made teachers feel unappreciated and uncared for.

"For me, it was my principal, vice principal, and office staff that kept my colleagues and I afloat. My vice principal came up to me and said he knew I didn't care for praise in front of the masses, so he wanted to address me aside and say that I'm neither ignored nor unnoticed; he said that I'm doing good work, and he is here to support me no matter what, and so far, he and the rest have kept to their word. They're not perfect, and I don't agree with every decision, but they continually reinforce and share their appreciation for us while also encouraging us to take time for ourselves."

"The best thing the leadership in my school did was to LISTEN to the teachers. We are on the front lines and we see problems developing on a day to day basis. When admin listens to the problems WE are experiencing and seeks wisdom from US on potential solutions, that is absolutely the most significant factor on why our staff has seen less turnover than other schools."

"(Our administrator) started and ended every staff meeting by saying, 'As a reminder, we are in the midst of a global pandemic. This is not school-as-usual, this is pandemic teaching and connecting to get them by. We'll get caught up later. Take a breath, we're going to be ok.' Then they asked us to pass that along to our students."

"We have a new principal this year who actually listens and values the concerns of his staff. He is a collaborator who allows his counseling team to make their own decisions. He is open to trying new things and welcomes new ideas. He believes in the professional and personal growth of his staff and wants each person to succeed. He has a 'why not' approach. He gives credit to others. He is the type of leader who you want to go above and beyond because you feel valued under his leadership. He is a breath of fresh air from the previous administration and his heart's intention is truly with his students and staff."

"I wanted to schedule a meeting with (my administrator) during the day to discuss my thoughts about retiring early (after 25 years) but he was in negotiations. I was okay with meeting next week but he took the time to call me at 7 pm and we talked for 2 hours. I was doing most of the talking and never once did it seem like he was trying to get off the phone with me. He listened, empathized, and understood my position. I truly felt valued and as a result, I am returning in August. "

"Leadership made sure socio-emotional check-ins were just not for students but adults. Personal days were almost never denied & lateness at the top of the year wasn't treated as a disciplinary action. There was just overall understanding that this was just not a normal time. There was vulnerability from top down about how hard everything is and to just frankly do our best."

2. Flexibility with Policies and Curriculum

Administrators who retained the most teachers were willing to adjust expectations in light of the pandemic, rather than obsessing over learning loss or insisting on "business as usual." These loosened expectations included curriculum, scheduling, planning, observations, dress codes, and attendance. Rather than tell teachers to just "figure it out," these administrators were willing to experiment until they found solutions that made the most sense.

"There was a lot of flexibility and less pressure around what curriculum must be covered. There was a lot more focus on love for students and for ourselves. Definitely no focus on 'learning loss' or filling any gaps."

"The past 2 school years our Admin took away the expectation around curriculum-there was no longer pressure to teach the entire scope and sequence."

"We were encouraged, directly and often, to cut what we felt we could from our curriculum and cover less."

"Teacher dress code changed to jeans every day if you wanted."

"Our district added several mental health days in the spring so that we never went more than 3 weeks without a 3 day weekend."

3. Prioritizing Physical and Mental Health

Administrators who have lost the fewest teachers send a clear message that the health of their teachers and students matters. And this is not just lip service; they back it up with meaningful policies and practices that keep everyone physically safe and mentally well.

"In my school, there were intentional, deliberate steps my admin took-enforcing masks, staggering passing times between classes, halls were turned into one-way streets to mitigate cross-contamination. But the best thing they did was stay consistent. There were no sudden rule changes, no questionable 'special cases,' and no additional pressures."

"If you aren't feeling well, you get sent home. Admin will cover if needed. You can't take care of your students if you aren't taking care of yourself. "

"Had I been at literally ANY other school, I would have quit. My admin team bent over backward to make everything work. We had custom-built plexiglass 'booths' around teacher desks, a stringent quarantine policy, mandated testing and masking requirements from day 1, and a second cleaning crew to keep everything sanitized. They created outdoor classrooms, put HEPA filters for every single classroom, and taught classes for teachers who were out due to illness or vaccinations. They remained strong in the face of political and public pressure; we were the last in the area to relax our mask requirement (just weeks ago!). We got paid mental health days, self-care-related perks, and compassion for our every concern. They CARED, and they showed it."

"Our administration checks in with us regularly to see how we are doing personally as well as how things are going in the classroom."

"She's allowed us time to focus on ourselves and the students we see daily, rather than the red tape aspects of education. This allowed me to focus heavily on connecting with students which has finally paid off in late April. I finally feel like I'm peeling away the levels of trauma for students to connect to the classroom."

4. Lightening the Load

Many teachers were able to keep going because their administrators met their need for more time. This was done in two ways: Taking things off of teachers' plates that were not absolutely necessary, like meetings, duties, special projects, dress code requirements, lesson plan submissions, and standardized tests, and adjusting the school schedule to build in more planning and collaboration time.

"The head principal at our high school blocked every bureaucratic task he could block. Any opportunity he found to remove a burden from staff, he took it. We expect things to return to pre-pandemic norms in the fall, but for the past 2 years it has been huge to not have to sweat through the endless data collection and evaluation cycles that drain so much energy and time from educators in normal times."

"The biggest difference our school made for us in 2020-21 was prioritize our time towards planning/prep and office hours. We were given only necessary PD & a lot of prep time when we accomplished most of our work load. At one point we had Wednesdays mostly to ourselves while students worked asynchronously. Then we had a late start schedule to use mornings to our advantage through until the end of the year."

"The most important and impactful things have been to give us time. We've continued to have late start days once a week, but admin gave staff that time to work rather than attend mandatory PD. Suspending formal evaluations and Student Learning Outcomes during the 2021-2022 school year (unless on an improvement plan) was another huge time and anxiety saver."

"Central office has put a lot of emphasis on promoting student and staff wellness more than 'catching up at all costs.' This shows in things like not adding any new assessments or documentation requirements, allowing us to continue faculty meetings on Zoom so that we don't feel like our time is being used for no reason, and giving a few extra days off throughout the year. I feel like they're working with, not against us. "

5. Trusting Teachers

Just like with all of the other factors, this last one is the exact opposite of what happened in schools that lost large numbers of teachers. Whether or not a teacher feels trusted and respected as a professional makes a huge difference in their job satisfaction, and that often is the determining factor in whether they stick around.

"One thing an administrator said in a meeting changed my paradigm & helped me carry on through some extremely challenging days: 'Why does everyone feel like they need permission to do everything? If it's good for kids, research supports it, and it's ethical, just do it.' That mindset has helped me see that, for all of the faults and mistakes our administration have made, they still intend to support us and our students. It also gave me the permission I needed to be a leader when the popular narrative has been that we are powerless and our voices don't matter."

"My supervisor and principal trust me and trust that I am doing my job well. They never interfere with my work and they give me wide latitude to design my curriculum and lesson plans."

"The leadership I worked under spent time empowering me to pursue new ideas. He's an out of the box sort of guy and we both connected with a shared dream of doing something different-using COVID as a chance to break the mould and build a small cohort of high school that did things differently. He allowed me to create, pursue new ideas for classes/curriculum, structure a schedule according to our needs and desires, and would point me in the direction of people with areas of speciality that I was seeking to tap. He trusted me and we made something amazing happen. It sounds crazy and it was indeed only for a year but it's taking off again this upcoming school year! Stoked to see the program continue to build and grow!"

"My administrator is the reason I have not left after 28 years. I have never felt more appreciated or trusted by my boss, even when I err as humans do. If he ever leaves, that will be my cue to retire."

So what does all this tell us? I think the message is pretty clear: There's really no mystery behind why some schools are hemorrhaging teachers and others have a faculty that looks pretty similar to the one they had a few years ago. Keeping good teachers on staff doesn't require advanced training or specialized knowledge. It's a simple matter of staying humble, respecting your teachers, trusting in their professional training, and showing them that you care more about them as human beings than you do about how your school looks on paper. That's it.

If you're an administrator who is starting to feel your teaching staff slipping away from you, it may not be too late. You can start today by going to your staff, asking them what they need, listening to their answer, and then implementing as much of their requests as you possibly can. For anything that can't be done, just be straight with them. And be kind. And vulnerable. And humble. It makes a difference.

And for those who have been doing this all along, thank you. None of us ever expected this level of near-impossibility in education, but throughout it all, you have made your teachers feel like they mattered. And treating other human beings like they matter is ultimately going to be the thing that gets us all through this.

Come back for more.
Join our mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration that will make your teaching more effective and fun. You'll get access to our members-only library of free downloads, including 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half, the e-booklet that has helped thousands of teachers save time on grading. Over 50,000 teachers have already joined-come on in.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why So Many Teachers Are Leaving, and Why Others Stay

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sponsored by Listenwise and Spinndle Over the past year, the internet has been full of stories of teachers leaving teaching. A recent NEA survey revealed that 55 percent of currently employed teachers are seriously thinking about leaving their jobs, and that number is even higher for teachers of color.

# data[].attributes.headline
Grade Inflation a Systemic Problem in US High Schools, ACT Report Shows

# data[].attributes.subject
Grade Inflation a Systemic Problem in US High Schools, ACT Report Shows

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Grade inflation accelerated in 2020 and 2021 amid COVID-19 pandemic and

growth of test-optional admissions policies

IOWA CITY, Iowa (May 16, 2022) — A new report from ACT, the nonprofit organization that administers the ACT college readiness exam, finds evidence of grade inflation in high school seniors’ GPAs between 2010 and 2021. The average high school GPA increased 0.19 grade points, from 3.17 in 2010 to 3.36 in 2021, with the greatest grade inflation occurring between 2018 and 2021.

“Grade inflation is real, it is widespread, and it weakens the value of student transcripts as a single measure of what students know and are able to do,” said ACT CEO Janet Godwin. “The study shows that grade inflation is a persistent, systemic problem, common across classrooms, districts, and states.”

The phenomenon of “grade inflation” — the assignment of grades that do not align with content mastery as measured by the ACT — calls into question whether, and to what degree, grades alone should be used to measure academic achievement or predict future grades. According to the report, grades can be a misleading indicator of how well students are currently performing academically and how prepared they are for future endeavors, including college. As grade inflation increases over time, high school GPAs become less useful as a single indicator of academic achievement.

Grade inflation became especially apparent in 2020 and 2021, and in some cases the rate of grade inflation increased substantially during those years, though attributing these changes directly to the COVID-19 pandemic is difficult. Shifts in high school course grading policy during the COVID-19 pandemic may account for the most recent growth in grade inflation. In response to the coronavirus outbreak, some school districts moved away from the traditional A-F letter grading system at the beginning of the pandemic to a more lenient policy dictated by districts, schools, or classroom teachers. As a result of the dramatic changes to the way grades were assigned, it is fair to ask whether GPAs assigned during the pandemic are comparable to GPAs assigned prior to it.

However, grade inflation began long before the COVID-19 pandemic. ACT research shows that high school GPAs have steadily increased over the past decade even as standardized measures have remained stagnant or have fallen. Grade inflation may be escalated by a growing interest in test-optional or test-blind admissions policies, whereby colleges no longer require standardized assessments of students’ knowledge and skills to be considered in college admissions decisions.

“Grade inflation makes college admissions more challenging and confusing for students, who need accurate, meaningful grades to tell the whole story of their academic success,” Godwin said. “Grade inflation also limits students’ ability to meaningfully gauge their academic readiness for college work and select a college where they are likely to thrive.”

ACT researchers reviewed and analyzed data from the 2010 to 2021 ACT-tested high school graduating classes for the study. The data included students’ most recent score for those who took the ACT test more than once. Students also provided information related to their courses and their grades, as well as demographic information and school characteristics.

Based on these findings, a holistic admissions evaluation that ensures appraisal of the whole student, including both high school GPA and an objective metric, should be used when making decisions about college admissions as well as scholarship applications.

Key findings:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
ACT is a mission-driven nonprofit organization. Our insights unlock potential and create solutions for K-12 education, college, and career readiness.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Teachers can tweak popular strategies to assess students' prior knowledge in order to encourage critical thinking at the same time.

Pre-unit assessment is an integral part of comprehensive assessment; however, these activities often miss easy and effective opportunities to increase students' critical thinking abilities while gathering data for future instruction. Additionally, students can feel called out in situations where they lack the schema to complete what is supposed to be a low-risk assessment, leaving them with feelings of defeat before the unit has even begun. Tried-and-true preassessments can be adjusted to promote critical thinking while also sending positive messages to students.

Try OWL Instead of KWL

KWL (a graphic organizer recording students' Knowledge, Wonders, and Learning over time) can be an effective strategy to measure schema and new learning throughout a unit. However, for a student who's never heard of quadrilaterals, Cro-Magnon humans, or soil, this can be an intimidating task when a teacher says to fill a graphic organizer with background knowledge. You don't know what you don't know. Instead, teachers can tweak this process so that it's a win for them as well as their students.

OWL ( Observe, Wonder, Learn) is a small variation that can increase higher-order thinking by introducing a topic through a shared observation. A teacher could display a collage of rectangles, rhombuses, parallelograms, etc., and ask students to use comparison skills to write down everything they notice and wonder about these shapes.

Another teacher could play a short clip from a documentary about Cro-Magnon humans with muted volume so that the students engage in inference while formulating their responses. Still another teacher could have students use magnifying glasses and analysis skills to observe a bucket of topsoil and then write their connections.

These teachers will still be able to gather actionable data regarding vocabulary, previous exposure, connections to real-life examples, etc., and will most likely be pleased with the higher-order thinking that they observe. Varied levels of schema on the topic will be evident, but the difference is that in this type of activity all students are entering into an equitable experience. Everyone will have something to say/write.

Try Anticipation Guides Instead of Pretests

Simply stated, pretests collect a unit's big takeaways and gauge students' previous exposure and readiness to learn. Anticipation guides are a unique spin on pretests that require some of the most complex higher-order thinking skills: evaluation, synthesis, analysis, judgment, and justification, while still making it possible to glean student schema. They are popular in English language arts but often fall out of favor in other subjects where the teacher needs to determine if students know the right answer, not just have opinions.

Consider how a slight change in language opens the doors for better thinking. For example, instead of asking, "T or F: Fungi can be helpful to humans," try asking students to provide scientific evidence to support their responses to the prompt-for example: "Some of the best things are found by accident" or "In most cases, help outweighs hurt."
What pretests might suggest: What anticipation guides suggest:
Instead of asking students which equation from a list is not correct, have them provide mathematical examples to support if they agree or disagree with"There's one best way to solve a problem." Anticipation guides require metacognition and often get students emotionally engaged with the topic before content delivery. Best of all, students practice the life skill of using evidence to justify their beliefs.

Try Narrative and Demonstration Instead of Quick Writes

Quick writes are a powerful tool that all teachers, regardless of their subject or grade level, can use. By having students process their thoughts, feelings, ideas, and information into quick, low-stakes writing moments, teachers aren't only gathering data regarding learning but also are using brain-based strategies to increase student memory and understanding.

While a quick write is good on its own, teachers can increase creativity and synthesis, as well as honor differences in expressive skills, with a slight addition to this process. Rather than having students only write on a topic, the allotted time can be broken into two equal parts: narrative writing and demonstration.
What quick writes might suggest: What narrative and demonstration suggests:
On one side of paper, students write everything they know (or don't know) about a topic. On the reverse, they demonstrate their knowledge in visual form. This might look like students' drawing clock faces, doodling World War II symbols, or labeling the parts of the digestive system. This variation works well for all students and also empowers those with language barriers and/or delays to show off what they know, while not obsessing with filling the page or how much time on the clock is left to fill.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
3 Simple Ways to Use Pre-Unit Assessments to Promote Critical Thinking

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Teachers can tweak popular strategies to assess students' prior knowledge in order to encourage critical thinking at the same time. Pre-unit assessment is an integral part of comprehensive assessment; however, these activities often miss easy and effective opportunities to increase students' critical thinking abilities while gathering data for future instruction.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If you want a hint of the gap between students' writing skills and workplace demands, look at Amanda Baker's new English class in Wayne, Mich.

Forget composing technical manuals; when the Wayne Memorial High School teacher developed a new course in professional writing, she found her students weren't familiar with writing formats of people even a few years older.

"The vast majority of my class have never attempted to write email; they only text," Baker said.

While employers and educators have been working to infuse more career and technical content into K-12 curricula, studies show some of the most common writing tasks in the work world never find their way into high school English courses, and modern students may be less likely than those in previous generations to learn professional writing on their own.

"The assumption is typically that writing is a single skill, and that's not really a correct assumption. I might be good at writing scientific articles, but God help me if I had to write a novel or poetry," said Steve Graham, a writing education expert and a professor at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. "It's pretty clear there is not a strong match between what businesses are looking for and what schools are doing. [Writing in school] really has more of an emphasis on what might happen in college than in the workplace."

From business leaders to engineers, industry professionals consistently rate written communication skills as among the most important for new workers. Yet even in the wake of new academic standards in most states that encourage more writing, educators and researchers find writing instruction inconsistent and more focused on academic than practical writing. That's why some educators and business leaders are experimenting with ways to infuse career writing into students' high school years, in or out of English class.

Baker's English class at Wayne Memorial High, and Tony Nassivera's business class at Hudson Falls High School in Hudson Falls, N.Y., are two cases in point.

While in two different departments, both teachers developed their courses to bring in working professionals and human-resource staff from multiple fields to help students understand what writing they will need on the job. Baker's students use simulations of common work scenarios, from company meetings to product proposals, to learn to write alone and in groups.

"In my general English class, I have to keep reminding students, 'Even if you don't become an English teacher, this will still be useful,' " Baker said. "In business writing, they see that here immediately."

What Is Workplace Writing?

Though employer surveys tend to be vague about the specific skills in "written communication," studies and interviews do show some consistent requests, including the ability to analyze and explain concepts and situations succinctly, engage in clear and courteous conversations, present evidence-backed arguments and requests, and switch tone and format to respond to different audiences.

"It's small things," said Kyleen Gray, a literacy department head at Rainbow District School Board in Ontario, who also coaches U.S. teachers in how to incorporate business writing in English. "Academic writing is almost universally third person; business communication can be as formal, but more personal and more purposeful-getting someone to buy something or hire you, for instance. A report is not the same as a [book] review."

A 2018 survey by the American Society for Engineering Education found that leaders in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields listed professional communication skills as the most important in their fields, above even problem-solving, analytical skills, and technical-writing skills.

"As you look at Gen Z, the kids in middle and high school and those entering the workforce right now, they've grown up in a world of 120 characters and Instagram; that's how they've learned to communicate," said H. John Oechsle, the president and chief executive officer of Swiftpage, a Denver-based digital marketing firm. Oeschsle is also a member of Gov. John Hickenlooper's Business Experiential Learning Commission, which is working with businesses to help students develop workplace skills. "What we're finding is, as younger folks are entering the marketplace, they have a real issue with putting together short, concise, and clear written communication about something, whether it's a project or a problem that they're trying to solve. This is a real problem, and it's getting worse, not better."

National surveys of middle and high school teachers have found that even after the advent of the Common Core State Standards, which stress writing across all subjects, teachers use relatively few writing tasks frequently. Of the tasks they did use at least once a month, virtually none involved the kinds of writing that would be needed in the workplace, such as analysis or formal persuasive writing. In both middle and high schools, the most common written tasks were short-answer questions, worksheets, and note-taking while reading or listening. Explanations and analysis were used in high school but not as commonly as the other tasks.

"The most common activities involve writing without composing. How often do kids write stuff that requires more than a single page? Not very often," said Graham of Arizona State University. "There's not enough writing going on for students to meet the needs employers are looking for to be successful in the workplace."

In 2011, the National Assessment of Educational Progress changed its writing exam to focus on more real-world writing tasks, such as persuading, explaining, and conveying experiences. Little more than 1 in 4 students at either 8th or 12th grade performed proficiently on the 2011 writing exam. For example, only 23 percent of students wrote a competent or effective letter giving evidence for or against a proposed business in a town. And nearly 40 percent of students exhibited developing, marginal, or no skill at explaining a type of technology they used frequently. Moreover, 8th grade gender and racial achievement gaps were significantly wider on the writing test than in the same year's reading NAEP.

The writing test allowed students to use more digital tools for writing, such as computer-based spell-check, thesaurus, and editing functions. Students who frequently used editing and thesaurus tools performed better on the test, but most students did not use those tools.

Leveraging Tech or Pushing Back?

Like Baker, Nassivera said the transition from emotional, casual, highly abbreviated texting to business correspondence tends to be the hardest skill for students to master in his business course.

"When you are going into the professional world-I can't find a less blunt way to say it-you have to sound smart. In the way you write and the words you choose, you have to sound credible," Nassivera said. "If you are working with someone in their 50s and you are in your 20s, a smiley emoji is just not going to be considered professional."

Knowing the basic format for an email isn't enough, according to a forthcoming study in the October issue of the journal English for Specific Purposes. Researchers in England and Hong Kong gave students a series of assignments in which they were asked to write a series of emails with a client and a manager in an ongoing business scenario, using information from both prior emails and a voicemail.

Stephen Bremner, an associate English professor at City University of Hong Kong who focuses on workplace communication, found the student writers faced "considerable challenges" in deciding what information to include from different texts, how to present problems, and how to consider their readers. "Students need to be encouraged to think about the relationship as well as the message and to consider the question of how to acknowledge the ongoing dialogue and relationship effectively," Bremer and his co-author noted.

In a series of assignments, Nassivera helps his students build up from their texting. Students take a recent substantive text and try to rewrite it using no abbreviations but keeping the meaning. From there, students study how businesspeople like Apple founder Steve Jobs wrote emails and memos and work their way up to writing formal e-mails to district staff.

'Immediate Payoff'

Baker said she tries to adapt her English course each year to practical skills in areas that interest students, such as writing business plans to pitch a new company or practicing the résumés, cover letters, and formal correspondence associated with job searches. That project proved particularly useful for one of Baker's 12th grade students, Jessica Leigh, who graduated this spring. "The job I found was a coaching job, and I needed the money, so I did the project but at the same time, I actually applied for the job," she said.

A few classes later, Leigh asked Baker's permission to keep her mobile phone turned on in class; she was expecting a call back from Sky Hawk Sports, the youth-coaching company she had researched.

"I put it on speaker, and everybody in class was quiet while the guy was talking with me"-to offer her the job-"but after we hung up, everybody was cheering and stuff," she said. "It was really cool."

Baker agreed. "It was so nice to see that immediate payoff for her. That is where the growth became really tangible."

Leigh noted that neither her other English nor business classes in high school taught her how to communicate in a professional environment. "I even had a marketing class where I worked in the school store and learned money handling, but it never taught me anything about writing or résumés or job interviewing. Until I had [Baker's] class, I didn't know anything about it," Leigh said.

She has continued to coach children for the sports group over the summer to save up for college to pursue a business degree later this fall.

"I'm really glad I took that class," she said, "because otherwise, I wouldn't have this job."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Is Professional Writing the Missing Link in High School English Classes?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If you want a hint of the gap between students' writing skills and workplace demands, look at Amanda Baker's new English class in Wayne, Mich. Forget composing technical manuals; when the Wayne Memorial High School teacher developed a new course in professional writing, she found her students weren't familiar with writing formats of people even a few years older.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If you want a hint of the gap between students' writing skills and workplace demands, look at Amanda Baker's new English class in Wayne, Mich.

Forget composing technical manuals; when the Wayne Memorial High School teacher developed a new course in professional writing, she found her students weren't familiar with writing formats of people even a few years older.

"The vast majority of my class have never attempted to write email; they only text," Baker said.

While employers and educators have been working to infuse more career and technical content into K-12 curricula, studies show some of the most common writing tasks in the work world never find their way into high school English courses, and modern students may be less likely than those in previous generations to learn professional writing on their own.

"The assumption is typically that writing is a single skill, and that's not really a correct assumption. I might be good at writing scientific articles, but God help me if I had to write a novel or poetry," said Steve Graham, a writing education expert and a professor at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. "It's pretty clear there is not a strong match between what businesses are looking for and what schools are doing. [Writing in school] really has more of an emphasis on what might happen in college than in the workplace."

From business leaders to engineers, industry professionals consistently rate written communication skills as among the most important for new workers. Yet even in the wake of new academic standards in most states that encourage more writing, educators and researchers find writing instruction inconsistent and more focused on academic than practical writing. That's why some educators and business leaders are experimenting with ways to infuse career writing into students' high school years, in or out of English class.

Baker's English class at Wayne Memorial High, and Tony Nassivera's business class at Hudson Falls High School in Hudson Falls, N.Y., are two cases in point.

While in two different departments, both teachers developed their courses to bring in working professionals and human-resource staff from multiple fields to help students understand what writing they will need on the job. Baker's students use simulations of common work scenarios, from company meetings to product proposals, to learn to write alone and in groups.

"In my general English class, I have to keep reminding students, 'Even if you don't become an English teacher, this will still be useful,' " Baker said. "In business writing, they see that here immediately."

What Is Workplace Writing?

Though employer surveys tend to be vague about the specific skills in "written communication," studies and interviews do show some consistent requests, including the ability to analyze and explain concepts and situations succinctly, engage in clear and courteous conversations, present evidence-backed arguments and requests, and switch tone and format to respond to different audiences.

"It's small things," said Kyleen Gray, a literacy department head at Rainbow District School Board in Ontario, who also coaches U.S. teachers in how to incorporate business writing in English. "Academic writing is almost universally third person; business communication can be as formal, but more personal and more purposeful-getting someone to buy something or hire you, for instance. A report is not the same as a [book] review."

A 2018 survey by the American Society for Engineering Education found that leaders in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields listed professional communication skills as the most important in their fields, above even problem-solving, analytical skills, and technical-writing skills.

"As you look at Gen Z, the kids in middle and high school and those entering the workforce right now, they've grown up in a world of 120 characters and Instagram; that's how they've learned to communicate," said H. John Oechsle, the president and chief executive officer of Swiftpage, a Denver-based digital marketing firm. Oeschsle is also a member of Gov. John Hickenlooper's Business Experiential Learning Commission, which is working with businesses to help students develop workplace skills. "What we're finding is, as younger folks are entering the marketplace, they have a real issue with putting together short, concise, and clear written communication about something, whether it's a project or a problem that they're trying to solve. This is a real problem, and it's getting worse, not better."

National surveys of middle and high school teachers have found that even after the advent of the Common Core State Standards, which stress writing across all subjects, teachers use relatively few writing tasks frequently. Of the tasks they did use at least once a month, virtually none involved the kinds of writing that would be needed in the workplace, such as analysis or formal persuasive writing. In both middle and high schools, the most common written tasks were short-answer questions, worksheets, and note-taking while reading or listening. Explanations and analysis were used in high school but not as commonly as the other tasks.

"The most common activities involve writing without composing. How often do kids write stuff that requires more than a single page? Not very often," said Graham of Arizona State University. "There's not enough writing going on for students to meet the needs employers are looking for to be successful in the workplace."

In 2011, the National Assessment of Educational Progress changed its writing exam to focus on more real-world writing tasks, such as persuading, explaining, and conveying experiences. Little more than 1 in 4 students at either 8th or 12th grade performed proficiently on the 2011 writing exam. For example, only 23 percent of students wrote a competent or effective letter giving evidence for or against a proposed business in a town. And nearly 40 percent of students exhibited developing, marginal, or no skill at explaining a type of technology they used frequently. Moreover, 8th grade gender and racial achievement gaps were significantly wider on the writing test than in the same year's reading NAEP.

The writing test allowed students to use more digital tools for writing, such as computer-based spell-check, thesaurus, and editing functions. Students who frequently used editing and thesaurus tools performed better on the test, but most students did not use those tools.

Leveraging Tech or Pushing Back?

Like Baker, Nassivera said the transition from emotional, casual, highly abbreviated texting to business correspondence tends to be the hardest skill for students to master in his business course.

"When you are going into the professional world-I can't find a less blunt way to say it-you have to sound smart. In the way you write and the words you choose, you have to sound credible," Nassivera said. "If you are working with someone in their 50s and you are in your 20s, a smiley emoji is just not going to be considered professional."

Knowing the basic format for an email isn't enough, according to a forthcoming study in the October issue of the journal English for Specific Purposes. Researchers in England and Hong Kong gave students a series of assignments in which they were asked to write a series of emails with a client and a manager in an ongoing business scenario, using information from both prior emails and a voicemail.

Stephen Bremner, an associate English professor at City University of Hong Kong who focuses on workplace communication, found the student writers faced "considerable challenges" in deciding what information to include from different texts, how to present problems, and how to consider their readers. "Students need to be encouraged to think about the relationship as well as the message and to consider the question of how to acknowledge the ongoing dialogue and relationship effectively," Bremer and his co-author noted.

In a series of assignments, Nassivera helps his students build up from their texting. Students take a recent substantive text and try to rewrite it using no abbreviations but keeping the meaning. From there, students study how businesspeople like Apple founder Steve Jobs wrote emails and memos and work their way up to writing formal e-mails to district staff.

'Immediate Payoff'

Baker said she tries to adapt her English course each year to practical skills in areas that interest students, such as writing business plans to pitch a new company or practicing the résumés, cover letters, and formal correspondence associated with job searches. That project proved particularly useful for one of Baker's 12th grade students, Jessica Leigh, who graduated this spring. "The job I found was a coaching job, and I needed the money, so I did the project but at the same time, I actually applied for the job," she said.

A few classes later, Leigh asked Baker's permission to keep her mobile phone turned on in class; she was expecting a call back from Sky Hawk Sports, the youth-coaching company she had researched.

"I put it on speaker, and everybody in class was quiet while the guy was talking with me"-to offer her the job-"but after we hung up, everybody was cheering and stuff," she said. "It was really cool."

Baker agreed. "It was so nice to see that immediate payoff for her. That is where the growth became really tangible."

Leigh noted that neither her other English nor business classes in high school taught her how to communicate in a professional environment. "I even had a marketing class where I worked in the school store and learned money handling, but it never taught me anything about writing or résumés or job interviewing. Until I had [Baker's] class, I didn't know anything about it," Leigh said.

She has continued to coach children for the sports group over the summer to save up for college to pursue a business degree later this fall.

"I'm really glad I took that class," she said, "because otherwise, I wouldn't have this job."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Is Professional Writing the Missing Link in High School English Classes?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If you want a hint of the gap between students' writing skills and workplace demands, look at Amanda Baker's new English class in Wayne, Mich. Forget composing technical manuals; when the Wayne Memorial High School teacher developed a new course in professional writing, she found her students weren't familiar with writing formats of people even a few years older.

# data[].attributes.headline
Back to “I”: Recasting students and Teachers as Problem-Explorers through Podcasting

# data[].attributes.subject
Back to “I”: Recasting students and Teachers as Problem-Explorers through Podcasting

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
NCTE - National Council of Teachers of English

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ed Trust's Karin Chenoweth talks about the strategies that can help historically disadvantaged schools and districts succeed.

In Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement, The Education Trust writer-in-residence Karin Chenoweth examines five "ExtraOrdinary" districts. Serving large percentages of children of color and children from low-income homes, they have shown rapid improvement in spite of their disadvantages. What are they doing that other schools and districts might emulate?

Principal magazine recently asked Chenoweth-also the author of Schools That Succeed and several other books-what she has discovered about "ExtraOrdinary" schools and districts that have been able to champion change and improve student achievement despite inadequate funding, preconceived ideas about education, and other challenges. Here's what she said:

Principal: What are the issues that schools in the five ExtraOrdinary Districts have in common, and how have they been able to move the needle?

Chenoweth: All of the schools in the districts I profile are underfunded-some shamefully so. That means they make painful trade-offs: They provide music or art, have a school library, or have new computers or field trips. In each of them, however, school and district leaders know that their students can achieve, and use what they have to advance their students' knowledge and opportunities-and they all focus intently on early reading as a way to open those opportunities.

In every school and district I have written about, I have seen what U.K. researcher Mel Ainscow calls "exposing and sharing expertise," which requires sitting together and examining evidence of student learning, whether it is assessment results or student work. [When] teachers [agree] on roughly what their students need to learn, by roughly what time, and how to assess it, it allows them to ask what I call the most powerful question in the field of education: "Your kids are doing better than mine. What are you doing?"

This is a question that can be asked at the grade level, the department level, the school level, the district level, and even the state and country level. But an awful lot of systems have to be in place in order for educators to be able to ask that question. In addition to a common set of expectations, assessments, and data systems, educators need time to be able to study the data together, and they need to have a culture of trust. As Pam Matthews, current superintendent of Lane Public Schools in Oklahoma, told me, "There's nothing wrong with not knowing. What's wrong is if you don't find out and learn."

Principal: What are individual districts doing that really stuck out to you as effective in helping them improve?

Chenoweth: Each of the districts I profile in the book have very different contexts, which means that the specific solutions they have found differ a great deal. For example, when Lane Public Schools began its improvement trajectory back in 2005 or so, then-superintendent Roland Smith began by looking for a district that was similar demographically but doing better. He found nearby Cottonwood and essentially said, "Your kids are doing better than mine. What are you doing?"

After touring Cottonwood, Smith realized that as a former high school science teacher, he hadn't understood how much learning needed to happen in the early years. "My epiphany was to understand-from [Superintendent] John Daniel-the importance of reading," he told me. Smith sent his teachers to learn from Cottonwood's teachers, got a grant to get his staff additional training in early reading instruction, and kept in close touch with Daniel to consult on problems that emerged.

Seaford, Delaware's trajectory was quite different. When it began its improvement process in 2013, its assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction-now superintendent-Corey Miklus, began the job with a really good idea of what needed to happen. He was able to recognize the advantages of a new reading curriculum and slowly introduced principles of reading instruction to teachers and staff members. [It] has proven very helpful in driving improvement in reading achievement.

Chicago has a much more complex story to tell, but beginning in about 2010 or so, the district office realized that school improvement happens school by school, and key to that are school leaders who understand how to lead improvement. This means the district put tremendous effort into ensuring that every principal is prepared to lead improvement.

Principal: How important or influential are a school's leaders in realizing rapid gains in achievement?

Chenoweth: We have had really good research about the importance of school leaders in leading school improvement, including in student achievement. My observations are consonant with that research, which in essence says school improvement is not possible without an effective leader.

Among other things, effective principals make sure that teachers' and children's time is not wasted by building master schedules that ensure teachers have uninterrupted time to teach and collaborate, and students have uninterrupted time to learn. Effective principals also establish schoolwide cultures of respect for all, which both attracts and retains expert teachers.

We also know that effective principals can be developed when districts and universities pair up to ensure that principals know how to lead improvement and when they are supported by their district offices. This has been done in Chicago, where leaders who graduated from the University of Illinois-Chicago have led more improvement, on average, in their schools than the schools led by principals from more traditional backgrounds.

For six years, The Wallace Foundation funded an effort by six large districts to develop principal pipelines of better-prepared and better-supported principals, and a RAND study of the initiative found that within three years of having a new principal from the pipeline, schools in five of the six districts saw improvement in academic achievement that could be attributed to the new principals.

Principal: What are principals and other building leaders in the ExtraOrdinary Districts doing to advance equity?

Chenoweth: One of the key things they are doing is simply providing proof that it is possible for schools and districts that serve children from low-income backgrounds and children of color to be high-achieving and improve.

Ever since 1965, when James Coleman published his findings that academic achievement was more highly correlated with the socioeconomic background of students than with what he could measure about school quality (funding, number of books in the library, number of teachers, and so forth), the field of education has been entranced by the idea that demography is destiny. Schools that serve mostly African American children or mostly children from low-income homes are just assumed to be low-performing.

But even Coleman said some schools seemed to have more of an effect than others, particularly for African American children. Unfortunately, too much education research has been dedicated to refining our understanding of the correlation between the socioeconomics of students and academic achievement; not nearly enough research has been done on what makes an effective school that breaks that correlation.

That doesn't mean we don't have any such research; we have quite a lot of information about effective schools that ensure all children-particularly children of color and children from low-income homes-achieve at high levels. The problem is that too much of the education world has not acted on that information. The school and district leaders I have profiled have. And that means they are continually looking at information about how well students are learning. They look not just in the aggregate and not just at individual students, but by student groups in order to find and act on patterns.

Principal: What can districts do to sustain academic gains as principals and teachers move up or move on?

Chenoweth: This is, of course, a thorny question faced by all districts. One answer is to do what they can to keep teachers and principals in the job by ensuring that their jobs are manageable and satisfying. I have heard many complaints from principals that their already difficult jobs are made impossible by arbitrary or unnecessary requirements from their districts.

[One] way districts needlessly make principals' lives more difficult than they need to be: When fall enrollment doesn't match projections, they cut budgets five or six weeks into the school year. This means that after the school year has, hopefully, settled into a routine, principals need to decide whether to cut a music teacher or a first-grade teacher. The most highly skilled and effective principal in the world has a hard time building a cohesive school community when something like that happens.

Janice Jackson, CEO of Chicago Public Schools from 2017 to 2021, announced she would hold schools harmless for the first year when enrollment didn't match projections. With that single policy, she made lives of students, teachers, and principals better. This policy, by the way, is part of a citywide effort to try to support and retain principals.

Ultimately, of course, school and district improvement can't rely on teachers and principals staying forever. This is why it is important to build a culture where people are part of systems that continually learn to make better decisions based on data and evidence rather than personal predilection.

Principal: You've covered the ExtraOrdinary for several years. What stood out as you wrote your latest book?

Chenoweth: As I was writing this book, I was struck anew by how unnecessary it should be to have to demonstrate, in 2021, that African American, Hispanic, Native American children, and children from low-income homes not only can, but want to, learn-and that public schools can be organized to help them do so. I long ago read Ronald Edmonds' 1979 Educational Leadership article, "Effective Schools for the Urban Poor," but after spending so many years providing the field with examples of effective schools, the power of his final two points struck me anew:

First, how many effective schools do you have to see before you are persuaded of the educability of poor children? If your answer is more than one, then I submit that you have reasons of your own for preferring to believe that basic pupil performance derives from family background instead of school response to family background. Second, whether or not we will ever effectively teach the children of the poor is probably far more a matter of politics than of social science, and that is as it should be.

Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement (bit.ly/3w7rrwI) and other titles from Karin Chenoweth are available from the Harvard Education Publishing Group. Access The Education Trust's ExtraOrdinary Districts podcast at bit.ly/3GKtPyd.

Copyright © 2021. National Association of Elementary School Principals. No part of the articles in NAESP magazines, newsletters, or website may be reproduced in any medium without the permission of the National Association of Elementary School Principals. For more information, view NAESP's reprint policy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ed Trust's Karin Chenoweth talks about the strategies that can help historically disadvantaged schools and districts succeed. In Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement, The Education Trust writer-in-residence Karin Chenoweth examines five "ExtraOrdinary" districts. Serving large percentages of children of color and children from low-income homes, they have shown rapid improvement in spite of their disadvantages.

# data[].attributes.headline
 Michael Petrilli on rethinking our college-prep emphasis

# data[].attributes.subject
 Michael Petrilli on rethinking our college-prep emphasis

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
NCTE - National Council of Teachers of English

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Abstract

What Are the Habits of Mind?

Seven Key Factors

Why Such a Culture Succeeds

A common framework for dispositional thinking in a school can build confidence and "attention density."

Social-emotional learning

Credit: CIENPIES DESIGN/SHUTTERSTOCK

Abstract

What Are the Habits of Mind?

Seven Key Factors

Why Such a Culture Succeeds

One thing we've learned over the course of the pandemic is that relationships are central. Humans are wired for social engagement. Now more than ever, schools need to create cultures of belonging in which every member of the school community is valued-where their voice can be heard, where they are invited to the table for problem solving and innovative thinking, where their differences are seen as strengths, and where there is a dedication to their overall well-being.

As consultants who have helped many schools and districts infuse thinking dispositions we call the Habits of Mind into their school's culture and practices, we've witnessed the profound transformation of schools through this approach. The Habits of Mind can provide a crucial element in building a culture of efficacy in schools and communities.

What Are the Habits of Mind?

The Habits of Mind are 16 thinking dispositions at the core of social, emotional, and cognitive behaviors (see fig. 1). Two of us, Art Costa and Bena Kallick (2008), derived these habits from studies of how "successful" people from all walks of life respond intelligently and empathically when confronted with problem situations, conflicts, and uncertainties for which the resolutions aren't immediately apparent.

Nurturing these Habits of Mind throughout a school develops the entire school community's capacity to recognize and apply dispositional thinking to the curriculum and the unpredictable challenges and opportunities a school faces. In cultures of efficacy, all members confront problematic situations by learning to employ one or more of these habits, asking themselves, "What is the most intelligent thing I can do right now?" This question is not only valuable for students, it has proven to be valuable for the entire school community as a school's culture grows.

Seven Key Factors

As they integrate this question into their work, schools can develop a culture of efficacy grounded in the Habits of Mind-a culture in which educators can see and build on evidence of their ability to create change. We've found that seven key factors contribute to this culture: common vocabulary, social norms, de-privatized practice, shared indicators of growth, parents and community as partners, a shared vision of graduates, and leadership. When these factors work in concert with one another, they create a condition neuroscience terms " attention density." This means that "density" of experience-when one focuses long enough, intensely enough, and often enough on an idea or behavior-can change neural pathways and brain circuitry (Rock & Swartz, 2006).

Let's look at each of these factors in turn.

1. Common Vocabulary

The Habits of Mind provide a common language that anchors communication throughout the school community. Whether in talk between students, parents, administrators, members of the community, or each other, this vocabulary provides description and recognition of the challenges, aspirations, celebrations, and ideas that pervade daily work in schools. As students hear the language and link terms like persisting and questioning and posing problems with the observed behaviors of the adults, they soon realize "this is how we do things around here."

2. Social Norms

Social norms are informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of an organization-rules that prescribe what people should and shouldn't do given their social surroundings. Educators turn to norms when facing complex problems, such as when (based on parent feedback) school report cards don't accurately capture students' classroom performance. Imagine a principal opens a faculty meeting with an agenda listing this problem and some questions that have been raised. After welcoming the staff, she says, "We're aware that we need to change our report card. Let's generate some options based on the feedback we have received from parents. Which Habits of Mind will help us work together today?" The staff reflects on which habits will best serve them as they approach the redesign of a report card and commit to behaviors like:

"We'll listen with understanding and empathy to each other's point of view."

"We will think flexibly and generate many ways of solving these problems."

"Let's remember to find a little humor and laugh together!"

Now, more than ever, schools need to create a culture of belonging in which every member of the school community is valued and invited into problem solving.

3. De-Privatized Practice

Some school staff seldom interact with teachers from other departments. In schools that center on the Habits of Mind, however, staff members make their practice public to one another because they share a common vision of their graduates. Each subject area group finds ways of building the habits into their curriculum by providing settings in which students can transfer and apply relevant habits. Students create, innovate, and imagine, for example, not only in art class, but also in the robotics lab.

4. Shared Indicators of Growth

Because staff members in schools drawing on the Habits of Mind share a commitment to fostering students' progress in these ways, they often dialogue about indicators they observe that show students growing in the habits (Kallick & Zmuda, 2017). We've seen teachers describe indicators like:

The student body president advocating for the use of listening with understanding and empathy to each other's point of view as he conducted the student council meeting.

At Kittredge School in San Francisco, 8th graders adopted learning buddies from kindergarten and 1st grade. The 8th and 1st graders read stories together and found examples of the Habits of Mind. For instance, as one buddy pair read Charlotte's Web they discussed how the pig needed to manage its impulsivity.

When a student named John was in 3rd grade, he complained that there was too much emphasis on the Habits of Mind. No matter where he turned, he said, they reappeared. But as a 6th grader, this same student advocated for listening with empathy in a school project that involved visiting with homeless people to better understand their problems.

We've had educators and school personnel tell us that their whole school community pays attention to how they use the habits in their meetings. When staff members, parents, and students collectively embrace the Habits of Mind and work together to model, recognize, and reinforce them, they begin to realize their positive effects. They have a feeling of confidence in themselves, belief in their mission, and value of their actions-what Bandura defined as "collective efficacy" (1977, p. 477). John Hattie positioned collective efficacy at the top of his list of factors that influence student achievement (2016).

5. Parents and Community as Partners

It's much more likely that students will learn and practice the Habits of Mind if they witness their parents and community members dialoguing about and exhibiting these habits as well. Students should hear adults describe how they need to listen, pose questions, think creatively, and persist in their work-and how they see the habits in action. For instance:

Students in a secondary school in Brisbane, Australia, invited business leaders from the community to school so they could share the Habits of Mind with these leaders and determine whether they valued their employees using any of the habits in performing their work.

One parent shared this insight: "We talk about the Habits of Mind as a family, and I share them with friends because I find them to be pertinent and applicable in many situations. I love how the Habits of Mind reinforce and emphasize all of the characteristics that we value so highly."

Another parent commented, "After I made some cookies, I told Zachary he had to wait until after dinner to have one, to which he replied, 'I am managing my impulsivity for sure!'"

Students in Kettle Moraine, Wisconsin, discussed these powerful habits with local professionals. The town's Emergency Medical Services team identified that finding humor was essential to dealing with the enormous stress of their job.

6. A Shared Vision of Graduates

Imagine a teacher writing a letter of recommendation for a graduating student applying for college or a job. The Habits of Mind encompass attributes that employers welcome, such as: persistent, collaborative, precise, eager learner, or flexible thinker. When school staff and parents agree on the dispositions desired for graduates-and for teachers and administrators-they know what they're striving to, collectively, instill.

7. Well-Focused Leadership

The greatest power leaders have is that they can influence the narrative of a school. If the narrative focuses on test scores, current educational fads, or compliance to procedures and bus schedules, then that's what students and others involved will perceive as important about learning. In such schools, students learn to get to class on time, raise their hand when they wish to speak or ask a question, and listen to the teacher. Instead, if the narrative focuses on becoming aware of and managing thinking processes-such as what it means to be an empathetic listener or what alternative strategies might be generated to solve problems-then teachers and students begin to perceive learning in a different way: They will believe learning involves responding intelligently to challenges, having strategies to comprehend and tackle complex problems, and viewing setbacks as opportunities for learning (Donohoo, Hattie, & Eells, 2018).

Why Such a Culture Succeeds

The interplay of these seven key factors creates a culture of efficacy in which the Habits of Mind define the behaviors associated with the school or district culture, so there is a "density" of repetitions and recognitions of these positive behaviors. As students progress through the elementary grades or encounter various subject matters in high school, there is a recurring focus on the Habits of Mind. No matter where they turn-whether it be in a social studies class, a science lab, or on the football field, whether in kindergarten or any other grade level-their teachers invite them to focus on one or more of the habits as they engage with the content.

In addition, there may be signs and posters throughout the school and classrooms reminding the staff and students about the value of these 16 habits. Some schools recognize students with awards, badges, or bracelets for their performance of one or more habits. We've seen that the more students focus on and grapple with the habits, the more those dispositions become internalized in their hearts, minds, and behaviors.

The success of a culture of efficacy drawing on the Habits of Mind lies in the critical nature of collaboration and the strength of all community members believing in and fostering these habits (Tabor, 2019). Together, administrators, faculty, parents, and students can achieve magnificent and sustainable outcomes.

Early Childhood Success

Read Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick's 2019 book.

References

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191-215.

Costa, A., & Kallick, B. (2008). Leading and learning with Habits of Mind: 16 characteristics for success. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Donohoo, J., Hattie, J., & Eells, R. (2018). The power of collective efficacy. Educational Leadership, 75(6), 40-44.

Hattie, J. (2016, July). Mindframes and Maximizers. 3rd Annual Visible Learning Conference held in Washington, D.C.

Kallick, B., & Zmuda, A. (2017). Students at the center: Personalizing learning and Habits of Mind. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Rock, D., & Swartz, J. (2006). The neuroscience of leadership. Strategy+Business, 43, 8.

Tabor, B. (2019). "Creating a Mindful Schoolwide Culture to Maximize Learning" in A. Costa & B. Kallick, Eds., Nurturing habits of mind in early childhood classrooms. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Want to add your own highlights and notes for this article to access later?

ASCD empowers educators to achieve excellence in learning, teaching, and leading so that every child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Building a Culture of Efficacy with Habits of Mind - ASCD

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
One thing we've learned over the course of the pandemic is that relationships are central. Humans are wired for social engagement.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
7 Classroom Management Mistakes—and the Research on How to Fix Them

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Whether our emotions get the best of us, or we fall into familiar but unproductive habits, here are 7 common classroom management mistakes, and what the research suggests you should do instead.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Yet a third group was stupefied, questioning the teacher's ability to write good questions. "Think the person who came up with that question really doesn't know how an orchestra works!" the Wexford Sinfonia Orchestra tweeted.

It's a trick question, Longmoor admitted, one designed to keep her students on their toes, echoing a common sentiment among test makers that such questions force students to read carefully, ensuring that they attend to substantive questions later on. But do trick questions actually work as intended?

Andrew Butler, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Washington University, doesn't think so. Trick questions are not "productive for learning" and can easily backfire, he says. The result: confused students, artificially reduced test performance, and a murkier picture of what students actually know.

Other research on test design suggests that all too often, we're not just assessing what students know, but also getting a peek into the psychological and cognitive eddies that disrupt a student's thinking-a high-stakes test that causes anxiety can become a barometer of a student's poise, rather than their knowledge. A well-designed test is rigorous and keeps implicit bias in check, while being mindful of the role that confidence, mindset, and anxiety play in test taking. Here are eight tips to create effective tests, based on a review of more than a dozen recent studies.

1. HELP STUDENTS DEVELOP GOOD TEST PREP HABITS

Students often overestimate how prepared they are for an upcoming test, which can result in unexpected low performance, according to a 2017 study. Consider asking students to make and show you a study plan involving productive study strategies like self-quizzing, teaching the major concepts to peers, or spacing out their studying into multiple sessions instead of cramming the night before.

To help address test anxiety, researchers recommend setting aside a little time for simple writing or self-talk exercises before the test-they allow students to shore up their confidence, recall their test-taking strategies, and put the exam into perspective. In a 2019 study, for example, elementary students who spent a few minutes before a test and "silently spoke words of encouragement to themselves that were focused on effort" saw their math scores rise. And in a 2019 study of ninth graders, researchers found that a simple 10-minute expressive writing activity that reframed test anxiety as "a beneficial and energizing force" led to course failure rates being cut in half for vulnerable students.

2. FIND THE SWEET SPOT FOR RIGOR

Design tests so they're at an appropriate level of difficulty for your students. Overly difficult tests not only sap students' motivation but also increase the likelihood that students will remember the wrong answers, according to a 2018 study.

In the end, "tests that are extremely easy or difficult are essentially useless for both assessment and learning," the study concludes. Students who study moderately should get roughly 70 to 80 percent of the questions correct.

3. BUT START WITH EASY QUESTIONS

Don't start a test with challenging questions; let students ease into a test. Asking difficult questions to probe for deep knowledge is important, but remember that confidence and mindset can dramatically affect outcomes-and therefore muddy the waters of your assessment.

A 2021 study found that students were more likely to do worse on a test if difficult questions were at the beginning instead of nearer to the middle or the end of the test. "Students might be disheartened by seeing a hard question early in the test, as a signal of the general difficulty of the rest of the test," the researchers explain.

4. BE AWARE OF IMPLICIT BIAS

Question format matters. In a 2018 study, researchers analyzed test scores for 8 million students and discovered that boys tend to outperform girls on multiple-choice questions, accounting for roughly 25 percent of the gender achievement gap. Girls performed significantly better than boys on open-ended questions. Consider the mix of your testing formats: Combine traditional testing formats-multiple choice, short answer, and essay questions-with creative, open-ended assessments that can elicit different strengths and interests.

Be mindful, as well, of how cultural or racial bias and background knowledge can infiltrate the language and framing of test questions. In an infamous example, an SAT analogy question required students to select "oarsman:regatta" in response to the word pair "runner:marathon," an expectation that was fraught with classist, racial, and geographic overtones.

Other studies reveal that without a threshold of background knowledge, students fail to grasp the intent of their reading-an incorrect answer on a test may signify the failure to determine the meaning of the question, rather than measure the student's understanding of the material. Keep test questions free of unnecessary jargon, revise tests to simplify questions, and consider allowing students to ask for clarification before you start the test.

5. AVOID TRICK QUESTIONS

While it may be tempting to include trick questions to make sure that students are paying attention, they can get stuck or confused, wasting precious time and compromising the rest of the test as a result, a 2018 study concludes.

Tests aren't just tools to evaluate learning; they can also alter a student's understanding of a topic. So if students try to recall information they're unsure about, they may reconstruct it incorrectly, increasing the likelihood that they will retain false information. For example, if you asked, "What was George Washington's goal with writing the Emancipation Proclamation?" some students may commit it to memory and connect the wrong president to the seminal historical document.

6. BREAK TESTS APART

Instead of a single high-stakes test, consider breaking it into smaller low-stakes tests that you can spread throughout the school year. That strategy alleviated test anxiety for 72 percent of middle and high school students, according to a 2014 study.

The likely reason? When students take high-stakes tests, their cortisol levels-a biological marker for stress-rise dramatically, impeding their ability to concentrate and artificially lowering test scores, a 2018 study found. Stress is a normal part of test-taking, but there are kinds of stress that should be avoided, such as whether the student thinks they'll be able to finish.

7. TRY TO MINIMIZE THE EFFECTS OF TIME LIMITS

Time limits are unavoidable, but you can mitigate their pernicious effects on anxiety levels. "Evidence strongly suggests that timed tests cause the early onset of math anxiety for students across the achievement range," explains Jo Boaler, mathematics professor at Stanford. This extends to other subjects as well, according to a 2020 study, which also found that timed tests disproportionately harm students with disabilities.

If a student aces most of the test but then gets the last few questions wrong or leaves them blank, it's possible that they panicked as the time limit approached-or knew the information intimately but simply couldn't finish the test. It may be helpful to time yourself taking the test and cut a few questions so that it's clearly shorter than your class period.

8. PERIODICALLY, LET STUDENTS WRITE THEIR OWN TESTS

Sometimes, less design is better: The research suggests that one effective strategy, at least periodically, is to ask students to write their own test questions.

In a 2020 study, students who generated test questions scored 14 percentage points higher than students who simply reviewed the material. "Question generation promotes a deeper elaboration of the learning content," explains psychology professor Mirjam Ebersbach. "One has to reflect what one has learned and how an appropriate knowledge question can be inferred from this knowledge." Model question-asking for students -highlighting your own examples first-and then teach them how to ask good questions. They may start with simple factual questions, but with enough practice, they can propose questions that start with "Explain" or that dig deeper into a topic with how and why questions.

9. AFTER-TEST STRATEGIES

Beyond test design, there's the important question of what happens after a test. All too often, students receive a test, glance at the grade, and move on. But that deprives them, and the teacher, of a valuable opportunity to address misconceptions and gaps in knowledge. Don't think of tests as an endpoint to learning. Follow up with feedback, and consider strategies like " exam wrappers "- short metacognitive writing activities that ask students to review their performance on the test and think about ways they could improve in future testing scenarios.

You might also rethink your policy around test retakes. While students can certainly take unfair advantage of some test-retaking policies, there are innovative approaches that preserve the integrity of the initial test while allowing students to recover partial credit for materials they haven't successfully learned. Set clear limits, pose a different set of questions-or allow partial credit for demonstrating deep knowledge of questions they missed on the test-or ask students to reflect on why they missed earlier questions and what they can do to improve in the future, teachers recommend.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Design Better Tests, Based on the Research

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Yet a third group was stupefied, questioning the teacher's ability to write good questions. "Think the person who came up with that question really doesn't know how an orchestra works!" the Wexford Sinfonia Orchestra tweeted.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It's not uncommon for classroom literacy practices to stick around in spite of, as in the case of round robin, well-established research and readily available resources offering a variety of research-based alternatives for improving reading fluency and deepening comprehension and engagement. In fact, when literacy specialists Gwynne Ellen Ash, Melanie R. Kuhn, and Sharon Walpole surveyed teachers and literacy coaches to more deeply understand "the persistence of Round Robin Reading in public schools in the United States," they found that close to half of the 80 teachers they surveyed admitted to using some variation of round robin, and more than 30 percent "acknowledged that the research said Round Robin Reading was not best practice but they used it anyway."

As students return to school and educators begin to plan for instruction that adequately challenges kids but also catches them up after a year of uneven pandemic learning, there's a valuable opportunity to reconsider-and ultimately retire-some of the stale literacy practices that research suggests aren't the best use of limited instructional time. We combed through our Edutopia archives to find practices that shouldn't make the cut and selected more effective alternatives that come recommended by literacy experts and experienced educators.

4 LITERACY PRACTICES TO RETIRE

Reading logs (and other rote accountability tasks): Like many teachers, Allie Thrower had her fifth-grade students fill out daily reading logs as part of their homework. But after some time, Thrower, now an elementary school continuous improvement coach, noticed that her students' log entries looked the same each day. "It was always 20 [minutes]," Thrower writes. "My students seemed to be reading merely because they had to-not because it opened up windows to the world, because reading about a character who looked like them brought them a sense of belonging and hope, or because they wanted to learn how to change the world for the better."

After discussing the topic with colleagues and digging into the research, she realized that "many parents and educators had strong negative feelings about reading logs," Thrower writes. And a 2012 study of the practice found that "students with mandatory logs expressed declines in both interest and attitudes towards recreational reading in comparison to peers with voluntary logs, and attitudes towards academic reading decreased significantly."

Turn-taking oral reading practices: In this type of practice-round robin reading is probably the most common; similar approaches include popcorn reading, combat reading, and Popsicle stick reading-students "read orally from a common text, one child after another, while the other students follow along in their copies of the text," writes Todd Finley, a professor of English education at East Carolina University. Finley surveyed more than 30 studies and articles about this close-knit family of reading strategies and concluded that oral turn-taking reading practices like round robin stigmatize poor readers, weaken comprehension, and sabotage fluency and pronunciation.

"To be clear, oral reading in other formats does improve students' fluency, comprehension, and word recognition, though silent or independent reading should occur far more frequently as students advance into the later grades," Finley notes.

Awarding prizes for reading: In a well-intentioned effort to motivate students to read more, schools and teachers sometimes offer prizes for meeting reading goals-rewards might range from small items like stickers or bracelets to movie or amusement park tickets, gaming tokens, and fast food coupons. But research shows that extrinsic motivators like these don't do much to build reading habits and, especially among students who already enjoy reading, may actually decrease motivation to read, say literacy experts Barbara A. Marinak and Linda B. Gambrell, authors of No More Reading for Junk: Best Practices for Motivating Readers, in an interview for Education Week. Instead, offer rewards that are closely aligned with reading, like books they can keep and extra reading time, for example.

Overemphasis on reading as a discrete skill: Traditional ELA reading curriculum tends to focus on exposing students to unfamiliar subjects while teaching them ostensibly transferable skills like summarizing and finding the main idea. But a growing group of educators, writes journalist Holly Korbey, are shifting away from this approach, based on research indicating that predominantly skills-based instruction does little to improve overall reading proficiency for many students.

In the landmark baseball study, for example, Donna Recht and Lauren Leslie found that "struggling readers who knew a lot about baseball did better on a reading comprehension test about the topic than strong readers who knew nothing about the sport," Korbey writes. Similarly, high school students who "met a basic knowledge threshold on a dense topic like ecosystems had much stronger performance on a reading test about ecosystems than those who didn't," she notes. "For low-income students and students of color, these disparities were particularly pronounced."

6 READING APPROACHES THAT WORK BETTER

Reading accountability partners: After quitting reading logs, Thrower tried several alternatives before settling on reading accountability partners, a strategy where partners meet daily for 10 minutes to discuss the previous day's reading. "The practice may seem simple, but the results have been impressive," Thrower says, noting that pairings work best with students who will challenge each other academically and encourage each other emotionally.

Via mini-lessons, she helps students understand their roles, discusses how to hold peers accountable and how to be receptive to feedback, sets kids up with guiding questions, and circulates among the groups to make sure everyone's on task.

Choral reading: In this oral reading activity, the teacher and class read a passage aloud together, reducing "struggling readers' public exposure" and extending the length of the passages that kids are exposed to, writes Finley. Or try a variation on choral reading in which "every time the instructor omits a word during oral reading, students say the word all together," Finley suggests. Lowering the stakes for all students in this way allows everyone to practice reading for longer chunks of time and smooths out modeling hiccups and individual fluency issues. The research, meanwhile, shows that the practice results in marked improvements in decoding and fluency.

Scaffolded silent reading: Silent reading is important, but before sending kids off with a book, consider scaffolding the activity by pre-teaching vocabulary, providing a plot overview, and maybe introducing a K-W-L activity.

"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," writes Rebecca Alber, an instructor at UCLA's Graduate School of Education. "We send them ill-prepared and then are often shocked when they lose interest, create a ruckus, or fall asleep." When pre-teaching vocabulary, "introduce the words to kids in photos or in context with things they know and are interested in," Alber suggests. "Give time for small-group and whole-class discussion of the words."

Teacher read-aloud and modeling: It's tough to find time in the school day for read-alouds; however, "reading aloud to students each day is not only a productive investment; it also has powerful benefits for learners of all ages," writes educator Christie Rodgers, who routinely alloted five to seven minutes to the task every day with her fourth- and fifth-grade students. It's a practice that's rewarding and beneficial for middle and high school students as well.

"Throughout my 25 years in education, the read-aloud was my way of getting the most stubborn students to fall in love with reading," says Rodgers. Besides being enjoyable-a 2019 report from Scholastic found that 83 percent of students ages 6 all the way to age 17 surveyed said that being read to was something they either loved or liked a lot-it's also a powerful opportunity to model reading strategies, stopping frequently to wonder out loud and thus showing students "what good readers do when they don't know a word, understand a plot twist, or agree with a character in the story," Rodgers writes.

Reading buddies: For this practice, pair upper-grade classes with lower-grade ones-third graders with pre-K students, for example-and plan to set aside at least one 30-minute session per month for students to read together. Kids can work in pairs, but groups of three work too. "Let the younger students pick the books at first so they get hooked with an interesting read," says Ryan Wheeler, a behavior specialist in Houston, Texas.

The practice builds community, but it's also a powerful literacy tool. "Reading buddies allows younger readers to see what being fluent looks like as they have a peer model demonstrating reading skills," notes Wheeler. "For upper elementary students who are struggling with grade-level reading, the opportunity to access easier reading material without stigma or shame while sharing with a novice reader can create a positive experience with an activity that may otherwise be less than enjoyable."

Building background knowledge: Background knowledge-about the topic and about the world in general-"plays an important role in helping students make sense of a text because the things readers already know work like a scaffold on which to build a more complete, and nuanced, mental model of the subject matter," writes Holly Korbey. Try pre-teaching key vocabulary and concepts, and reduce the cognitive load by linking the new, unfamiliar material to material they've already learned.

In order to teach the kind of knowledge-rich lessons that will effectively boost students' reading comprehension, cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham, author of The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads, tells Korbey, "teachers should emphasize a cohesive, well-sequenced curriculum with lots of background information on different topics embedded within it so that no students are left hanging when they read."

Ultimately, beyond abandoning ineffective practices, the deeper work of motivating kids to read starts with connecting them to books that genuinely reflect their own interests-and giving them some choice in the matter. This may require being flexible about reading levels so kids are exposed to texts that provide them with an abundance of cultural, racial, and socioeconomic perspectives and cater to a wide variety of reading tastes across a broad range of reading levels-from books that are easy to read to ones that pull them into unfamiliar and demanding territory.

When we provide young readers with a rich mix of books, Melanie Hundley, a former English teacher and now professor at Vanderbilt University, tells Korbey, it primes students to feel more engaged and excited to take on tougher texts. "If kids will read and you can build their reading stamina, they can get to a place where they're reading complex texts," says Hundley. "Choice helps develop a willingness to read... [and] I want kids to choose to read."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
4 Reading Strategies to Retire This Year (Plus 6 to Try Out!)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It's not uncommon for classroom literacy practices to stick around in spite of, as in the case of round robin, well-established research and readily available resources offering a variety of research-based alternatives for improving reading fluency and deepening comprehension and engagement. In fact, when literacy specialists Gwynne Ellen Ash, Melanie R.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I've written about angry parents, complaining parents, uncaring parents, and overly chatty parents-and how best to deal with each.

But never bully parents.

So I thought I'd stick with the theme of the past two weeks and take on what is an incredibly stressful experience for teachers.

A parent that demands, questions, browbeats, sabotages, and otherwise makes your life miserable can only be handled with a light but shrewd touch.

Here's how:
Lay it out ahead of time.
Before the school year even begins you must create your syllabus or parent information packet with the assumption that the child with the nightmare parent everyone dreads will be assigned to your class.

In other words, you're going to gear your back-to-school communication toward them.

This entails laying out your highly specific grading and homework policies, classroom management plan, volunteer procedure, daily schedule, basic curriculum, and when and how to contact you.

You'll also go over these at back to school night.

The idea is to be transparent from the get-go, get parents on record for understanding your program, and answer any and all potential complaints or reasons for dissatisfaction ahead of time.
Set up communication boundaries.
Never make yourself available every day after school.

I've heard dozens of teachers tell me over the years that they don't have a choice. Yes, you do. Create strict office hours that work best for you but that allow some flexibility for parents.

You should also request parents make an appointment. No, this isn't asking too much. They don't have free access to you whenever they want it.

The idea that these protections will somehow make bully parents even angrier is untrue. In fact, the opposite happens. By setting up parameters, and being clear about your plans, policies, procedures, expectations, etc., they'll have more respect for you.
Don't be friends with parents.
Sorry, I know how many teachers become friends with parents. However, in the long run it's a mistake. You should always keep a professional and emotional distance from parents.

The more they see you as a friend, the lower will be your status as an expert and master of your craft. Even if you don't become friends with the bully, they'll view you as less than other professionals that work with their child like doctors and therapists.

Furthermore, being friends with some parents looks suspicious to the others. Are you playing favorites? Do your friendships affect how you grade or treat their child?

Very likely, though subconsciously, the answer is yes.
Make your room a sanctuary.
If everyone who enters your classroom doesn't walk in like they're entering a museum, then you need to make it even more reverent in appearance.

Neatness and lack of clutter matters. It matters in your students' focus, mood, satisfaction, perceived safety, and ultimately learning.

And it matters to parents, who must perceive you as a person of standing in the community. The difference in this regard between two teachers can be staggering, like the distance between rims of the Grand Canyon.

This also leads to a high level of politeness and discourse between you and parents, who will respectfully knock on your door and apologize before entering to drop of a lunch or missed homework assignment.
Be friendly.
Done right, this alone will usually subvert any bully. After setting up a meeting-and even if they catch you out of your classroom-smile and be open to anything they have to say.

After all, you have your published and closely followed syllabus to back your policies.

Be extremely friendly, even gregarious. Humor, while maintaining your professionalism, is also very powerful. By simply being overtly kind and good-natured you can take the wind right out of their sails.

Ask how they are. Tell them how much you enjoy having Junior in your class and how well he's doing. They want reassurance, first and foremost, that you have their child's best interest at heart.

Prove to them you do in a gentle but friendly way, and they'll almost always smile back and thank you-yes, even that parent who has been a vampire with every other teacher.
Listen, first and always.
If they have a legitimate concern-or one they consider legitimate-just listen. Take what they have to say seriously. Nod, hold your chin in your hand, and maintain eye contact.

Say nothing until they're finished, even if they mischaracterize you or make an assumption about an incident with their child. Most often, people who are angry just want to be heard. So hear them out.

Let them vent.

When they finish, tell them you understand and then briefly explain A.) How you're going to fix their problem or B.) how the problem has already been fixed. There is almost always a way to do this without bending you policies and rules, which you must never do.

If they do question a rule or policy, then explain how it's in place for one reason only: to protect their child and their right to learn and enjoy being in your class.
Follow up.
Whatever the demand or complaint, be sure you follow up within a day or so to let the parent know what you did to correct the problem or massage it in such a way that it no longer exists.

Be brief and stick to the facts.

Also, and again, be kind and thank them for bringing it to your attention. Turn the tables and appreciate them. Surprise them with your kindness and professional thoroughness.

Do what no other teacher has done before.

It's a common psychological desire to feel appreciated and hard to resist the person it comes from. It triggers the Law of Reciprocity, which will turn them into marmalade and infuse the desire to pay back the goodness you've done them.
Blame administration.
Not literally, of course. However, if a parent complains about or is angry over an administrative or school-wide policy, never try to defend it. Don't bash it. Just never explain or answer for it.

Discussing it at all is above your pay grade. You just work there. You have enough policies to defend all on your own.

Thus, if a parent approaches you, just smile and say "I wish I could help, but it's not up to me. You might want to check with the office."

And here's the thing: Principals appreciate this.

It prevents them from having to get involved after the fact. Plus, they know how to defend their own policies far better than you. Just make sure you give the boss a heads up so they can be ready.
Follow your plan like a referee.
This is a common refrain here at SCM because it's so important, for many reasons. Not the least of which is because it protects you from the charge that you treat students differently based on how you feel about them personally.

It also protects you from your personal biases, implicit or otherwise.

Once the word gets out that you're inconsistent or that you berate or lecture students, then you open yourself up to justifiably angry parents. Furthermore, you provide even more reason to be bullied and vilified.

The truth is, this is a charge that is difficult to answer other than to embarrassingly and humiliatingly admit your failure and promise to do better. So always, always, always follow your classroom management plan as written and enforce it like an impartial referee.
Stand your ground.
After following the guidelines above, you won't have any more parents bullying you. You just won't. However, if a rare albino tiger sneaks into your camp, then stand your ground.

Don't become defensive or fight back in kind, but don't run either.

Be polite. Maintain your friendly disposition. But be tough enough to believe in and stick to your rules, policies, and procedures as a highly skilled professional who knows what is best for your students.

They come first, not the parent.

One of the keys to great classroom management and teaching in general is to embrace the fact that you are the leader of the classroom - le dirigeant. If you don't take on this role, then someone else will-a student, your boss, or a bully parent.
Secure protection.
It pays to have one or more colleagues-preferably a next-door neighbor-you can trust. And it's smart to continually cultivate those relationships, even if just to allow yourself an emergency restroom run.

But more importantly, you can motion them over to listen to your conversation with an angry or bully parent. You can ask them to work in the back of your room during sensitive conferences.

When concerned at all about an interaction, always have a witness.

If you don't, then don't speak until you do, even if it means walking with the parent out into the hallway and near your colleague.

And if it does get to the point where you're indeed being bullied by a parent, ask the principal to sit in your meetings. Not only will this help change the bully's behavior, but you'll be protecting yourself from slander and false accusations.

Never let them see you sweat.

By just showing that they can't get under your skin, bullies will tend to leave you alone.

So always stay positive and lighthearted in nature and disposition. Be honest and straightforward, but do so without stress and negative emotion.

Keep your body loose and open. Invite complainers and questioners. Ask them to speak their mind. Make yourself a target. Hide nothing. Show that you're impenetrable, a true pro who is above pettiness and childish behavior.

This gives you gravitas and makes bullies feel self-conscious. It exposes them and makes them feel foolish and out of their element.

When their weapons don't work on you, they stop using them. They give up. They may pout, but they'll no longer bother you.

Because you're among those who can't be bullied.
Start Now
By following the guidelines above, you'll avoid bully parents entirely. You really will. There is just too much resistance and strength in your approach to overcome, which very effectively strips them of their power over you.

But what if you're in the midst of it?

What if the black widow has already bitten once, has you again in their sights, and is starting to descend? Then start now. Yes, you may be subject to some unpleasantness in the near term, but even the worst of the worst bully can be converted.

Through your transparency and confidence, boundaries and friendliness, consistency and shrewdness, they can be defeated and then transformed.

From foe to supporter. Aggressor to admirer. Bully to just another parent who sings your praises.

If you haven't done so already, please join us. It's free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Handle A Bully Parent - Smart Classroom Management

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I've written about angry parents, complaining parents, uncaring parents, and overly chatty parents-and how best to deal with each. But never bully parents. So I thought I'd stick with the theme of the past two weeks and take on what is an incredibly stressful experience for teachers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
May 2021 | Volume 78 | Number 8
From Research to Practice

Dana Haring and Tom Kelner

"Hey Dana, I'm sending you an article that we should talk about," my teaching partner (and coauthor) Tom announced from his side of our shared classroom. Like many colleagues, we do this sometimes-share articles with one another about new ideas that might improve our practice. As full-time middle school teachers who first met in graduate school, reading education research is not a foreign or uncomfortable concept to us. This particular NPR piece about research on note-taking resonated with us both.

The article, " Attention, Students: Put Your Laptops Away," reported results of a 2014 study by researchers Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer, " The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note-Taking." Both of these titles piqued our interest because of the work we were doing with the 7th graders in our English and social studies classes. One collaborative project our classes work on together throughout the school year involves significant computer-based note-taking from online research. Part of our ongoing frustration with this project, however, is that many of our 7th graders simply copy and paste whole chunks of text into their research organizers. Rather than scanning for keywords and then closely reading the text for understanding, they quickly pass over the text and, thinking it might be important, copy big portions of what they have merely skimmed. These passages too often end up in their final papers without being paraphrased or cited. Motivated by what we read in the NPR article, particularly that students taking longhand notes performed better on tests of the material, we decided to look at the issue of computer-based note-taking more closely.

As we read and discussed the original research, we saw several points in which the context of the study and our own teaching context differed. The study was based on college students watching TED Talks while taking notes either on a laptop or longhand. Then they were tested on the knowledge of what they had just seen. The results indicated that students who had taken longhand notes on paper scored better than those who had typed notes on their computers. According to the researchers, having to write notes by hand requires students to be more selective about what they are recording. Because students can type faster than they can write, computer notes tend to be more verbatim or non-generative, while handwritten notes require more cognitive processing, such as summarizing, connecting, and paraphrasing.

In our project, students would be writing their own research questions about a historical figure and then finding evidence from online resources to help them answer those questions. Rather than taking a test, they would be required to use that evidence and analyze it in a written essay. That analysis is crucial: students have to explain the connection of the evidence they are using to the claim or the thesis of their essay. Analysis, even for 7th graders, is what turns a report into an essay that demonstrates comprehension, application, synthesis, and evaluation of evidence. In this way, we saw connections to two of the most important functions of note-taking: storageand encoding (Mueller & Oppenheimer, 2014). In our students' research and writing, they were employing both of those functions-the use of storage for the factual evidence they took notes on and the use of encoding for their analysis of that evidence.

In Mueller and Oppenheimer's study, online note-taking yielded more notes by volume, but these notes were often taken indiscriminately from the source. But longhand note-taking was connected with higher levels of processing or encoding. The researchers thus concluded that longhand note-taking was more beneficial for student learning. We wondered: Could we determine the efficacy of one method of note-taking over the other for our students in their work?

Enter Action Research

To answer that question, we began to design our own action research project to conduct with our students. Action research, in general, is a methodical process of inquiry conducted both by and for those interested in a specific question. In our case, that question was about the efficacy of different forms of note-taking. In a classroom setting, action research is tailored by the teachers involved to improve and refine instruction. According to Creswell, it starts with a practical focus and the teacher-researcher's own practices, not an experimental, untried method (2012). In keeping with that approach, we took methods we already had in place and collaboratively designed a process to compare them. We wrote out our plan of action and reflected on it throughout the project. Action research also involves sharing results-whether localized or with a larger audience.

We formally started our process of inquiry with a research question: What difference will there be in the content scores between students who take longhand notes and students who type notes using Google Docs?

We planned to do the study in January, which is 18 weeks into the school year, the equivalent of a semester. We had already established research and writing protocols with our students, including ones for evaluating research information and close and critical reading of texts. We had also spent time working on the development of well-structured paragraphs using the CEAL protocol (claim, evidence, analysis, and link or "leaving thought"). In previous research projects, we had worked with our students to write strong thesis statements and related research questions. By January, our middle school students had also written a minimum of three complete essays with introductions, CEAL body paragraphs, and conclusions. Therefore, we were confident that our students had a foundation of skills that would help them be successful with the essay we assigned for the study, whether they took notes on a computer or paper.

As the time approached, we divided the students randomly into two groups: one for typing notes and the other for longhand notes. We informed our 7th graders of the change in our project by using the following script:

For this project, we are doing an experiment! So, as you are researching, you are going to be participating in our research project. Using a randomizer, we have created two equal groups. One of the groups will be researching online and taking notes as we have done on the other projects, by typing on a computer. The other group will also be researching online but taking notes with a pen or pencil on paper. We are trying to see if there is any difference between the two methods of taking notes. Both groups will still type their [final] essays like we've done before.

Both groups had the same teacher-provided graphic organizer for recording their notes, except that the computer-based version was shared through Google Classroom and the longhand version was printed out on paper with ample space for students to write notes. All students used online resources and worked in our school library's computer lab, where we customarily conduct our research projects. Both of us circulated as usual and helped students throughout the week.

When their notes were completed, the students used computers to type their essays. We had help scoring the essays from a group of University of Montana college students who were enrolled in a writing methods class (taught by Dana). Each college student scored a random set of about five essays as a class assignment on assessing writing. Neither we nor the college students knew whether the papers were written from longhand or digital notes. Also, the college students did not know the nature of the study we were conducting, nor did they have access to students' names.

Although the whole rubric was utilized for a grade, we only compiled and analyzed the content score for the purposes of the study. This content score encompassed both evidence and analysis; that is, both information from the students' sources and their explanations of how that information connected to their claims and thesis statements.

The Surprising Results

So, what did we discover from the 85 students who took part in this experiment? According to the results from the college students, the 7th graders who wrote longhand notes averaged a 2.55 in their content scores, and the students who typed notes on the computer averaged a 2.82, a difference of 0.27 or 11 percent. Our content scores were similar: 7th graders who wrote longhand notes averaged a 2.30 and their peers who typed notes averaged 2.73, a difference of 0.43 or 19 percent.

In direct contrast to Mueller and Oppenheimer's results, the students in our classrooms who typed their notes had stronger scores. During our study, both groups of students were found to have recorded a large swath of their notes verbatim from their sources, so this is not strictly a problem related to digital note-taking-it was one we would need to address more broadly. And because our 7th grade "typers" scored better on their essays, we felt strongly that it made sense to continue to allow all students to use computers for note-taking. As we entered quarantine teaching shortly after we compiled our results, it was reassuring to know that typing notes wasn't going to hinder our students' understanding of complex texts.

Our decision was backed up by a more recent study that replicated and extended the work of Mueller and Oppenheimer. This research, which also tested college students who watched TED Talks, indicated that "the available evidence does not provide a definitive answer to th[e] question" of whether students should take notes on a computer or on paper (Morehead, Dunlosky, & Rawson, 2019). With no clear winner, this result supported what we had come to believe: it was fine for our students to take notes on a computer after all.

Rooted in Reality

One defining aspect of our study was that the situation was not artificial or lab-based. Our classroom research utilized learning materials and methodologies that are part of what we do on a daily basis. These are typical 12- and 13-year-old students who were required to do research and write an essay, not college students who volunteered to be part of a study.

Such action research, by its nature, can be messy and have variables that we cannot control, such as fire drills, student absences, and differing skill levels. Messiness was a part of the study just like it's a part of classroom reality. For that reason, we have a high degree of confidence that our evidence is sound and applicable to our teaching situation and might even be applicable in similar teaching situations.

Despite our results, however, we still needed to remedy the tendency of our students to copy and paste large amounts of text without citation or paraphrasing. Our hope was that handwriting notes would lessen, if not eliminate, this tendency. It did not. Even when students were handwriting notes, they were copying much of the text word for word. As a result, we provided more instruction on paraphrasing and in-text citations in our respective classes. And we sharpened our focus on undoing this copy and paste tendency via our CEAL writing protocol. This was part of the dynamic and reflective process of action research.

No doubt other pieces of education research will come to our attention as we continue our work. When they do, we will look at them critically, with an eye on application to our specific teaching context. Thoughtfully examining our teaching practices in light of new research will always result in better informed decision making for the students we teach.

References

Creswell, J. W. (2012) Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. London: Pearson Education International.

Doubek, J. (April 17, 2016). Attention, students: Put your laptops away. Weekend Edition Sunday,NPR.

Morehead, K., Dunlosky, J., & Rawson, K. A. (2019). How much mightier is the pen than the keyboard for note-taking? A replication and extension of Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014). Educational Psychology Review, 31(3), 753-780.

Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note-taking. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1159-1168.

Dana Haring has been teaching 7th grade English Language Arts in Kalispell, Montana, for more than 24 years. Tom Kelner has been in education for more than 23 years in various roles including administration. Both Haring and Kelner write and present about classroom practices, instructional methodology, and collegial collaboration.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Duel Between the Pen and Keyboard Continues

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
May 2021 | Volume 78 | Number 8 From Research to Practice Dana Haring and Tom Kelner "Hey Dana, I'm sending you an article that we should talk about," my teaching partner (and coauthor) Tom announced from his side of our shared classroom.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Grading systems should be clear and motivating to students, and points-based grading often fails on both counts. A few tips to keep students focused on learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Build it Together: Co-Constructing Success Criteria with Students | Cult of Pedagogy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When we include students in the process of defining quality work, they are more likely to rise to those standards.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Build it Together: Co-Constructing Success Criteria with Students | Cult of Pedagogy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When we include students in the process of defining quality work, they are more likely to rise to those standards.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Build it Together: Co-Constructing Success Criteria with Students | Cult of Pedagogy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When we include students in the process of defining quality work, they are more likely to rise to those standards.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Graphic biographies have long been a staple of school and library publishers. Even in the dark ages of the 1980s and 1990s, when graphic novels for young readers all but disappeared from bookstores and comic shops, educational publishers kept producing them, perhaps for the obvious reason that children like them.

As the graphic format has grown in recent years, so have the number and variety of graphic biographies. Publishers and creators are finding new people to profile and new formats for bringing their stories to readers. Many graphic biographies are coming over from France, where the format has long been popular.

These titles raise the same issue as all biographies, plus a few more. Accuracy is key, and with graphic biographies, that includes images depicting the setting as well as the facts of the subject's life. A good biographer will consult contemporary images to ensure that clothing, objects, and backgrounds are correct for the period. Many graphic biographies, like their prose counterparts, include source notes or a bibliography. Every biographer must decide which events to include and which to omit, as well as what context to provide. Some authors discuss those choices in a helpful introduction or afterword.

In addition, graphic biographies allow creators to distinguish reconstructed dialogue from actual quotes by changing the lettering style, often including the sources in the margins or endnotes. Here are 10 recent and upcoming graphic biographies that are worth a look.

Before They Were Artists: Famous Illustrators as Kids, by Elizabeth Haidle (Etch/HMH, April 2021)
Gr 3 Up -Haidle follows the same structure as in her earlier title, Before They Were Authors: Famous Writers as Kids, telling the life story of six children's book illustrators (Wanda Gág, Tove Jansson, Hayao Miyazaki, Yuyi Morales, Jerry Pinkney, and Maurice Sendak) in six chapters. While the emphasis is on the subjects' childhood and artistic development, Haidle does cover their adult lives as well. Each chapter opens with a two-page spread showing the illustrator, their creations, and a time line of their life and work, then depicts their artistic growth using text boxes rather than speech balloons. Haidle relies on simple shapes and soft colors to build eye-pleasing scenes. Source notes and a bibliography for each artist are appended.

Billionaires: The Lives of the Rich and Powerful, by Darryl Cunningham (Drawn and Quarterly, April 2021)
Gr 11 Up -Using his signature simplified style, Cunningham examines the lives, careers, and outsize influence of Rupert Murdoch, the Koch brothers, and Jeff Bezos. This is a book with a point of view: in the introduction, Cunningham states that all the profiles are of white males because "the richest people in the world are largely white and male," adding that because they control so much of society, including media and the economy, society tends to reflect their values. As he tells each story, Cunningham points out examples of corruption, undue political influence, and environmental crimes that hurt ordinary people but go unpunished; he also highlights the social benefits, when they occur, that stemmed from the work of these men, from advocacy to changes in the way we do business. Cunningham, the author of Psychiatric Tales, How to Fake a Moon Landing, and The Age of Selfishness, has extensively researched his subjects and provides several pages of references, including books and news articles archived on the web. While dry in places, this graphic work is a good choice for students interested in economics and public policy.

Chasin' the Bird: A Charlie Parker Graphic Novel, by Dave Chisholm (Z2, 2020)
Gr 10 Up -Chisholm's book focuses on two years Parker spent in California, from 1945 to 1947. In five chapters, each drawn in a different style, five people relate their encounters with Parker: a painter, a photographer, a sculptor with whom he had a brief affair, a fellow saxophonist, and the record producer who handled Parker's work. Chisholm conveys the duality of Parker's genius (with stunning visual interpretations of his music) and his addiction to drugs and alcohol, sometimes depicting his illness as a malevolent shadow in the background but also showing his recklessness. Parker has deep conversations about art and life with the five narrators, but he also gets into trouble and is admitted to a mental institution, where he starts to get his life back on track. The book ends with Parker's triumphant return to performing onstage in January 1947, when he was perhaps at his peak. The introduction is by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

"Corpse Talk," by Adam and Lisa Murphy (DK, 2020-21)
Gr 5-8 -Each chapter in this series of collected biographies is set up as a talk show interview with the subject's reanimated corpse. The Murphys bring cheeky humor and a perceptive eye to these short bios, which consist of an introduction, a four-page interview, and a spread that thoroughly details one of the subject's achievements. The result is a wealth of content delivered in a conversational, easy-to-read tone. Each book profiles a broad range of people, some well known, some less so, and the authors have a strong mix of basic information and fun facts. Corpse Talk: Groundbreaking Women and Corpse Talk: Groundbreaking Scientists are out now, and Corpse Talk: Kings and Queens and Other Royal Rotters is scheduled for April 2021.

The Incredible Nellie Bly: Journalist, Investigator, Feminist, and Philanthropist, by Luciana Cimino, illustrated by Sergio Algozzino (Abrams ComicArts, March 2021)
Gr 6 Up -A female reporter in the late 19th century, Nellie Bly went where few women dared-or were even permitted. She made her bones as a journalist by working undercover in a mental hospital, feigning illness to get through the doors to document the terrible treatment of the patients. Later, as a publicity stunt, she outdid the fictional Phileas Fogg, hero of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, by traveling around the globe in just 72 days. In this graphic novel set in 1921, she recounts her experiences to a journalism student facing the same sexism Bly encountered. The story focuses on Bly's most active period, when she was in her 20s and 30s, but the introduction by journalist David Randall provides a broader look at her life. Algozzino uses simple, gestural lines and a limited palette, and at the end of the book, he briefly explains how he developed the character designs. The book also includes a bibliography and a spread depicting other prominent women journalists.

Redbone: The True Story of a Native American Rock Band, by Christian Staebler and Sonia Paoloni, illustrated by Thibault Balahy (IDW, 2020)
Gr 6 Up -The band Redbone is best known for the 1974 hit "Come and Get Your Love," which saw renewed interest when it was used in the 2014 film Guardians of the Galaxy, but there was much more to them than that. This graphic novel, originally published in France, is framed as an interview of Pat Vegas, who formed the backbone of the group with his brother Lolly. As Pat chats with his wife and daughter, flashbacks appear as comics within the comic with a different style and palette. These comics show the Vegas brothers playing on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, forming Redbone, touring, weathering controversy, and finally breaking up and going their own ways. Musicians such as Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix make cameo appearances; this band really got around! The conversation also drifts to more general topics, including residential schools, the American Indian Movement, and Wounded Knee. The book features a discography, a bibliography, an actual interview with Pat Vegas, and an afterword by Staebler. (This book is available in Spanish and English.)

Seen: Edmonia Lewis, by Jasmine Walls, illustrated by Bex Glendining (BOOM! Box, 2020)
Gr 7-9 -Edmonia Lewis was a sculptor of Ojibwe and Haitian parentage who gained national and then international renown in the late 19th and early 20th century. Walls and Glendining depict the discrimination Lewis experienced at an integrated school. Later, when she moved to Boston, she was frequently featured in abolitionist publications but felt that the writers were more interested in their cause than in her art. Finally, she moved to Rome, where she believed she would not be "constantly reminded of my color." Lewis faced many challenges and could herself be a difficult person, and the creators don't shy away from any of that, producing a well-rounded biography of an intriguing artist.

Teddy, by Laurence Luckinbill, adapted by Eryck Tait (Dead Reckoning, January 2021)
Gr 7 Up -An adaptation of Luckinbill's one-man show, this graphic novel features Teddy Roosevelt telling the story of his life, from asthmatic youngster to aging former president, where the comics format lets the creators expand on the possibility of the theatrical performance. Tait weaves a bird motif through the images, which adds a poignant note: Luckinbill's show is based on a speech that Roosevelt gave in 1918 on the day he learned his youngest son had been killed in World War I. The result is a full portrait of the 26th president, who too often is portrayed merely as the caricature he created of himself.

Why She Wrote, by Hannah K. Chapman and Laurel Burke, illustrated by Kaley Bales (Chronicle, April 2021)
Gr 9 Up -This lively, colorful collection of 18 short comics about prominent women writers groups its subjects in trios according to topic, from gothic horror to control of copyright. Each section starts with a short biographical essay that offers context for the comic that follows. The book also includes a complete bibliography for each writer and more resources in the back matter. Both the essays and the comics have a casual tone that focuses on the personalities and struggles of each writer as well as the part that writing played in her life. While most of the writers covered are white and European, three of the 18 are women of color. Subjects range from the usual suspects (Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë, who also crashes both of her sisters' comics) to some who are lesser known, such as diarist Anne Lister, who lived openly as a lesbian in early 19th-century Yorkshire. Chapman and Burke are the team behind the podcast Bonnets at Dawn.

Women Discoverers: Top Women in Science, by Marie Moinard, illus. by Christelle Pecout (NBM, March 2021)
Gr 7 Up -Comics chapters covering the entire working life of five scientists-Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, Mae Jemison, Hedy Lamarr, and Ada Lovelace-are interspersed with one-page vignettes about other scientists. The storytelling in the comics is very compressed, so there are big time skips between panels, and many of the conversations within are of the sort where people remind one another of their shared past. Nonetheless, the dialogue feels natural, and the authors provide a lot of information in a compact and readable form. The art is straightforward, with a delicacy of line and color that sets it apart from most comics biographies. While Why She Wrote focuses on emotion and motivation, Women Discoverers takes a much more just-the-facts approach. Both are readable and useful but in very different ways.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
10 Graphic Biographies Bring Notable Figures to Life | Stellar Panels

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Graphic biographies have long been a staple of school and library publishers. Even in the dark ages of the 1980s and 1990s, when graphic novels for young readers all but disappeared from bookstores and comic shops, educational publishers kept producing them, perhaps for the obvious reason that children like them.

# data[].attributes.body
The Big Rocks:  Time Management

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Principles to Actions - National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Specific teaching practices and principles that are essential for a high-quality mathematics education for all students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Read recent articles related to the School Reform Initiative mission, guiding principles, and tools. Have an article to share? Send suggestions to chris@schoolreforminitiative.org

Continue reading "Articles"

Visit our store to browse books by SRI authors and books related to our work

Continue reading "Books"

Check out our partners and related websites

Continue reading "Websites"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Read recent articles related to the School Reform Initiative mission, guiding principles, and tools. Have an article to share?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As school leaders, we set a vision for our school and have a philosophy for learning that guides our leadership. Sometimes our visions grow, change, and merge into new ones; sometimes they are rooted in long-held beliefs. Sometimes our master plans blast off quickly, and sometimes they require a meticulous process that grinds along a windy road. It is magical when our vision for learning in our school becomes a reality! It energizes us, gives us reason to celebrate, and helps us set our next course. Our brand new Creativity Lab at Cedar Crest Middle School is the focus of our NASSP Virtual Tour, and it encapsulates our vision, philosophy, and passion for student agency, engagement, learning, and growth.
What is a Creativity Lab?
I believe there is little that we teach students that is more important than understanding how to learn, taking ownership of their educations, and learning how to think critically and solve problems. Our Creativity Lab seeks to address these priorities in a way that empowers our students, embraces their interests, and allows them to pursue their passions. Our vision for this course is to offer students an understanding of how to learn and advocate for themselves while providing them opportunities to think, create, and problem-solve in a safe and supportive environment.

Why a Creativity Lab?
This spring, like so many other schools, we found ourselves at a crossroads. We were looking to make significant changes to our master schedule but also make sure our changes were meaningful and relevant to our students. Our vision for our Creativity Lab was to create a space for students to learn how to take control of their learning. We recognized that our students needed to have opportunities to learn how to become agents of their learning, and we knew that we needed to provide that structure for them to learn and grow. We needed to offer them the space necessary to experiment, advocate, explore, find success, and fail forward.

What Does Student Learning Look Like?
This brand new trimester course lends itself to critical thinking, problem-solving, student agency, collaboration, and 21st ⁻century skills that students need for their postsecondary school lives. We often hear that getting the right people in the right places is the most critical component in our planning. We are so fortunate to have Mr. Ray Truex (@TruexCreateLab on Twitter) leading the learning within our new space! Mr. Truex's background in curriculum and his 25 years of experience as an outstanding English teacher lend themselves to defining our curriculum for this unique learning opportunity for our students.

The development of the curriculum was the most challenging and exciting part of this process. It was fun to give Mr. Truex complete creative control to develop a curriculum with some college and career standards and the design thinking process to guide his planning. In designing the curriculum, Mr. Truex was thoughtful in keeping the focus of the class on the students-their interests, passions, aptitudes, and curiosities. His understanding of what it means to be a core content area teacher serves him well in defining a space for student learning while maintaining high expectations and embracing student agency.

While we functioned under a "no rules" mantra in the design, Mr. Truex collaborated with our guidance counselors and STEM teachers to integrate our college and career readiness standards and our existing STEM curriculum to define a plan for our students to embrace their learning and empower them to try new things. With a focus on digital citizenship, conflict resolution, product innovation, real-world problem-solving, and student agency, the students are able to craft their learning to meet their needs and interests while gaining a better understanding of what it means to be a member of a larger community.

From passion projects to career exploration and design thinking to product development, our students have the opportunity to guide their own learning and get feedback from their teacher and classmates. It has been fun to watch them design their projects, expand their thinking, understand their learning, advocate for what they want, and take the ownership they deserve.

It has been a grand experiment, and the early results are exciting to share! We received positive feedback from our students, families, and teachers. We watch students and staff members actively use their agency to take ownership of the growth and learning that is taking place. The students love this class and appreciate being able to use their interest to drive their learning. We engage our students and empower them to follow their passions while encouraging them to take the first steps on their journey of agency and ownership.

Agency. Critical thinking. Empowerment. Engagement. Interest. Passion. Problem-solving. What if you could wrap all of these ideas into one beautiful plan for our schools? We have tried to do that this year through our new Creativity Lab! We can't wait to give you a little insight during our NASSP Virtual Tour.
This blog is part of NASSP's Virtual Tour Series. Be sure to visit NASSP's Facebook page on January 28 at 9:30 a.m. (ET) to participate in the live tour and join Mariah at 9:00 p.m. (ET) on January 31 for a Pau Hana, an informal virtual networking session to ask questions and keep the conversation going.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Creativity Labs: Empowering Students Through Problem-Solving and Agency

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As school leaders, we set a vision for our school and have a philosophy for learning that guides our leadership. Sometimes our visions grow, change, and merge into new ones; sometimes they are rooted in long-held beliefs. Sometimes our master plans blast off quickly, and sometimes they require a meticulous process that grinds along a windy road.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The U.S. Department of Education is excited to announce the release of two new resources that help teachers and school leaders meet the needs of their students by using thoughtful and creative digital learning experiences. The Teacher Digital Learning Guide (Teacher Guide) and the School Leader Digital Learning Guide (Leader Guide) are designed to provide educators and leaders resources as they use digital tools to better help students learn.

Students rely on technology especially when learning in virtual, hybrid and limited school opening environments. These guides provide strategies to help teachers and leaders effectively use digital learning strategies both inside and outside the classroom. Teachers and leaders may also use the information in the guides to support parents and families, as they navigate learning from home.

The Teacher Guide includes insights on ways to meet the individual needs of students by using educational technology (EdTech), promoting personalized learning, and embracing professional development opportunities. The Leader Guide provides suggestions to school leaders on developing a vision for digital learning and to help consider, plan, fund, implement, maintain, and adapt learning programs designed to best serve and empower students of all abilities.

The guides discuss topics including:

Serving the unique needs of each student by leveraging EdTech to implement personalized learning. This includes a discussion on how teachers and leaders can support student engagement and design meaningful assessments in a digital learning environment.

Developing and maintaining a digital infrastructure that supports students and teachers with the successful implementation of digital tools. This includes information about access to the internet, selection and maintenance of EdTech and devices, and protecting student privacy and security.

Fostering collaboration and communication between teachers and the parents and families of their students, as the primary educators of their children. Digital tools allow new ways for students, teachers, and families to connect with one another and to share best practices which promote student achievement, proper care and maintenance of devices, online safety, digital citizenship, screen time practices, and student health and wellness.

Prioritizing professional learning for teachers that promotes the on-going acquisition of EdTech teaching skills to benefit their students. This includes a discussion on identifying professional learning opportunities, fostering collaboration, and providing access to shared resources to create an environment of quality instruction, learning, and assessment.

The Department created these guides with the contributions and feedback from digital learning experts including researchers, educators, and school leaders. These publications are a companion to the Parent and Family Digital Learning Guide that was released last October (a Spanish translation is also available here).

To access all three guides, please click here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
U.S. Department of Education Releases Digital Learning Guides for Teachers and School Leaders - ED.gov Blog

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The U.S. Department of Education is excited to announce the release of two new resources that help teachers and school leaders meet the needs of their students by using thoughtful and creative digital learning experiences.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced schools across the country to confront unprecedented challenges. Teachers, principals, and school support staff are doing heroic work to offer stability for students and families during this crisis by providing meals, home learning resources, and at-home instruction.

But the longer schools remain closed-likely through the end of the academic year in most states-the higher the stakes become for next school year. A recent study predicted that students will experience a learning loss of 30 percent in reading and 50 percent in math as a result of the crisis. Left unchecked, it's an academic setback that could derail the futures even of students who were previously on grade level-and would be disastrous for students who were already behind.

To tackle these challenges, school systems need to focus on strategies proven to accelerate student learning. We know that typical remediation-assigning work better suited for earlier grades- won't come close to catching students up and will likely compound the problem. In The Opportunity Myth, we found that this approach of "meeting students where they are" practically guarantees they'll lose more academic ground and get even less access to grade-level work in the future. The students stuck in this vicious cycle are disproportionately the most vulnerable: students of color, from low-income families, with special needs, or learning English.

In other words, doubling down on current strategies for catching students up will only widen opportunity and achievement gaps. Schools need to be ready on the first day back with a fundamentally different strategy for diagnosing lost learning and putting every student on a fast track back to grade level-a strategy designed to accelerate their exposure to grade-appropriate work, not delay it.

Today, we're releasing a new resource, the Learning Acceleration Guide, to help school systems create and implement that strategy. It's organized around a few key questions:

How can schools create a plan to accelerate student learning?

How can schools accelerate student learning in the next two years?

What other challenges should schools anticipate as they plan to accelerate student learning?

Download the Guide
We explain in detail how schools can help students catch up without delaying the introduction of grade-level material, by providing "just-in-time" interventions to fill in learning gaps from the previous school year. We recommend that schools:

1. Prioritize the most critical prerequisite skills and knowledge for each subject area and grade level now.

2. Plan an approach to diagnosing students' unfinished learning in that prerequisite content knowledge and those prerequisite skills.

3. Adapt scope and sequence/pacing guidance for each subject area and grade level to reflect where teachers might need to provide acceleration support.

4. Train teachers and leaders to diagnose students' unfinished learning and provide acceleration support.

5. Monitor students' progress on grade-appropriate assignments and adjust supports for teachers and leaders based on student results.

This approach to helping students catch up will feel new to most teachers and school leaders. Adopting it won't be easy, especially given the many other challenges schools will face when they reopen. But the alternatives-going back to "business as usual" approaches to teaching and learning in the face of massive learning loss, or ramping up existing remediation strategies guaranteed to make things worse-are unthinkable.

To do right by our students in the aftermath of this crisis, we need a different approach. We hope our guide will help system leaders, school leaders, and teachers make the shift from remediation to acceleration in 2020-21 and beyond.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Remediation Won't Help Students Catch Up. Here's What Will.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced schools across the country to confront unprecedented challenges. Teachers, principals, and school support staff are doing heroic work to offer stability for students and families during this crisis by providing meals, home learning resources, and at-home instruction.

# data[].attributes.headline
Projecting the Potential Impacts of COVID-19 On Academic Achievement

# data[].attributes.subject
Projecting the Potential Impacts of COVID-19 On Academic Achievement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It is among the most common of nightmares. You dream of taking a test for which you are completely unprepared -- you've never studied the material or even attended the course. For millions of American schoolchildren, it is a nightmare from which they cannot wake, a trial visited upon them each year when the law requires them to take reading tests with little preparation. Sure, formally preparing for reading tests has become more than just a ritual for schools. It is practically their raison d'etre! Yet students are not prepared in the way they need to be.

Schools and teachers may indeed be making a Herculean effort to raise reading scores, but these efforts do little to improve reading achievement and to prepare children for college, a career, and a lifetime of productive, engaged citizenship. This wasted effort is not because our teachers are lazy or of low quality. Rather, too many of our schools labor under fundamental misconceptions about reading comprehension -- how it works, how to improve it, and how to test it.

Reading, like riding a bike, is an ability we acquire as children and generally never lose. Some of us are more confident on two wheels than others, and some of us, we are told, are better readers than others. The culture of testing treats reading ability as a broad, generalized skill that is easily measured and assessed. We judge our schools and increasingly individual teachers based on their ability to improve the reading skills of our children. When you think about your ability to read -- if you think about it at all -- the chances are good that you perceive it as not just a skill but a readily transferable skill. Once you learn how to read you can competently read a novel, a newspaper article, or the latest memo from corporate headquarters. Reading is reading is reading. Either you can do it, or you cannot.

This view of reading is only partially correct. The ability to translate written symbols into sounds, commonly called "decoding," is indeed a skill that can be taught and mastered. This explains why you are able to "read" nonsense words such as "rigfap" or "churbit." Once a child masters letter-sound correspondence, or phonics, we might say she can read because she can reproduce the sounds represented by written language. But clearly there's more to reading than making sounds. To be fully literate is to have the communicative power of language at your command -- to read, write, listen, and speak with understanding. As nearly any elementary schoolteacher can attest, it is possible to decode skillfully yet struggle with comprehension. And reading comprehension, the ability to extract meaning from text, is not transferable.

Cognitive scientists describe comprehension as domain specific. If a baseball fan reads "A-Rod hit into a 6-4-3 double play to end the game," he needs not another word to understand that the New York Yankees lost when Alex Rodriguez came up to bat with a man on first base and one out and then hit a groundball to the shortstop, who threw to the second baseman, who relayed to first in time to catch Rodriguez for the final out. If you've never heard of A-Rod or a 6-4-3 double play and cannot reconstruct the game situation, you are not a poor reader. You merely lack the domain-specific knowledge of baseball to fill in the gaps.

Even simple texts, like those on reading tests, are filled with gaps -- presumed domain knowledge -- that the writer assumes the reader knows. Research also tells us that familiarity with domain knowledge increases fluency, broadens vocabulary (you can pick up words in context), and enables deeper reading and listening comprehension.

Think of reading as a two-lock box, requiring two keys to open. The first key is decoding skills. The second key is oral language, vocabulary, and domain -- specific or background knowledge sufficient to understand what is being decoded. Even this simple understanding of reading enables us to see that the very idea of an abstract skill called "reading comprehension" is ill-informed. Yet most U.S. schools teach reading as if both decoding and comprehension are transferable skills. Worse, we test our children's reading ability without regard to whether we have given them the requisite background knowledge they need to be successful.

Researchers have consistently demonstrated that in order to understand what you're reading, you need to know something about the subject matter. Students who are identified as "poor readers" comprehend with relative ease when asked to read passages on familiar subjects, outperforming even "good readers" who lack relevant background knowledge. One well-known study looked at junior high school students judged to be either good or poor readers in terms of their ability to decode or read aloud fluently. Some knew a lot about baseball, while others knew little. The children read a passage written at an early fifth-grade reading level, describing the action in a game. As they read, they were asked to move models of ballplayers around a replica baseball diamond to illustrate the action in the passage. If reading comprehension were a transferable skill that could be taught, practiced, and mastered, then the students who were "good" readers should have had no trouble outperforming the "poor" readers. Just the opposite happened. Poor readers with high content knowledge outperformed good readers with low content knowledge. Such findings should challenge our very idea of who is or is not good reader: If reading is the means by which we receive ideas and information, then the good reader is the one who best understands the author's words.

You have probably experienced the uncomfortable sensation of feeling like a poor reader when struggling to understand a new product warranty, directions for installing a computer operating system, or some other piece of writing where your lack of background knowledge left you feeling out of your depth. Your rate of reading slows. You find yourself repeating sentences to make sure you understand. If this happens only rarely to you, it is because you possess a broad range of background knowledge -- the more you know, the more you are able to communicate and comprehend. The implications of this insight for teaching children to read should be obvious: The more domain knowledge our children receive, the more capable they will become as readers.

The message has not yet reached American classrooms. A stubborn belief in reading comprehension as a transferable skill combined with the immense pressures of testing and accountability results in ever more time being wasted on scattered, trivial, and incoherent reading. A study sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development found that only 4 percent of first-grade class time in American elementary schools is spent on science and only 2 percent, on social studies. In third grade, about 5 percent of class time goes to each of these subjects. Meanwhile a whopping 62 percent in first grade and 47 percent in third grade is spent on language arts.

Most young American children spend anywhere from 90 minutes to two and a half hours a day in something educators call "the literacy block," an extended period that might include reading aloud, small-group "guided reading," independent writing, and other activities aimed at increasing children's verbal skills. Reading instruction largely focuses on teaching and practicing reading -- comprehension strategies -- helping students to find the main idea of a passage and make inferences or identify the author's purpose. The general idea is to arm young readers with a suite of all-purpose tricks and tips for thinking about reading that can be applied to any text the child encounters. Careful readers may be thinking, "If the ability to understand what you read is a function of your domain-specific background knowledge, then how is it possible to teach all-purpose reading strategies?"

Reading strategies figured prominently in the 2000 report of the National Reading Panel, based on evidence that reading strategies work -- which they do, to a point. Reading-comprehension scores tend to go up after instruction in strategies, but it's a onetime boost. The major contribution of such instruction is to help beginning readers know that text, like speech, is supposed to make sense. If someone says something you don't understand, you can always ask that person to repeat, explain, or give an example. Reading strategies offer similar workarounds for print. They're not useless, but repeated practice seems to have little or no effect on scores.

"The mistaken idea that reading is a skill -- learn to crack the code, practice comprehension strategies, and you can read anything -- may be the single biggest factor holding back reading achievement in the country," Daniel T. Willingham, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, recently wrote in The Washington Post. "Students will not meet standards that way. The knowledge base problem must be solved."

If our schools understood and acted upon the clear evidence that domain-specific content knowledge is foundational to literacy, reading instruction might look very different in our children's classrooms. Rather than idle away precious hours on trivial stories or randomly chosen nonfiction, reading, writing, and listening instruction would be built into the study of ancient civilizations in first grade, for example, Greek mythology in second, or the human body in third. Recently, the Core Knowledge Foundation has been piloting precisely such a language-arts program in a small number of schools in New York City and elsewhere. Initial results are promising; however, building domain knowledge is a long-term proposition. All reading tests are cumulative. The measurable benefit of broad background knowledge can take years to reveal itself.

At present, teachers are tacitly discouraged from taking the long view. Indeed, what incentive would second-grade teachers have to emphasize content that might not show up on a test until sixth grade, if even then? There is more upside for teachers in doing exactly what they chiefly do now -- test prep, skills, and strategies -- unless we actively promote a domain-specific approach to language arts.

Consider a reasonable, simple, even elegant alternative to replace the vicious circle of narrowed curriculum and comprehension skills of limited efficacy, which over time depress reading achievement. By tying the content of reading tests to specific curricular content, the circle becomes virtuous. Here's how it would work: Let's say a state's fourth-grade science standards include the circulatory system, atoms and molecules, electricity, and Earth's geologic layers and weather; and social-studies standards include world geography, Europe in the Middle Ages, the American Revolution, and the U.S. Constitution, among other domains. The state's reading tests should include not just fiction and poetry but nonfiction readings on those topics and others culled from those specific curriculum standards. Teachers would still teach to the test, emphasizing domain-specific knowledge (because it might be on the test), but no one would object, because it would help students not only pass the current year's test but build the broad background knowledge that enables them to become stronger readers in general.

The benefits of such "curriculum-based reading tests" would be many: Tests would be fairer and offer a better reflection of how well a student had learned the particular year's curriculum. The tests would also exhibit "consequential validity," meaning they would actually improve education. Instead of wasted hours of mind-numbing test prep and reading-strategy lessons of limited value, the best test-taking strategy would be learning the material in the curriculum standards -- a true virtuous circle.

By contrast, let's imagine what it is like to be a fourth-grade boy in a struggling South Bronx elementary school, sitting for a high-stakes reading test. If you do not pass, you face summer school or repeating the grade. Because the school has large numbers of students below grade level, it has drastically cut back on science, social studies, art, music -- even gym and recess -- to focus on reading and math. You have spent the year learning and practicing reading strategies. Your teacher, worried about her performance, has relentlessly hammered test-taking strategies for months.

The test begins, and the very first passage concerns the customs of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. You do not know what a custom is; neither do you know who the Dutch were, or even what a colony is. You have never heard of Amsterdam, old or new. Certainly it's never come up in class. Without background knowledge, you struggle with most of the passages on the test. You never had a chance. Meanwhile, across town, more affluent students take and pass the test with ease. They are no brighter or more capable than you are, but because they have wider general knowledge -- as students who come from advantaged backgrounds so often do -- the test is not much of a challenge. Those who think reading is a transferable skill and take background knowledge for granted may well wonder what all the fuss is about. Those kids and teachers in the Bronx struggle all year and fail to get ready for this? Why, all the answers are right there on the page!

It ends, as it inevitably must, in the finger-pointing that plagues American education. But do not blame the tests. Taxpayers are entitled to know if the schools they support are any good, and reading tests, all things considered, are quite reliable. Do not blame the test writers. They have no idea what topics are being taught in school and their job is done when tests show certain technical characteristics. It is unfair to blame teachers, because they are mainly operating to the best of their ability using the methods in which they were trained. And let's not blame the parents of our struggling young man in the South Bronx. Is it unreasonable to assume that a child who dutifully goes to school every day will gain access to the same rich, enabling domains of knowledge that more affluent children take for granted?

It's not unreasonable at all. That's what schools are supposed to be for. The only unreasonable thing is our refusal to see reading for what it really is and to teach and test accordingly.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
issue: the local-food revolution doesn't stand a chance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Real literacy involves learning about the world, not just letters and sounds.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
About The Missouri Learning Standards

The Missouri Learning Standards define the knowledge and skills students need in each grade level and course for success in college, other post-secondary training and careers. These expectations are aligned to the Show-Me Standards, which define what all Missouri high school graduates should know and be able to do.

In January 1996, Missouri adopted the Show-Me Standards, a demanding set of content and process standards that have proved to be an excellent frame of reference for student performance in Missouri. Grade-level expectations (GLEs) were then developed to provide grade by grade targets for instruction for teachers. Those expectations were revised regularly based on teacher feedback and new research. As End-of-Course (EOC) assessments were developed at the high school level, Course-level expectations (CLEs) were created to provide teachers with course-specific objectives.

The latest iteration of expectations aligned with the Show-Me Standards are called the Missouri Learning Standards. The Missouri Learning Standards help ensure students learn basic and higher-order skills, including problem solving and critical thinking. The standards are relevant to the real world and reflect the knowledge and skills students need to achieve their goals. Learning outcomes improve when students, parents and teachers work together toward shared goals. The Missouri Learning Standards give school administrators, teachers, parents and students a road map for learning expectations in each grade and course.

The Missouri Learning Standards do not dictate curriculum. Local districts and schools make their own decisions about curriculum, instructional strategies, materials and textbooks.

Missouri Learning Standards

Assessed Standards

The Revised standards, approved on April 19, 2016 are for implementation starting in the 2016-2017 academic year. They will be assessed beginning in the 2017-2018 school year.

English Language Arts - K-5: K-5 PDF | K-5 Word
English Language Arts - 6-12: 6-12 PDF | 6-12 Word
English Language Arts - K-12: K-12 Excel

Additional Resources

Assessed Standards

The Revised standards, approved on April 19, 2016 are for implementation beginning in the 2016-2017 academic year. They will be assessed beginning in the 2017-2018 school year.

Mathematics - K-5: K-5 PDF | K-5 Word
Mathematics - 6-12: 6-12 PDF | 6-12 Word
Mathematics - K-12: K-12 Excel

Additional Resources

Assessed Standards

The MAP Grade-Level and End-of-Course assessments will be based on these standards beginning in the 2017-2018 school year via a Field Test. They will be assessed operationally beginning in the 2018-2019 school year.

Science - K-5: K-5 PDF
Science - 6-12: 6-12 PDF
Science - K-12: K-12 Excel

Additional Resources

Current Standards

The standards, approved on April 19, 2016 are for implementation beginning in the 2016-2017 academic year. They will be assessed in Government and HS American History (optional) EOC assessments in a census field test in 2018-2019 and then in operational form beginning in 2019-2020.

Social Studies - K-5: K-5 PDF | K-5 Word
Social Studies - 6-12: 6-12 PDF | 6-12 Word
Social Studies - K-12: K-12 Excel (Updated 02.15.19)

Additional Resources

In 2016 the State Board of Education authorized the organization of a workgroup to evaluate, and possibly make recommendations to modify or revise Personal Finance learning standards. These standards have not changed since 2006 when the State Board of Education revised graduation requirements for Missouri's students to include one-half credit of Personal Finance. The new standards were approved during the September 2017 State Board meeting for implementation during the 2019-2020 school year.

Additional Resources

On Tuesday, May 14, 2019, the Missouri State Board of Education approved new Computer Science Performance Standards for implementation during the 2019-2020 school year.

Public Hearing Comments from February 19, 2019

April 18, 2019

On Tuesday, April 16, 2019, the Missouri State Board of Education approved new Grade Level Expectations in music, visual art, theater, dance, and media arts.

Return to this page often for updates and notification of professional development opportunities in curriculum development and expectation implementation.

Missouri Show Me Standards (1996).

The standards serve as a blueprint from which local school districts may write challenging curriculum to help all students achieve. Printable version

NEW Missouri Learning Standards - Fine Arts (4/2019)

Crosswalks

Former Fine Arts Standards

Standards Review - Workgroup Process and Updates

If you have any questions about the previous Missouri Fine Arts Learning Expectations or the process of standards review and revision in Missouri, please contact Roger Kelley, Arts Education Director.
Roger Kelley | Arts Education Director | Office of College and Career Readiness
Phone: 573-751-9610 | Fax: 573-526-0812 | roger.kelley@dese.mo.gov

Assessed Standards

The MAP-A assessments continue to be based on these standards.

MAP Alternate Standards - ELA Essential Elements: HTML | Excel

MAP Alternate Standards - Math Essential Elements: HTML | Excel

MAP Alternate Standards - Science: PDF

Additional Resources

MAP Alternate Crosswalk - ELA: PDF | Word

MAP Alternate Crosswalk - Math PDF | Word

MAP Alternate Crosswalk - Science PDF | Word

World Languages

World Languages: PDF | Word

Health/Physical Education

Health Education: PDF | Word | Excel
Physical Education: PDF | Word | Excel

School Counseling

Academic Development: PDF
Career Development: PDF
Personal and Social Development: PDF

Additional Resources

These archived standards are no longer being used for assessment purposes and should not be used for instructional purposes. They are for informational and historical purposes only.

English Language Arts

MLS 2015-17 - English Language Arts - Grades K-12: PDF | Word | Excel
GLE 2.0 - Communication Arts: PDF | Word | Excel
CLE - Communication Arts: PDF | Word | Exce l
GLE 2.0 - Information and Communications Technology Literacy: PDF | Word
CLE - Information and Communications Technology Literacy: PDF | Word

Mathematics

MLS 2015-17 - Mathematics - Grades K-12: PDF | Word | Excel
GLE 2.0 - Mathematics: PDF | Word | Excel
CLE - Mathematics: PDF | Word | Excel

Science

MLS 2008-17
Science - Grades K-5: PDF | Word | Excel
Science - Grades 6-8: PDF | Word | Excel
Science - Biology: PDF | Word | Excel
Science - Other High School Courses: PDF | Word

Fine Arts

Music: PDF | Word | Excel
Theater: PDF | Word | Excel
Visual Arts: PDF | Word | Excel

Assessment Implementation Schedule

On Tuesday, May 17, 2016 the Missouri State Board of Education approved a schedule for implementing assessments aligned to the newly adopted expectations. Initial operational administration of new English language arts and mathematics assessments will take place in the 2017-2018 school year, followed by science in 2018-2019 (Field Testing to occur in 2017-2018 school year) and social studies in 2019-2020. Until new assessments are implemented as described, Grade-Level and End-of-Course assessments will remain unchanged and aligned to the previous MLS. The figure below illustrates the implementation schedule.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
About The Missouri Learning Standards The Missouri Learning Standards define the knowledge and skills students need in each grade level and course for success in college, other post-secondary training and careers. These expectations are aligned to the Show-Me Standards, which define what all Missouri high school graduates should know and be able to do.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Priority Standards | Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Priority standards serve as a solid frame upon which specific teaching and learning decisions are built. They identify what students need to know but not how students learn or how teachers teach. Teachers can use these essential, enduring skills or concepts when developing units to help their studen…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Priority Standards - English Language Arts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Even as phonics battles rage in the realm of primary reading and with two-thirds of American fourth and eighth graders failing to read proficiently, another tussle has been with us for ages regarding how best to develop the vital elements of reading ability that go beyond decoding skills and phonemic awareness.

The dominant view is that the way to improve America's abysmal elementary reading outcomes is for schools to spend more time on literacy instruction. Many schools provide a "literacy block" that can stretch to more than two hours per day, much of it allocated to efforts to develop reading skills such as "finding the main idea," and "determining the author's perspective." But it doesn't seem to be working.

Yet a small army of cognitive psychologists, analysts, and educators has long cast doubt on the view that reading is a discrete skill that can be mastered independently from acquiring knowledge. To these contrarians, a focus on academic content -not generalized reading skills and strategies-will equip students with the background knowledge they need to comprehend all sorts of texts and make them truly literate.

Bringing forward new evidence to this debate, Fordham's associate director of research Adam Tyner and early childhood researcher Sarah Kabourek explore whether classroom time in the nation's elementary schools is being put to the best use. They tap the massive trove of data in the federal Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K: 2011), which follows thousands of students in their kindergarten year through fifth grade. They examine how much classroom time is spent on different subjects, whether students who spend more time on certain subjects make greater progress in reading, and how these effects differ by student characteristics.
Their analysis reveals five key findings. Among them:

Elementary school students in the U.S. spend much more time on ELA than on any other subject.

Increased instructional time in social studies-but not in ELA-is associated with improved reading ability.

The students who benefit the most from additional social studies time are girls and those from lower-income and/or non-English-speaking homes.

Though surely well intended, at the margin, spending extra time on teaching ELA may not yield much in the way of reading improvement. Instead, elementary schools should consider making more room for high-quality instruction in history, civics, geography, and the other knowledge-rich-and engaging-subjects that comprise social studies. Our youngest generation of readers will be all the stronger for it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Social Studies Instruction and Reading Comprehension: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Even as phonics battles rage in the realm of primary reading and with two-thirds of American fourth and eighth graders failing to read proficiently, another tussle has been with us for ages regarding how best to develop the vital elements of reading ability that go beyond decoding skills and phonemic awareness.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Even as phonics battles rage in the realm of primary reading and with two-thirds of American fourth and eighth graders failing to read proficiently, another tussle has been with us for ages regarding how best to develop the vital elements of reading ability that go beyond decoding skills and phonemic awareness.

The dominant view is that the way to improve America's abysmal elementary reading outcomes is for schools to spend more time on literacy instruction. Many schools provide a "literacy block" that can stretch to more than two hours per day, much of it allocated to efforts to develop reading skills such as "finding the main idea," and "determining the author's perspective." But it doesn't seem to be working.

Yet a small army of cognitive psychologists, analysts, and educators has long cast doubt on the view that reading is a discrete skill that can be mastered independently from acquiring knowledge. To these contrarians, a focus on academic content -not generalized reading skills and strategies-will equip students with the background knowledge they need to comprehend all sorts of texts and make them truly literate.

Bringing forward new evidence to this debate, Fordham's associate director of research Adam Tyner and early childhood researcher Sarah Kabourek explore whether classroom time in the nation's elementary schools is being put to the best use. They tap the massive trove of data in the federal Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K: 2011), which follows thousands of students in their kindergarten year through fifth grade. They examine how much classroom time is spent on different subjects, whether students who spend more time on certain subjects make greater progress in reading, and how these effects differ by student characteristics.
Their analysis reveals five key findings. Among them:

Elementary school students in the U.S. spend much more time on ELA than on any other subject.

Increased instructional time in social studies-but not in ELA-is associated with improved reading ability.

The students who benefit the most from additional social studies time are girls and those from lower-income and/or non-English-speaking homes.

Though surely well intended, at the margin, spending extra time on teaching ELA may not yield much in the way of reading improvement. Instead, elementary schools should consider making more room for high-quality instruction in history, civics, geography, and the other knowledge-rich-and engaging-subjects that comprise social studies. Our youngest generation of readers will be all the stronger for it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Social Studies Instruction and Reading Comprehension: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Even as phonics battles rage in the realm of primary reading and with two-thirds of American fourth and eighth graders failing to read proficiently, another tussle has been with us for ages regarding how best to develop the vital elements of reading ability that go beyond decoding skills and phonemic awareness.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It is among the most common of nightmares. You dream of taking a test for which you are completely unprepared -- you've never studied the material or even attended the course. For millions of American schoolchildren, it is a nightmare from which they cannot wake, a trial visited upon them each year when the law requires them to take reading tests with little preparation. Sure, formally preparing for reading tests has become more than just a ritual for schools. It is practically their raison d'etre! Yet students are not prepared in the way they need to be.

Schools and teachers may indeed be making a Herculean effort to raise reading scores, but these efforts do little to improve reading achievement and to prepare children for college, a career, and a lifetime of productive, engaged citizenship. This wasted effort is not because our teachers are lazy or of low quality. Rather, too many of our schools labor under fundamental misconceptions about reading comprehension -- how it works, how to improve it, and how to test it.

Reading, like riding a bike, is an ability we acquire as children and generally never lose. Some of us are more confident on two wheels than others, and some of us, we are told, are better readers than others. The culture of testing treats reading ability as a broad, generalized skill that is easily measured and assessed. We judge our schools and increasingly individual teachers based on their ability to improve the reading skills of our children. When you think about your ability to read -- if you think about it at all -- the chances are good that you perceive it as not just a skill but a readily transferable skill. Once you learn how to read you can competently read a novel, a newspaper article, or the latest memo from corporate headquarters. Reading is reading is reading. Either you can do it, or you cannot.

This view of reading is only partially correct. The ability to translate written symbols into sounds, commonly called "decoding," is indeed a skill that can be taught and mastered. This explains why you are able to "read" nonsense words such as "rigfap" or "churbit." Once a child masters letter-sound correspondence, or phonics, we might say she can read because she can reproduce the sounds represented by written language. But clearly there's more to reading than making sounds. To be fully literate is to have the communicative power of language at your command -- to read, write, listen, and speak with understanding. As nearly any elementary schoolteacher can attest, it is possible to decode skillfully yet struggle with comprehension. And reading comprehension, the ability to extract meaning from text, is not transferable.

Cognitive scientists describe comprehension as domain specific. If a baseball fan reads "A-Rod hit into a 6-4-3 double play to end the game," he needs not another word to understand that the New York Yankees lost when Alex Rodriguez came up to bat with a man on first base and one out and then hit a groundball to the shortstop, who threw to the second baseman, who relayed to first in time to catch Rodriguez for the final out. If you've never heard of A-Rod or a 6-4-3 double play and cannot reconstruct the game situation, you are not a poor reader. You merely lack the domain-specific knowledge of baseball to fill in the gaps.

Even simple texts, like those on reading tests, are filled with gaps -- presumed domain knowledge -- that the writer assumes the reader knows. Research also tells us that familiarity with domain knowledge increases fluency, broadens vocabulary (you can pick up words in context), and enables deeper reading and listening comprehension.

Think of reading as a two-lock box, requiring two keys to open. The first key is decoding skills. The second key is oral language, vocabulary, and domain -- specific or background knowledge sufficient to understand what is being decoded. Even this simple understanding of reading enables us to see that the very idea of an abstract skill called "reading comprehension" is ill-informed. Yet most U.S. schools teach reading as if both decoding and comprehension are transferable skills. Worse, we test our children's reading ability without regard to whether we have given them the requisite background knowledge they need to be successful.

Researchers have consistently demonstrated that in order to understand what you're reading, you need to know something about the subject matter. Students who are identified as "poor readers" comprehend with relative ease when asked to read passages on familiar subjects, outperforming even "good readers" who lack relevant background knowledge. One well-known study looked at junior high school students judged to be either good or poor readers in terms of their ability to decode or read aloud fluently. Some knew a lot about baseball, while others knew little. The children read a passage written at an early fifth-grade reading level, describing the action in a game. As they read, they were asked to move models of ballplayers around a replica baseball diamond to illustrate the action in the passage. If reading comprehension were a transferable skill that could be taught, practiced, and mastered, then the students who were "good" readers should have had no trouble outperforming the "poor" readers. Just the opposite happened. Poor readers with high content knowledge outperformed good readers with low content knowledge. Such findings should challenge our very idea of who is or is not good reader: If reading is the means by which we receive ideas and information, then the good reader is the one who best understands the author's words.

You have probably experienced the uncomfortable sensation of feeling like a poor reader when struggling to understand a new product warranty, directions for installing a computer operating system, or some other piece of writing where your lack of background knowledge left you feeling out of your depth. Your rate of reading slows. You find yourself repeating sentences to make sure you understand. If this happens only rarely to you, it is because you possess a broad range of background knowledge -- the more you know, the more you are able to communicate and comprehend. The implications of this insight for teaching children to read should be obvious: The more domain knowledge our children receive, the more capable they will become as readers.

The message has not yet reached American classrooms. A stubborn belief in reading comprehension as a transferable skill combined with the immense pressures of testing and accountability results in ever more time being wasted on scattered, trivial, and incoherent reading. A study sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development found that only 4 percent of first-grade class time in American elementary schools is spent on science and only 2 percent, on social studies. In third grade, about 5 percent of class time goes to each of these subjects. Meanwhile a whopping 62 percent in first grade and 47 percent in third grade is spent on language arts.

Most young American children spend anywhere from 90 minutes to two and a half hours a day in something educators call "the literacy block," an extended period that might include reading aloud, small-group "guided reading," independent writing, and other activities aimed at increasing children's verbal skills. Reading instruction largely focuses on teaching and practicing reading -- comprehension strategies -- helping students to find the main idea of a passage and make inferences or identify the author's purpose. The general idea is to arm young readers with a suite of all-purpose tricks and tips for thinking about reading that can be applied to any text the child encounters. Careful readers may be thinking, "If the ability to understand what you read is a function of your domain-specific background knowledge, then how is it possible to teach all-purpose reading strategies?"

Reading strategies figured prominently in the 2000 report of the National Reading Panel, based on evidence that reading strategies work -- which they do, to a point. Reading-comprehension scores tend to go up after instruction in strategies, but it's a onetime boost. The major contribution of such instruction is to help beginning readers know that text, like speech, is supposed to make sense. If someone says something you don't understand, you can always ask that person to repeat, explain, or give an example. Reading strategies offer similar workarounds for print. They're not useless, but repeated practice seems to have little or no effect on scores.

"The mistaken idea that reading is a skill -- learn to crack the code, practice comprehension strategies, and you can read anything -- may be the single biggest factor holding back reading achievement in the country," Daniel T. Willingham, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, recently wrote in The Washington Post. "Students will not meet standards that way. The knowledge base problem must be solved."

If our schools understood and acted upon the clear evidence that domain-specific content knowledge is foundational to literacy, reading instruction might look very different in our children's classrooms. Rather than idle away precious hours on trivial stories or randomly chosen nonfiction, reading, writing, and listening instruction would be built into the study of ancient civilizations in first grade, for example, Greek mythology in second, or the human body in third. Recently, the Core Knowledge Foundation has been piloting precisely such a language-arts program in a small number of schools in New York City and elsewhere. Initial results are promising; however, building domain knowledge is a long-term proposition. All reading tests are cumulative. The measurable benefit of broad background knowledge can take years to reveal itself.

At present, teachers are tacitly discouraged from taking the long view. Indeed, what incentive would second-grade teachers have to emphasize content that might not show up on a test until sixth grade, if even then? There is more upside for teachers in doing exactly what they chiefly do now -- test prep, skills, and strategies -- unless we actively promote a domain-specific approach to language arts.

Consider a reasonable, simple, even elegant alternative to replace the vicious circle of narrowed curriculum and comprehension skills of limited efficacy, which over time depress reading achievement. By tying the content of reading tests to specific curricular content, the circle becomes virtuous. Here's how it would work: Let's say a state's fourth-grade science standards include the circulatory system, atoms and molecules, electricity, and Earth's geologic layers and weather; and social-studies standards include world geography, Europe in the Middle Ages, the American Revolution, and the U.S. Constitution, among other domains. The state's reading tests should include not just fiction and poetry but nonfiction readings on those topics and others culled from those specific curriculum standards. Teachers would still teach to the test, emphasizing domain-specific knowledge (because it might be on the test), but no one would object, because it would help students not only pass the current year's test but build the broad background knowledge that enables them to become stronger readers in general.

The benefits of such "curriculum-based reading tests" would be many: Tests would be fairer and offer a better reflection of how well a student had learned the particular year's curriculum. The tests would also exhibit "consequential validity," meaning they would actually improve education. Instead of wasted hours of mind-numbing test prep and reading-strategy lessons of limited value, the best test-taking strategy would be learning the material in the curriculum standards -- a true virtuous circle.

By contrast, let's imagine what it is like to be a fourth-grade boy in a struggling South Bronx elementary school, sitting for a high-stakes reading test. If you do not pass, you face summer school or repeating the grade. Because the school has large numbers of students below grade level, it has drastically cut back on science, social studies, art, music -- even gym and recess -- to focus on reading and math. You have spent the year learning and practicing reading strategies. Your teacher, worried about her performance, has relentlessly hammered test-taking strategies for months.

The test begins, and the very first passage concerns the customs of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. You do not know what a custom is; neither do you know who the Dutch were, or even what a colony is. You have never heard of Amsterdam, old or new. Certainly it's never come up in class. Without background knowledge, you struggle with most of the passages on the test. You never had a chance. Meanwhile, across town, more affluent students take and pass the test with ease. They are no brighter or more capable than you are, but because they have wider general knowledge -- as students who come from advantaged backgrounds so often do -- the test is not much of a challenge. Those who think reading is a transferable skill and take background knowledge for granted may well wonder what all the fuss is about. Those kids and teachers in the Bronx struggle all year and fail to get ready for this? Why, all the answers are right there on the page!

It ends, as it inevitably must, in the finger-pointing that plagues American education. But do not blame the tests. Taxpayers are entitled to know if the schools they support are any good, and reading tests, all things considered, are quite reliable. Do not blame the test writers. They have no idea what topics are being taught in school and their job is done when tests show certain technical characteristics. It is unfair to blame teachers, because they are mainly operating to the best of their ability using the methods in which they were trained. And let's not blame the parents of our struggling young man in the South Bronx. Is it unreasonable to assume that a child who dutifully goes to school every day will gain access to the same rich, enabling domains of knowledge that more affluent children take for granted?

It's not unreasonable at all. That's what schools are supposed to be for. The only unreasonable thing is our refusal to see reading for what it really is and to teach and test accordingly.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
issue: the local-food revolution doesn't stand a chance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Real literacy involves learning about the world, not just letters and sounds.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It is among the most common of nightmares. You dream of taking a test for which you are completely unprepared -- you've never studied the material or even attended the course. For millions of American schoolchildren, it is a nightmare from which they cannot wake, a trial visited upon them each year when the law requires them to take reading tests with little preparation. Sure, formally preparing for reading tests has become more than just a ritual for schools. It is practically their raison d'etre! Yet students are not prepared in the way they need to be.

Schools and teachers may indeed be making a Herculean effort to raise reading scores, but these efforts do little to improve reading achievement and to prepare children for college, a career, and a lifetime of productive, engaged citizenship. This wasted effort is not because our teachers are lazy or of low quality. Rather, too many of our schools labor under fundamental misconceptions about reading comprehension -- how it works, how to improve it, and how to test it.

Reading, like riding a bike, is an ability we acquire as children and generally never lose. Some of us are more confident on two wheels than others, and some of us, we are told, are better readers than others. The culture of testing treats reading ability as a broad, generalized skill that is easily measured and assessed. We judge our schools and increasingly individual teachers based on their ability to improve the reading skills of our children. When you think about your ability to read -- if you think about it at all -- the chances are good that you perceive it as not just a skill but a readily transferable skill. Once you learn how to read you can competently read a novel, a newspaper article, or the latest memo from corporate headquarters. Reading is reading is reading. Either you can do it, or you cannot.

This view of reading is only partially correct. The ability to translate written symbols into sounds, commonly called "decoding," is indeed a skill that can be taught and mastered. This explains why you are able to "read" nonsense words such as "rigfap" or "churbit." Once a child masters letter-sound correspondence, or phonics, we might say she can read because she can reproduce the sounds represented by written language. But clearly there's more to reading than making sounds. To be fully literate is to have the communicative power of language at your command -- to read, write, listen, and speak with understanding. As nearly any elementary schoolteacher can attest, it is possible to decode skillfully yet struggle with comprehension. And reading comprehension, the ability to extract meaning from text, is not transferable.

Cognitive scientists describe comprehension as domain specific. If a baseball fan reads "A-Rod hit into a 6-4-3 double play to end the game," he needs not another word to understand that the New York Yankees lost when Alex Rodriguez came up to bat with a man on first base and one out and then hit a groundball to the shortstop, who threw to the second baseman, who relayed to first in time to catch Rodriguez for the final out. If you've never heard of A-Rod or a 6-4-3 double play and cannot reconstruct the game situation, you are not a poor reader. You merely lack the domain-specific knowledge of baseball to fill in the gaps.

Even simple texts, like those on reading tests, are filled with gaps -- presumed domain knowledge -- that the writer assumes the reader knows. Research also tells us that familiarity with domain knowledge increases fluency, broadens vocabulary (you can pick up words in context), and enables deeper reading and listening comprehension.

Think of reading as a two-lock box, requiring two keys to open. The first key is decoding skills. The second key is oral language, vocabulary, and domain -- specific or background knowledge sufficient to understand what is being decoded. Even this simple understanding of reading enables us to see that the very idea of an abstract skill called "reading comprehension" is ill-informed. Yet most U.S. schools teach reading as if both decoding and comprehension are transferable skills. Worse, we test our children's reading ability without regard to whether we have given them the requisite background knowledge they need to be successful.

Researchers have consistently demonstrated that in order to understand what you're reading, you need to know something about the subject matter. Students who are identified as "poor readers" comprehend with relative ease when asked to read passages on familiar subjects, outperforming even "good readers" who lack relevant background knowledge. One well-known study looked at junior high school students judged to be either good or poor readers in terms of their ability to decode or read aloud fluently. Some knew a lot about baseball, while others knew little. The children read a passage written at an early fifth-grade reading level, describing the action in a game. As they read, they were asked to move models of ballplayers around a replica baseball diamond to illustrate the action in the passage. If reading comprehension were a transferable skill that could be taught, practiced, and mastered, then the students who were "good" readers should have had no trouble outperforming the "poor" readers. Just the opposite happened. Poor readers with high content knowledge outperformed good readers with low content knowledge. Such findings should challenge our very idea of who is or is not good reader: If reading is the means by which we receive ideas and information, then the good reader is the one who best understands the author's words.

You have probably experienced the uncomfortable sensation of feeling like a poor reader when struggling to understand a new product warranty, directions for installing a computer operating system, or some other piece of writing where your lack of background knowledge left you feeling out of your depth. Your rate of reading slows. You find yourself repeating sentences to make sure you understand. If this happens only rarely to you, it is because you possess a broad range of background knowledge -- the more you know, the more you are able to communicate and comprehend. The implications of this insight for teaching children to read should be obvious: The more domain knowledge our children receive, the more capable they will become as readers.

The message has not yet reached American classrooms. A stubborn belief in reading comprehension as a transferable skill combined with the immense pressures of testing and accountability results in ever more time being wasted on scattered, trivial, and incoherent reading. A study sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development found that only 4 percent of first-grade class time in American elementary schools is spent on science and only 2 percent, on social studies. In third grade, about 5 percent of class time goes to each of these subjects. Meanwhile a whopping 62 percent in first grade and 47 percent in third grade is spent on language arts.

Most young American children spend anywhere from 90 minutes to two and a half hours a day in something educators call "the literacy block," an extended period that might include reading aloud, small-group "guided reading," independent writing, and other activities aimed at increasing children's verbal skills. Reading instruction largely focuses on teaching and practicing reading -- comprehension strategies -- helping students to find the main idea of a passage and make inferences or identify the author's purpose. The general idea is to arm young readers with a suite of all-purpose tricks and tips for thinking about reading that can be applied to any text the child encounters. Careful readers may be thinking, "If the ability to understand what you read is a function of your domain-specific background knowledge, then how is it possible to teach all-purpose reading strategies?"

Reading strategies figured prominently in the 2000 report of the National Reading Panel, based on evidence that reading strategies work -- which they do, to a point. Reading-comprehension scores tend to go up after instruction in strategies, but it's a onetime boost. The major contribution of such instruction is to help beginning readers know that text, like speech, is supposed to make sense. If someone says something you don't understand, you can always ask that person to repeat, explain, or give an example. Reading strategies offer similar workarounds for print. They're not useless, but repeated practice seems to have little or no effect on scores.

"The mistaken idea that reading is a skill -- learn to crack the code, practice comprehension strategies, and you can read anything -- may be the single biggest factor holding back reading achievement in the country," Daniel T. Willingham, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, recently wrote in The Washington Post. "Students will not meet standards that way. The knowledge base problem must be solved."

If our schools understood and acted upon the clear evidence that domain-specific content knowledge is foundational to literacy, reading instruction might look very different in our children's classrooms. Rather than idle away precious hours on trivial stories or randomly chosen nonfiction, reading, writing, and listening instruction would be built into the study of ancient civilizations in first grade, for example, Greek mythology in second, or the human body in third. Recently, the Core Knowledge Foundation has been piloting precisely such a language-arts program in a small number of schools in New York City and elsewhere. Initial results are promising; however, building domain knowledge is a long-term proposition. All reading tests are cumulative. The measurable benefit of broad background knowledge can take years to reveal itself.

At present, teachers are tacitly discouraged from taking the long view. Indeed, what incentive would second-grade teachers have to emphasize content that might not show up on a test until sixth grade, if even then? There is more upside for teachers in doing exactly what they chiefly do now -- test prep, skills, and strategies -- unless we actively promote a domain-specific approach to language arts.

Consider a reasonable, simple, even elegant alternative to replace the vicious circle of narrowed curriculum and comprehension skills of limited efficacy, which over time depress reading achievement. By tying the content of reading tests to specific curricular content, the circle becomes virtuous. Here's how it would work: Let's say a state's fourth-grade science standards include the circulatory system, atoms and molecules, electricity, and Earth's geologic layers and weather; and social-studies standards include world geography, Europe in the Middle Ages, the American Revolution, and the U.S. Constitution, among other domains. The state's reading tests should include not just fiction and poetry but nonfiction readings on those topics and others culled from those specific curriculum standards. Teachers would still teach to the test, emphasizing domain-specific knowledge (because it might be on the test), but no one would object, because it would help students not only pass the current year's test but build the broad background knowledge that enables them to become stronger readers in general.

The benefits of such "curriculum-based reading tests" would be many: Tests would be fairer and offer a better reflection of how well a student had learned the particular year's curriculum. The tests would also exhibit "consequential validity," meaning they would actually improve education. Instead of wasted hours of mind-numbing test prep and reading-strategy lessons of limited value, the best test-taking strategy would be learning the material in the curriculum standards -- a true virtuous circle.

By contrast, let's imagine what it is like to be a fourth-grade boy in a struggling South Bronx elementary school, sitting for a high-stakes reading test. If you do not pass, you face summer school or repeating the grade. Because the school has large numbers of students below grade level, it has drastically cut back on science, social studies, art, music -- even gym and recess -- to focus on reading and math. You have spent the year learning and practicing reading strategies. Your teacher, worried about her performance, has relentlessly hammered test-taking strategies for months.

The test begins, and the very first passage concerns the customs of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. You do not know what a custom is; neither do you know who the Dutch were, or even what a colony is. You have never heard of Amsterdam, old or new. Certainly it's never come up in class. Without background knowledge, you struggle with most of the passages on the test. You never had a chance. Meanwhile, across town, more affluent students take and pass the test with ease. They are no brighter or more capable than you are, but because they have wider general knowledge -- as students who come from advantaged backgrounds so often do -- the test is not much of a challenge. Those who think reading is a transferable skill and take background knowledge for granted may well wonder what all the fuss is about. Those kids and teachers in the Bronx struggle all year and fail to get ready for this? Why, all the answers are right there on the page!

It ends, as it inevitably must, in the finger-pointing that plagues American education. But do not blame the tests. Taxpayers are entitled to know if the schools they support are any good, and reading tests, all things considered, are quite reliable. Do not blame the test writers. They have no idea what topics are being taught in school and their job is done when tests show certain technical characteristics. It is unfair to blame teachers, because they are mainly operating to the best of their ability using the methods in which they were trained. And let's not blame the parents of our struggling young man in the South Bronx. Is it unreasonable to assume that a child who dutifully goes to school every day will gain access to the same rich, enabling domains of knowledge that more affluent children take for granted?

It's not unreasonable at all. That's what schools are supposed to be for. The only unreasonable thing is our refusal to see reading for what it really is and to teach and test accordingly.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
issue: the local-food revolution doesn't stand a chance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Real literacy involves learning about the world, not just letters and sounds.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It is among the most common of nightmares. You dream of taking a test for which you are completely unprepared -- you've never studied the material or even attended the course. For millions of American schoolchildren, it is a nightmare from which they cannot wake, a trial visited upon them each year when the law requires them to take reading tests with little preparation. Sure, formally preparing for reading tests has become more than just a ritual for schools. It is practically their raison d'etre! Yet students are not prepared in the way they need to be.

Schools and teachers may indeed be making a Herculean effort to raise reading scores, but these efforts do little to improve reading achievement and to prepare children for college, a career, and a lifetime of productive, engaged citizenship. This wasted effort is not because our teachers are lazy or of low quality. Rather, too many of our schools labor under fundamental misconceptions about reading comprehension -- how it works, how to improve it, and how to test it.

Reading, like riding a bike, is an ability we acquire as children and generally never lose. Some of us are more confident on two wheels than others, and some of us, we are told, are better readers than others. The culture of testing treats reading ability as a broad, generalized skill that is easily measured and assessed. We judge our schools and increasingly individual teachers based on their ability to improve the reading skills of our children. When you think about your ability to read -- if you think about it at all -- the chances are good that you perceive it as not just a skill but a readily transferable skill. Once you learn how to read you can competently read a novel, a newspaper article, or the latest memo from corporate headquarters. Reading is reading is reading. Either you can do it, or you cannot.

This view of reading is only partially correct. The ability to translate written symbols into sounds, commonly called "decoding," is indeed a skill that can be taught and mastered. This explains why you are able to "read" nonsense words such as "rigfap" or "churbit." Once a child masters letter-sound correspondence, or phonics, we might say she can read because she can reproduce the sounds represented by written language. But clearly there's more to reading than making sounds. To be fully literate is to have the communicative power of language at your command -- to read, write, listen, and speak with understanding. As nearly any elementary schoolteacher can attest, it is possible to decode skillfully yet struggle with comprehension. And reading comprehension, the ability to extract meaning from text, is not transferable.

Cognitive scientists describe comprehension as domain specific. If a baseball fan reads "A-Rod hit into a 6-4-3 double play to end the game," he needs not another word to understand that the New York Yankees lost when Alex Rodriguez came up to bat with a man on first base and one out and then hit a groundball to the shortstop, who threw to the second baseman, who relayed to first in time to catch Rodriguez for the final out. If you've never heard of A-Rod or a 6-4-3 double play and cannot reconstruct the game situation, you are not a poor reader. You merely lack the domain-specific knowledge of baseball to fill in the gaps.

Even simple texts, like those on reading tests, are filled with gaps -- presumed domain knowledge -- that the writer assumes the reader knows. Research also tells us that familiarity with domain knowledge increases fluency, broadens vocabulary (you can pick up words in context), and enables deeper reading and listening comprehension.

Think of reading as a two-lock box, requiring two keys to open. The first key is decoding skills. The second key is oral language, vocabulary, and domain -- specific or background knowledge sufficient to understand what is being decoded. Even this simple understanding of reading enables us to see that the very idea of an abstract skill called "reading comprehension" is ill-informed. Yet most U.S. schools teach reading as if both decoding and comprehension are transferable skills. Worse, we test our children's reading ability without regard to whether we have given them the requisite background knowledge they need to be successful.

Researchers have consistently demonstrated that in order to understand what you're reading, you need to know something about the subject matter. Students who are identified as "poor readers" comprehend with relative ease when asked to read passages on familiar subjects, outperforming even "good readers" who lack relevant background knowledge. One well-known study looked at junior high school students judged to be either good or poor readers in terms of their ability to decode or read aloud fluently. Some knew a lot about baseball, while others knew little. The children read a passage written at an early fifth-grade reading level, describing the action in a game. As they read, they were asked to move models of ballplayers around a replica baseball diamond to illustrate the action in the passage. If reading comprehension were a transferable skill that could be taught, practiced, and mastered, then the students who were "good" readers should have had no trouble outperforming the "poor" readers. Just the opposite happened. Poor readers with high content knowledge outperformed good readers with low content knowledge. Such findings should challenge our very idea of who is or is not good reader: If reading is the means by which we receive ideas and information, then the good reader is the one who best understands the author's words.

You have probably experienced the uncomfortable sensation of feeling like a poor reader when struggling to understand a new product warranty, directions for installing a computer operating system, or some other piece of writing where your lack of background knowledge left you feeling out of your depth. Your rate of reading slows. You find yourself repeating sentences to make sure you understand. If this happens only rarely to you, it is because you possess a broad range of background knowledge -- the more you know, the more you are able to communicate and comprehend. The implications of this insight for teaching children to read should be obvious: The more domain knowledge our children receive, the more capable they will become as readers.

The message has not yet reached American classrooms. A stubborn belief in reading comprehension as a transferable skill combined with the immense pressures of testing and accountability results in ever more time being wasted on scattered, trivial, and incoherent reading. A study sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development found that only 4 percent of first-grade class time in American elementary schools is spent on science and only 2 percent, on social studies. In third grade, about 5 percent of class time goes to each of these subjects. Meanwhile a whopping 62 percent in first grade and 47 percent in third grade is spent on language arts.

Most young American children spend anywhere from 90 minutes to two and a half hours a day in something educators call "the literacy block," an extended period that might include reading aloud, small-group "guided reading," independent writing, and other activities aimed at increasing children's verbal skills. Reading instruction largely focuses on teaching and practicing reading -- comprehension strategies -- helping students to find the main idea of a passage and make inferences or identify the author's purpose. The general idea is to arm young readers with a suite of all-purpose tricks and tips for thinking about reading that can be applied to any text the child encounters. Careful readers may be thinking, "If the ability to understand what you read is a function of your domain-specific background knowledge, then how is it possible to teach all-purpose reading strategies?"

Reading strategies figured prominently in the 2000 report of the National Reading Panel, based on evidence that reading strategies work -- which they do, to a point. Reading-comprehension scores tend to go up after instruction in strategies, but it's a onetime boost. The major contribution of such instruction is to help beginning readers know that text, like speech, is supposed to make sense. If someone says something you don't understand, you can always ask that person to repeat, explain, or give an example. Reading strategies offer similar workarounds for print. They're not useless, but repeated practice seems to have little or no effect on scores.

"The mistaken idea that reading is a skill -- learn to crack the code, practice comprehension strategies, and you can read anything -- may be the single biggest factor holding back reading achievement in the country," Daniel T. Willingham, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, recently wrote in The Washington Post. "Students will not meet standards that way. The knowledge base problem must be solved."

If our schools understood and acted upon the clear evidence that domain-specific content knowledge is foundational to literacy, reading instruction might look very different in our children's classrooms. Rather than idle away precious hours on trivial stories or randomly chosen nonfiction, reading, writing, and listening instruction would be built into the study of ancient civilizations in first grade, for example, Greek mythology in second, or the human body in third. Recently, the Core Knowledge Foundation has been piloting precisely such a language-arts program in a small number of schools in New York City and elsewhere. Initial results are promising; however, building domain knowledge is a long-term proposition. All reading tests are cumulative. The measurable benefit of broad background knowledge can take years to reveal itself.

At present, teachers are tacitly discouraged from taking the long view. Indeed, what incentive would second-grade teachers have to emphasize content that might not show up on a test until sixth grade, if even then? There is more upside for teachers in doing exactly what they chiefly do now -- test prep, skills, and strategies -- unless we actively promote a domain-specific approach to language arts.

Consider a reasonable, simple, even elegant alternative to replace the vicious circle of narrowed curriculum and comprehension skills of limited efficacy, which over time depress reading achievement. By tying the content of reading tests to specific curricular content, the circle becomes virtuous. Here's how it would work: Let's say a state's fourth-grade science standards include the circulatory system, atoms and molecules, electricity, and Earth's geologic layers and weather; and social-studies standards include world geography, Europe in the Middle Ages, the American Revolution, and the U.S. Constitution, among other domains. The state's reading tests should include not just fiction and poetry but nonfiction readings on those topics and others culled from those specific curriculum standards. Teachers would still teach to the test, emphasizing domain-specific knowledge (because it might be on the test), but no one would object, because it would help students not only pass the current year's test but build the broad background knowledge that enables them to become stronger readers in general.

The benefits of such "curriculum-based reading tests" would be many: Tests would be fairer and offer a better reflection of how well a student had learned the particular year's curriculum. The tests would also exhibit "consequential validity," meaning they would actually improve education. Instead of wasted hours of mind-numbing test prep and reading-strategy lessons of limited value, the best test-taking strategy would be learning the material in the curriculum standards -- a true virtuous circle.

By contrast, let's imagine what it is like to be a fourth-grade boy in a struggling South Bronx elementary school, sitting for a high-stakes reading test. If you do not pass, you face summer school or repeating the grade. Because the school has large numbers of students below grade level, it has drastically cut back on science, social studies, art, music -- even gym and recess -- to focus on reading and math. You have spent the year learning and practicing reading strategies. Your teacher, worried about her performance, has relentlessly hammered test-taking strategies for months.

The test begins, and the very first passage concerns the customs of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. You do not know what a custom is; neither do you know who the Dutch were, or even what a colony is. You have never heard of Amsterdam, old or new. Certainly it's never come up in class. Without background knowledge, you struggle with most of the passages on the test. You never had a chance. Meanwhile, across town, more affluent students take and pass the test with ease. They are no brighter or more capable than you are, but because they have wider general knowledge -- as students who come from advantaged backgrounds so often do -- the test is not much of a challenge. Those who think reading is a transferable skill and take background knowledge for granted may well wonder what all the fuss is about. Those kids and teachers in the Bronx struggle all year and fail to get ready for this? Why, all the answers are right there on the page!

It ends, as it inevitably must, in the finger-pointing that plagues American education. But do not blame the tests. Taxpayers are entitled to know if the schools they support are any good, and reading tests, all things considered, are quite reliable. Do not blame the test writers. They have no idea what topics are being taught in school and their job is done when tests show certain technical characteristics. It is unfair to blame teachers, because they are mainly operating to the best of their ability using the methods in which they were trained. And let's not blame the parents of our struggling young man in the South Bronx. Is it unreasonable to assume that a child who dutifully goes to school every day will gain access to the same rich, enabling domains of knowledge that more affluent children take for granted?

It's not unreasonable at all. That's what schools are supposed to be for. The only unreasonable thing is our refusal to see reading for what it really is and to teach and test accordingly.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
issue: the local-food revolution doesn't stand a chance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Real literacy involves learning about the world, not just letters and sounds.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It is among the most common of nightmares. You dream of taking a test for which you are completely unprepared -- you've never studied the material or even attended the course. For millions of American schoolchildren, it is a nightmare from which they cannot wake, a trial visited upon them each year when the law requires them to take reading tests with little preparation. Sure, formally preparing for reading tests has become more than just a ritual for schools. It is practically their raison d'etre! Yet students are not prepared in the way they need to be.

Schools and teachers may indeed be making a Herculean effort to raise reading scores, but these efforts do little to improve reading achievement and to prepare children for college, a career, and a lifetime of productive, engaged citizenship. This wasted effort is not because our teachers are lazy or of low quality. Rather, too many of our schools labor under fundamental misconceptions about reading comprehension -- how it works, how to improve it, and how to test it.

Reading, like riding a bike, is an ability we acquire as children and generally never lose. Some of us are more confident on two wheels than others, and some of us, we are told, are better readers than others. The culture of testing treats reading ability as a broad, generalized skill that is easily measured and assessed. We judge our schools and increasingly individual teachers based on their ability to improve the reading skills of our children. When you think about your ability to read -- if you think about it at all -- the chances are good that you perceive it as not just a skill but a readily transferable skill. Once you learn how to read you can competently read a novel, a newspaper article, or the latest memo from corporate headquarters. Reading is reading is reading. Either you can do it, or you cannot.

This view of reading is only partially correct. The ability to translate written symbols into sounds, commonly called "decoding," is indeed a skill that can be taught and mastered. This explains why you are able to "read" nonsense words such as "rigfap" or "churbit." Once a child masters letter-sound correspondence, or phonics, we might say she can read because she can reproduce the sounds represented by written language. But clearly there's more to reading than making sounds. To be fully literate is to have the communicative power of language at your command -- to read, write, listen, and speak with understanding. As nearly any elementary schoolteacher can attest, it is possible to decode skillfully yet struggle with comprehension. And reading comprehension, the ability to extract meaning from text, is not transferable.

Cognitive scientists describe comprehension as domain specific. If a baseball fan reads "A-Rod hit into a 6-4-3 double play to end the game," he needs not another word to understand that the New York Yankees lost when Alex Rodriguez came up to bat with a man on first base and one out and then hit a groundball to the shortstop, who threw to the second baseman, who relayed to first in time to catch Rodriguez for the final out. If you've never heard of A-Rod or a 6-4-3 double play and cannot reconstruct the game situation, you are not a poor reader. You merely lack the domain-specific knowledge of baseball to fill in the gaps.

Even simple texts, like those on reading tests, are filled with gaps -- presumed domain knowledge -- that the writer assumes the reader knows. Research also tells us that familiarity with domain knowledge increases fluency, broadens vocabulary (you can pick up words in context), and enables deeper reading and listening comprehension.

Think of reading as a two-lock box, requiring two keys to open. The first key is decoding skills. The second key is oral language, vocabulary, and domain -- specific or background knowledge sufficient to understand what is being decoded. Even this simple understanding of reading enables us to see that the very idea of an abstract skill called "reading comprehension" is ill-informed. Yet most U.S. schools teach reading as if both decoding and comprehension are transferable skills. Worse, we test our children's reading ability without regard to whether we have given them the requisite background knowledge they need to be successful.

Researchers have consistently demonstrated that in order to understand what you're reading, you need to know something about the subject matter. Students who are identified as "poor readers" comprehend with relative ease when asked to read passages on familiar subjects, outperforming even "good readers" who lack relevant background knowledge. One well-known study looked at junior high school students judged to be either good or poor readers in terms of their ability to decode or read aloud fluently. Some knew a lot about baseball, while others knew little. The children read a passage written at an early fifth-grade reading level, describing the action in a game. As they read, they were asked to move models of ballplayers around a replica baseball diamond to illustrate the action in the passage. If reading comprehension were a transferable skill that could be taught, practiced, and mastered, then the students who were "good" readers should have had no trouble outperforming the "poor" readers. Just the opposite happened. Poor readers with high content knowledge outperformed good readers with low content knowledge. Such findings should challenge our very idea of who is or is not good reader: If reading is the means by which we receive ideas and information, then the good reader is the one who best understands the author's words.

You have probably experienced the uncomfortable sensation of feeling like a poor reader when struggling to understand a new product warranty, directions for installing a computer operating system, or some other piece of writing where your lack of background knowledge left you feeling out of your depth. Your rate of reading slows. You find yourself repeating sentences to make sure you understand. If this happens only rarely to you, it is because you possess a broad range of background knowledge -- the more you know, the more you are able to communicate and comprehend. The implications of this insight for teaching children to read should be obvious: The more domain knowledge our children receive, the more capable they will become as readers.

The message has not yet reached American classrooms. A stubborn belief in reading comprehension as a transferable skill combined with the immense pressures of testing and accountability results in ever more time being wasted on scattered, trivial, and incoherent reading. A study sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development found that only 4 percent of first-grade class time in American elementary schools is spent on science and only 2 percent, on social studies. In third grade, about 5 percent of class time goes to each of these subjects. Meanwhile a whopping 62 percent in first grade and 47 percent in third grade is spent on language arts.

Most young American children spend anywhere from 90 minutes to two and a half hours a day in something educators call "the literacy block," an extended period that might include reading aloud, small-group "guided reading," independent writing, and other activities aimed at increasing children's verbal skills. Reading instruction largely focuses on teaching and practicing reading -- comprehension strategies -- helping students to find the main idea of a passage and make inferences or identify the author's purpose. The general idea is to arm young readers with a suite of all-purpose tricks and tips for thinking about reading that can be applied to any text the child encounters. Careful readers may be thinking, "If the ability to understand what you read is a function of your domain-specific background knowledge, then how is it possible to teach all-purpose reading strategies?"

Reading strategies figured prominently in the 2000 report of the National Reading Panel, based on evidence that reading strategies work -- which they do, to a point. Reading-comprehension scores tend to go up after instruction in strategies, but it's a onetime boost. The major contribution of such instruction is to help beginning readers know that text, like speech, is supposed to make sense. If someone says something you don't understand, you can always ask that person to repeat, explain, or give an example. Reading strategies offer similar workarounds for print. They're not useless, but repeated practice seems to have little or no effect on scores.

"The mistaken idea that reading is a skill -- learn to crack the code, practice comprehension strategies, and you can read anything -- may be the single biggest factor holding back reading achievement in the country," Daniel T. Willingham, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, recently wrote in The Washington Post. "Students will not meet standards that way. The knowledge base problem must be solved."

If our schools understood and acted upon the clear evidence that domain-specific content knowledge is foundational to literacy, reading instruction might look very different in our children's classrooms. Rather than idle away precious hours on trivial stories or randomly chosen nonfiction, reading, writing, and listening instruction would be built into the study of ancient civilizations in first grade, for example, Greek mythology in second, or the human body in third. Recently, the Core Knowledge Foundation has been piloting precisely such a language-arts program in a small number of schools in New York City and elsewhere. Initial results are promising; however, building domain knowledge is a long-term proposition. All reading tests are cumulative. The measurable benefit of broad background knowledge can take years to reveal itself.

At present, teachers are tacitly discouraged from taking the long view. Indeed, what incentive would second-grade teachers have to emphasize content that might not show up on a test until sixth grade, if even then? There is more upside for teachers in doing exactly what they chiefly do now -- test prep, skills, and strategies -- unless we actively promote a domain-specific approach to language arts.

Consider a reasonable, simple, even elegant alternative to replace the vicious circle of narrowed curriculum and comprehension skills of limited efficacy, which over time depress reading achievement. By tying the content of reading tests to specific curricular content, the circle becomes virtuous. Here's how it would work: Let's say a state's fourth-grade science standards include the circulatory system, atoms and molecules, electricity, and Earth's geologic layers and weather; and social-studies standards include world geography, Europe in the Middle Ages, the American Revolution, and the U.S. Constitution, among other domains. The state's reading tests should include not just fiction and poetry but nonfiction readings on those topics and others culled from those specific curriculum standards. Teachers would still teach to the test, emphasizing domain-specific knowledge (because it might be on the test), but no one would object, because it would help students not only pass the current year's test but build the broad background knowledge that enables them to become stronger readers in general.

The benefits of such "curriculum-based reading tests" would be many: Tests would be fairer and offer a better reflection of how well a student had learned the particular year's curriculum. The tests would also exhibit "consequential validity," meaning they would actually improve education. Instead of wasted hours of mind-numbing test prep and reading-strategy lessons of limited value, the best test-taking strategy would be learning the material in the curriculum standards -- a true virtuous circle.

By contrast, let's imagine what it is like to be a fourth-grade boy in a struggling South Bronx elementary school, sitting for a high-stakes reading test. If you do not pass, you face summer school or repeating the grade. Because the school has large numbers of students below grade level, it has drastically cut back on science, social studies, art, music -- even gym and recess -- to focus on reading and math. You have spent the year learning and practicing reading strategies. Your teacher, worried about her performance, has relentlessly hammered test-taking strategies for months.

The test begins, and the very first passage concerns the customs of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. You do not know what a custom is; neither do you know who the Dutch were, or even what a colony is. You have never heard of Amsterdam, old or new. Certainly it's never come up in class. Without background knowledge, you struggle with most of the passages on the test. You never had a chance. Meanwhile, across town, more affluent students take and pass the test with ease. They are no brighter or more capable than you are, but because they have wider general knowledge -- as students who come from advantaged backgrounds so often do -- the test is not much of a challenge. Those who think reading is a transferable skill and take background knowledge for granted may well wonder what all the fuss is about. Those kids and teachers in the Bronx struggle all year and fail to get ready for this? Why, all the answers are right there on the page!

It ends, as it inevitably must, in the finger-pointing that plagues American education. But do not blame the tests. Taxpayers are entitled to know if the schools they support are any good, and reading tests, all things considered, are quite reliable. Do not blame the test writers. They have no idea what topics are being taught in school and their job is done when tests show certain technical characteristics. It is unfair to blame teachers, because they are mainly operating to the best of their ability using the methods in which they were trained. And let's not blame the parents of our struggling young man in the South Bronx. Is it unreasonable to assume that a child who dutifully goes to school every day will gain access to the same rich, enabling domains of knowledge that more affluent children take for granted?

It's not unreasonable at all. That's what schools are supposed to be for. The only unreasonable thing is our refusal to see reading for what it really is and to teach and test accordingly.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
issue: the local-food revolution doesn't stand a chance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Real literacy involves learning about the world, not just letters and sounds.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Repository - Learning Acceleration Collaborative - Wakelet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We built Wakelet using the latest technologies to make it faster and easier to use. Unfortunately, your browser doesn't support those technologies.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Take it beyond 1, 2, 3 Eyes on Me!

You know that point in the day when the volume starts amping up? Bring down the noise level and help your students focus with these call-and-response routines. For each routine, we tell you what the teacher should say and how students should respond. Kids love them, and these classroom attention-getters really work!

We've shared 9 of our favorite attention-getters below, but there are 14 more in our printable version. Just submit your email here to get the printable version, and feel free to share it with a teacher friend!

1. Teacher asks: "Ready to listen?"
Students respond: "Ready to learn!"

2. Teacher asks: "All set?" (Clap, clap, clap)
Students respond: "You bet!" (Clap, clap, clap)

3. Teacher says: "Quiet on the set."
Students respond: "Action!"

4. Teacher says: "Surf's up!"
Students respond: "Shhhh!"

5. Teacher asks: "Ready to rock?"
Students respond: "Ready to roll!"

6. Teacher says: "Hands on top."
Students respond: "That means stop!"

7. Teachers asks: "Ready, set?"
Students respond: "You bet!"

8. Teacher says: "Chicka, chicka."
Students respond: "Boom, boom!"

9. Teacher says: "When I say PEACE, you say QUIET. Peace..."
Students respond: "...Quiet!"

Yes! I Want the 24 Attention-Getters Printable

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Free Printable: 25 Attention-Getters for The Classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Take it beyond 1, 2, 3 Eyes on Me! You know that point in the day when the volume starts amping up? Bring down the noise level and help your students focus with these call-and-response routines. For each routine, we tell you what the teacher should say and how students should respond.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This post has not been vetted or endorsed by BuzzFeed's editorial staff. BuzzFeed Community is a place where anyone can create a post or quiz. Try making your own!

There are a lot of kids and only one of you. When you need your students quiet, focused and ready to learn, you better have a plan to get there. And it doesn't hurt to bring your sense of humor. We asked our Facebook community and Reddit to share their favorite attention grabbers. These are our 27 favorites.

2. I say, "Alright, stop." And my students answer, "Collaborate and listen!" It's a line from a Vanilla Ice song. At the beginning of the year, I show my classes the video: "Ice, Ice Baby." My students love this! -Kristin Z.

8. Despite the fact that I have eighth graders, I say "Winner, winner" and they respond "Chicken dinner." It works. -Stacey B.

25. When someone is doing something they shouldn't be, instead of calling them out, ring the bell and draw attention to someone who WAS on task.

26. Here's one for the high-tech classroom. When you hear "www dot," you say "zip it dot com."

27. When all else fails, spray Quiet Spray into the air!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
27 Attention-Getters For Quieting A Noisy Classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There are a lot of kids and only one of you. When you need your students quiet, focused and ready to learn, you better have a plan to get there. And it doesn't hurt to bring your sense of humor. We asked our Facebook community and Reddit to share their favorite attention grabbers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
With almost 30 years in the middle and high school classroom between the Maneuvering the Middle team, we have many thoughts on the routines and procedures necessary to run a successful classroom.

This list is not exhaustive but will hopefully provide you with a place to start. One recommendation is to think backwards. Start by thinking about how you want your classroom to look and feel when the students are working and you are teaching. Ask yourself, "What did I have to teach my students in order to reach this ideal state?"

I have outlined some essential middle school routines to teach to your students. Some, I have seen effective teachers implement as well as ones that worked wonders in my own classroom. (Sometimes routines are born out of necessity)

Daily Routines

1. How to enter your classroom

This fell into the - surely I don't have to teach students this - category. Turns out, I did. It is better to be proactive than reactive as a teacher or you will have students who take advantage of the ambiguity. I used these posters to guide my students. "Take the most direct route to your seat" was a game-changer for me.

2. Warm up/BELL RINGER

Where do students get the warm up? When should they start on it? Are they allowed to talk during this time?

3. Sharpen pencils

When students need to sharpen their pencils, they raise their hand and make the letter P in sign language, so I can simply nod or tell them to wait. That is one procedure that has worked for me. Students know that they must always ask permission which eliminates any rude interruptions while I am teaching. Some teachers have a trading system so that the pencil is never sharpened during class.

4. "I don't have a pencil"

There is no combination of words strung together that I despise more than these (except perhaps "I don't get it"). Seriously, can someone solve this problem for me? My sister and I joked about buying these for every table in my classroom. What is so hilarious, is that I frequently go to meetings where I have to ask to borrow a pen. #teacherfail

5. Hand Signals

When students raise their hands, you are subjecting yourself to Pandora's box when you call on them. By using hand signals, you are placing a filter on some of this 'spam.' I have a hand signal for needing a tissue, asking to go to the restroom, asking a question, answering a question, and sharing a comment. This will save you so much energy. While working with my small group, I would stop what I was doing to walk across the classroom to address a raised hand, only to be asked to go to the restroom. Stop the madness! Use hand signals!

You can get Hand Signals and so much more in our Classroom Poster Pack.

Check out the When are students allowed to use the restroom in your class? Do they have a certain number of times they are allowed to go in six-weeks? How do you track that? brilliant procedure Noelle used in her classroom.

7. Dismissal procedures
When can students start packing up? Do students just leave when the bell rings? What are they responsible for cleaning up? Do they need to stack chairs?
8. Technology

Learning with technology is a privilege. When you threaten to take away the iPad or computer, make sure to follow through. Have a packet of work copied and ready to hand out to students who are choosing to be off task or treat the technology with disrespect. Another procedure to consider is how the technology gets distributed and put away. Remote learning has created more of a need for technology routines and procedures. Watch for that post - coming soon!

9. Cell phones

My school has a strict policy that if you have your cell phone out or if it goes off, teachers collect them and parents have to come pick them up. Most schools are not like that though. While phones can be tools, they can also serve as a distraction. Be specific about what phones are used for in your classroom, and stick to it. You could try this or try this. Or check out Pocket Points - an app that rewards students for staying off their phone.

10. Calculators

There are many procedures that must be taught regarding this equipment especially if they belong to the school. I found that having calculators on the wall and students picking one up on the way in seemed to work pretty well. Make sure that you have a routine in place when calculators stop working or run out of batteries.

11. Passing in papers

Do students make a pile at their table? Do students get up and turn in the assignment to a tray? What about tests? If you have individual desks, do students pass the paper up, back, or across?

12. Attention getter

When you get students' attention, what are they supposed to do? Get silent? Stop moving? Look at you? They probably need to do all of these things, so be prepared to practice this with your students several times. Make sure that you wait for 100% compliance before making your announcement or giving direction. Many teachers love using this wireless doorbell.

Weekly Procedures

13. Trade and grade papers

After realizing that I only use 'trade and grade' on assignments that weren't actually going to be a grade, I stopped. I allowed students to grade their own assignment to get feedback and ask questions easily. If the assignment was going to be a grade, I would use Google Forms or a bubble sheet.

14. When someone enters

Do your students talk to office aides or other teachers when they enter your classroom? Yep! Mine too. Teach them that only the teacher addresses guests and if they have something they must add, they have to put up the hand signal for comment or question.

15. General group procedures

How do students get into groups? What is the expectation of the group members? Do you have roles? My students sit at tables, so they naturally have a group to work with. When I had desks in pairs, we addressed how to move the desks, where to move them, and what the expectations were of each role. I personally reserved roles for larger assignments/projects.

`16. Small group procedures

Check out this post for some of the routines I practice for small groups.

17. Supply procedures

Routines in place - what to do when my glue stick runs out? What if I need to sharpen my colored pencil? Who picks up trash? I use table bins with just enough supplies to keep things manageable, and I have a student organize them at the end of each day. The table bins are only out on tables when we are using glue, colored pencils, or scissors, so students aren't tempted to play with the materials.

Less Frequent Procedures

18. Emergency Procedures

Most schools are different, but one routine has remained the same during every emergency procedure, students are silent. This is a hard one to execute if your entire school or grade level isn't consistent. I explained to students that teachers need to be able to hear instructions or take attendance and silence helps that move along faster.

19. Band aid/nurse/I have a headache

To get a bandaid in my class, you have to be bleeding, and I keep bandaids in my room so that no class time is missed. . For headaches, I ask them to take some deep breaths and drink some water. I rarely allow students to go to the nurse because then it will never stop. Get into the habit of sympathizing with your student and telling them that they are strong enough to tough it out. Then walk away. Exceptions: vomiting and blood.

20. Quiz and test procedures

This is a procedure that you do not have to teach the first few days of school, but you need to teach the first few times you give a test or quiz, so make sure to allow enough time for that. Teach how you want students to turn in their tests, what they need to do after they have finished, and how to treat testing folders (if you use them).

Need more routines and procedures?

Editor's Note: We have been publishing content for the Maneuvering the Middle blog for over 6 years! This post was originally published in June of 2016 and has been revamped for accuracy and relevancy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Must Teach Middle School Routines and Procedures

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
20 middle school routines and procedures to keep your students on the right track and out of trouble. Set your classroom up for success!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Over the summer I have been finding many attention grabbers that I hope to use in my music room this year. Some are sung, some are spoken, some are sounds. They are used to get the classes attention (obviously) and get them quiet. Below are my favorites:

Sung/ Musical:
1. T: Ba da da bah Bah C: I'm Lovin' It!

2. T: Red Robin C: Yum

3. Class Repeats the Following after each line:
Wah-doo,
Zim-bam-bad-e-oo,
Hoo-die-a-dah-wah-dah,
Sca-di-wa
(from Porgy and Bess- It Ain't Necessarily So)

4. T: Claps or Chhs a random rhythm pattern, class repeats back

5. Class Repeats the following after each line
(I got this from Game Plan Grade 3- I have also heard other teachers in my building speak it):
Ama Lama Cooma Lama, Cooma Lama Vestay,
Oh no no no no no Veestay,
Ennie meenie gypsy leenie, ooh ahh ooh ammie leanie,
Atchy patchy coomie latchy, I mean You!

6. T. Na na na na, na na na na C: Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye

Non- Musical (many of these came from Pinterest!)
1. T: Hands on Top (on head) C: That Means stop!

2. T: 1-2-3 Eyes on Me! C: 1-2 Eyes on you!

3. T: Macaroni and Cheese C: Everybody Freeze!

4. T: All Set? C: You Bet!

5. T: Hocus Pocus C: Everybody Focus!

6. T: Tootsie Roll, Lollipop C: We've been talking, now let's stop!

Using things like Bells, Metallophones, Recorders, Chimes, Etc. are also a great way to get attention in the music room!

Click the link to get Animated Timers to project - These are great for group work!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Over the summer I have been finding many attention grabbers that I hope to use in my music room this year. Some are sung, some are spoken, some are sounds. They are used to get the classes attention (obviously) and get them quiet. Below are my favorites: Sung/ Musical: 1.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
40 Fun Attention Getters - The Teacher Next Door

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Attention getters are a great classroom management tool! Whether students are busy working in groups, on class projects, or are just plain chatty, these attention getters are not only fun, but are an effective way to get your class re-focused, so you can give instructions. The ideas listed are interactive.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
To do this, we collected nearly 30,000 in-the-moment student surveys. Using a technology that prompted students in grades six through 12 to answer a few questions at random times during class, we captured a snapshot of their real-time reactions to school. We also surveyed third through fifth graders during the last five minutes of class, and found that elementary students were just as capable as their older schoolmates of providing rich and telling insight into their lives at school.

Across our five partner school systems, we also observed nearly a thousand full-length lessons at all grade levels from K-12, and reviewed almost 5,000 assignments and more than 20,000 individual student work samples. We visited each participating school daily for a week straight at three points in the year, which gave us the chance to see the same teachers and students at the beginning, middle, and end of their time together (and offered a much more comprehensive lens on the learning environment than a single day's lesson could have). These classrooms were not substantially different than the others in their districts, and they represented a wide range: those with new teachers and veterans; those at all age levels; a diverse range of subjects; mixed-ability classes and tracked ones. Four of these school systems were located in states that use standards aligned to the Common Core State Standards; one was not.

To assess the quality of content students worked on, we looked at four elements of every assignment: (1) whether the content in the assignments was aligned to relevant grade-level academic standards; (2) whether the assignments gave students the chance to engage in important content-specific practices, like citing evidence from rigorous texts in literacy, or discussing mathematical ideas using precise mathematical language; (3) whether the assignments gave students a chance to learn relevant content that built their knowledge of the world or helped them see how what they were learning could be applied in the real world; and (4) student performance on both the assignments themselves and against the bar for their grade-level standards.

To study instruction, we observed full-length class periods and assessed (1) whether students were doing what they were asked; (2) whether they were being asked to work on grade-level content; and (3) whether teachers were using instructional practices that gave students the chance to do most of the thinking in the lesson.

We surveyed teachers to capture their knowledge of grade-level standards, their opinions on those standards, and their beliefs about their classroom practices and their students' abilities. We conducted focus groups with nearly 100 teachers and interviewed 24 school leaders at multiple times throughout the year. And we assessed a large set of extant data provided to us by our partner districts on course access, enrollment policies, and district policies on curriculum adoption, among others.

We hypothesized that students' experiences of school were influenced by a confluence of factors-among them, the quality of the work they were doing, the instruction they received, and the expectations of their teachers-and that those factors would interact to have an impact on their academic growth. Taken together with students' in-the-moment survey responses, we were able to triangulate students' perspectives with the classes they were in, the work they were doing and instruction they were receiving, and their academic outcomes.

In addition to amassing this rich data set, we also sat down with a smaller subset of students (more than 50 over two school years), and got to know them. We observed them in class and spoke to them about their experiences, their likes and dislikes, their families, their goals. Just a few of those students are profiled here. While their names and identifying characteristics have been changed throughout this report, their stories help us understand what the data means in the real lives of individual young people.

They also help us understand what real, tangible changes school systems can make-starting tomorrow and over the long haul-to provide more students with school experiences that are meaningful, that honor their aspirations for themselves and their families, and that give them a fighting chance to meet those goals.
For our complete methodology, including further explanation of our analytical approaches and full analysis results, see the Technical Appendix.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What can 4,000 students teach us about school? Read The Opportunity Myth.