Thanks to generous donors, I’ve purchased the following five books this week that my students requested: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Little Bee, The Red Scarf, Three Cups of Tea, and The Help.
These are all high-interest books. Although I don’t personally like all the books (The Help annoyed me, for example), they’re high-quality books that book clubs choose all the time.
I’m proud of my students for selecting excellent books to read. And I’m very appreciative to the people who have given money to build our Kindle library.
(Did you notice the ChipIn sidebar? I received an $18 donation last night! That’s enough for two more books.)
If you like the idea of students reading, go ahead and donate. It’s easy, I promise. Or find a friend to donate on your behalf. And while you’re at it, tell them that I’m still accepting Kindles!
Students get a few chapters of The Awakening to read, and in addition to annotating the text, students must answer one question that I send to them by text message. Their text message response is due by 11 p.m. that night.
The experiment is a total success so far. My students like the assignment. It’s quick and easy for me to do. The turn-in rate is high. Most important, there is much more reading taking place, which leads to better classroom discussions.
The Nightly Text experiment is new, so perhaps its success comes from its novelty. But here are some other reasons that I think it’s working:
1. It’s just one question. I’m not giving students a long list of questions. My students appreciate that the focus is on reading and annotating. If my point is to encourage deep reading, I can’t bombard my students with too much extra.
2. It’s not a worksheet. There’s nothing for my students to keep, organize in their binder, write on, or turn in. Students do nothing except read and then wait for their nightly text to arrive. Then they text back.
3. It makes a boring assignment dynamic. There’s nothing hugely engaging about reading a teacher-assigned book, but it has to happen for deep discussions to occur in class. By transforming the old-fashioned assignment into digital form — where it appears on a phone! — there’s enough interest and convenience for students to do it.
4. It’s great formative assessment. When I receive a text, it’s easy for me to determine how closely each student is reading. In addition, I can get a sense of the class’s progress. If my students are missing something, I can bring it up during the next class — instead of waiting until it’s too late.
5. It shows that I care about their learning. When I get a text, I usually text back a quick comment of praise or a follow-up question. My students appreciate the immediate feedback. It tells students that I care that they’re doing homework.
6. It starts a classroom discussion. When our class meets the next day, there’s already something to talk about. To facilitate conversation, I have been copying and pasting their texts to my class website. My students walk in and see their comments on the screen. That tells them it’s time to get started.
I’m really interested to see where this goes. Will the novelty wear off? What are my next steps? I have some ideas (Google Form? Edmodo?), but I want to proceed deliberately. I also want to make sure that I ask my students what they think.
Today’s article in The New York Times underscores why I prefer Kindles over tablets in my classroom.
Julie Bosman and Matt Rictel write:
People who read e-books on tablets like the iPad are realizing that while a book in print or on a black-and-white Kindle is straightforward and immersive, a tablet offers a menu of distractions that can fragment the reading experience, or stop it in its tracks.
I couldn’t agree more. If we want our students to read deeply, then Kindles, not tablets, are the way to go in the classroom.
The beauty of the Kindle is that you can do very little on it besides read. Sure, you can try the browser, but its clunkiness will instantly annoy you.
Some cash-strapped schools, however, promote the purchase of tablets because they combine the features of a computer and an e-reader for a good overall price.
Instead of buying a $500 iPad, I’d rather get a $139 Kindle Touch (with no advertisements) and a $300 netbook. (Yes, until tablets get easy keyboard solutions, I don’t promote their use in schools.)
That way, students can focus on what they’re doing. If they’re reading, they’re reading, and if they’re not, they’re not.
I’m finding out so far that my students are happy with my set of 12 Kindles. They’re not clamoring for iPads or Amazon Fires. They understand what I’m trying to do with The Classroom Kindle Project.
If the purpose is to read, then the tablet isn’t the right device.
AP English is a grind. It’s hard on my students. No matter how much they think they’re trying, there’s always more work to do.
That’s why I like celebrating students for their hard work and success. In addition to Student of the Week, in which a student chooses a peer for recognition, here are three ways I appreciate students:
1. Essay of the Week. Every two weeks, students write an essay. I choose the best one and post it on iseroma.com, my class website. Here are some samples. What’s neat is the unveiling ceremony. We do a little drum roll, and there is usually big applause. My students like it because they know I’m picking my favorite essay, rather than trying to make everyone happy. In fact, several students have won the award more than once — a big honor.
2. G(rammarian) of the Week. This semester, we’ve focused more on grammar and proofreading essays to reduce errors. One of my students made a big medallion out of paper, laminated it, and attached it to some yarn. The student whose essay is cleanest gets the G of the Week Award and wears the necklace until the next week’s awards ceremony. Here’s a sample post. I’m pretty sure Grammarian of the Week has encouraged students to look more closely for details in grammar and mechanics.
3. Quizzards. Students take a weekly quiz every Thursday that tests their reading comprehension, knowledge of tone words, and understanding of literary devices. When grades slumped in the middle of the year, I introduced Quizzards. Short for Quiz Wizards, Quizzards are students who received 100 percent on the previous quiz. All I do is post their pictures up on our class website and announce their names. There is so much more pride now in studying for quizzes and getting a higher grade. Even more important, there is great variance in Quizzards; struggling students see the most growth here, which keeps them motivated to try hard.
It’s funny what silliness can do in a classroom. It’s interesting what public appreciation can do, too. When putting in hard work, it’s nice to be recognized. That’s why I think these three easy class routines are working. It’s important to build in celebration of hard work.
And then today, I read a recent article in Ed, the magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The debate on homework — always a controversial topic — is getting more and more heated.
On one side are the anti-homeworkers like Alfie Kohn, who say that homework amounts to busywork. Kohn says that homework is the way schools prepare children for factory work. He decries the homework-every-night model:
“The point of departure seems to be, ‘We’ve decided ahead of time that children will have to do something every night (or several times a week)
Other anti-homeworkers complain that their children deserve more free time after school. One mother in California went so far as to say:
“In closing, I just want to say that I had more free time at Harvard Law School than my son has in middle school, and that is not in the best interests of our children.”
On the other hand, pro-homeworkers think that American youth do not spend enough time on their academic pursuits. One parent on the Race to Nowhere blog wrote:
Any pursuit of excellence, be it in sports, the arts, or academics, requires hard work. That our culture finds it okay for kids to spend hours a day in a sport but not equal time on academics is part of the problem.”
Some schools are considering changes to homework. One elementary school principal in Maryland eliminated homework and substituted 30 minutes a night of reading (which I think is great — and which I consider homework).
Over the summer, Los Angeles Unified School District approved a policy decreasing homework but quickly reversed its decision.
In fact, amid all the opposing viewpoints, some people, like Harvard professor Howard Gardner, realize the real truth about homework. Gardner says:
“America and Americans lurch between too little homework in many of our schools to an excess of homework in our most competitive environments.”
In my urban public school, the real problem is too little homework, not too much. Weekends, in particular, are a No Homework Zone. Maybe assigning homework isn’t the perfect solution, but we do need to figure out ways to extend the academic day and to promote student thinking and skill building.
Thanks to generous donors, I’ve purchased the following five books this week that my students requested: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Little Bee, The Red Scarf, Three Cups of Tea, and The Help.
