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Jan 31

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When Rubrics Reign is it Time for a Coup?

By Mary Buckelew

41G46TubLhL._SS500_“Rubrics make powerful promises. They promise to save time. They promise to boil a messy process down to four to six rows of nice neat, organized little boxes. Who can resist their wiles? They seduce us with their appearance of simplicity and objectivity and then secure their place in our repertoire of assessment techniques with their claim to help us to clarify our goals and guide students through the difficult and complex task of writing” (2). Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment (2007), by Maja Wilson

How many points is this assignment worth? How many lines do I need to write? How many pages? Where’s the rubric? Why did I get a 3 in organization? Why didn’t I get full credit? How do I get an A?

Students enter my college freshman writing classes with the above litany of questions, sometimes spoken, sometimes unspoken, but ever present. These questions are as natural as breathing and begin early in students’ K-12 school careers. Read more

Jan 24

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From the Classroom: Using Listicles for Literary Analysis

This month’s From the Classroom post comes from Tricia Ebarvia, PAWLP Fellow and high school English teacher. If you feel inspired after reading Tricia’s post, please comment below and also consider sharing your own favorite lesson here on the blog. Click here to learn more.

GRADE / SUBJECT

Grade 9, World Literature

LENGTH

1-2 class periods

PURPOSE

Whenever my students and I come to the end of any novel study, I’ve always struggled with finding that perfect and elusive “closing” activity—the lesson that can somehow do justice to our novel study before we move on to the next text. While we often do some sort of writing that helps students synthesize their ideas, I don’t think that we always have to write the traditional literary analysis paper in order to engage students in higher level thinking.

In recent years, I’ve shifted my reading and writing practices to try to be as authentic as possible. Whenever I revisit my approach to a text, I ask myself: How authentic is the learning we’re doing? In what ways is the work we do in class work that’s done only in school or work that reflects the type of reading, writing, and thinking that’s out in the world, beyond our classrooms?  Read more

Jan 10

Tools of the Trade: Kindness in our Digital and Physical Spaces

Rita Sorrentino

R.J. Palacio’s award-winning children’s novel Wonder and the recent major motion picture of the same name shed light on tender topics for the tween-targeted audience. In the book and movie, kindness, acceptance and friendship triumph over bullying, exclusion and peer pressure. Readers/viewers of all ages can undoubtedly connect with feelings and emotions of the characters in identifying empathy as an important and vital skill for social and emotional growth.

As we begin this New Year, perhaps a companion book, 365 Days of Wonder: Mr. Browne’s Book of Precepts offers us an alternative to traditional resolutions, that for the most part, decrease significantly as the months of the New Year unfold. Read more

Jan 3

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Teacher-to-Teacher: Creating a Questioning Classroom Environment By Janice Ewing

In several posts on this site, bloggers have shared ideas for fostering positive teacher inquiry and for sparking student inquiry. As we welcome the new year, I invite you to explore a related question: what strategies can help us to nurture our questioning or inquiry stance as teachers, and how can we extend this stance to our students? Here are some ideas to consider, as we return to our classroom:

lake-430508_640.jpeg Read more

Dec 29

Sharing My Process

By Barbara DiLorenzi

 

When Lynne Dorfman kindly invited me to share my writing/drawing/bookmaking process with the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project Blog, I was thrilled. But then I remembered that writers will be reading my words. Despite publishing my debut picture book in 2017, and with another in 2018, I continue to feel like an imposter in the field. An artist, yes. An illustrator, yes. But if someone refers to me as an author, I feel inadequate. I should have a degree in English, or better command of language. Or at least grammar. I’m forever using too many commas.

Part of the reason I don’t feel like an author is because my books don’t start with words. Like most authors, I start with an idea that grabs me. But instead of opening up Word, and typing a draft, I sketch. I doodle characters. I think about the conflict, and how that would look in a spread. Sometimes these doodles take months. If I don’t have the arc of the story in my mind, I just keep tugging at the characters, asking them to reveal themselves in my drawings.

At some point, whether the arc of the story is satisfying or not, I start to organize my thoughts with tiny thumbnail sketches, plotting out the entire book in a basic 32 page format. (Though my first book is 44 pages, and the second, 40 pages.) This way I can see if the pacing will work within a picture book format, and if the plot has any hold on me. This stage can take a long time. I made close to 20 thumbnail storyboards for QUINCY over the years. With RENATO AND THE LION, I can’t even count how many drafts went into this story.

Read more

Dec 18

Books on the Blog: A Book for All Ages: A Book for Today and Tomorrow

By Lynne R. Dorfman

Different languages, different food, different customs. That’s our neighborhood: wild and tangled and colorful. Like the best kind of garden. (p. 54)

 

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Wishtree by Katherine Applegate is an amazing book told from the viewpoint of a red oak tree. Red is a city tree that has lived for 216 years (she has 216 rings). She’s also known as the wishtree, and on the first of May, people of all ages come to tie rags, tags, and even the occasional gym sock to her limbs with wishes scribbled on them. Red is an optimist and has strong opinions about things. Bongo, a pessimistic crow and a loyal friend, are two of the main characters along with Samar, a ten year old Muslim girl.  Red is home to owlets, possums, raccoons and skunks. They talk with one another, but nature has one rule: Don’t talk to people. Read more

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