Oretha Ferguson teaches sophomore English in Fort
Smith, Arkansas, and she is proud to share that her students have achieved
so much success that they believe they can conquer any poem.
She had her students write sonnets and poems. Thirteen of her
students were interested in having their poetry published and submitted
their poems to a national poetry competition. Eight of
the thirteen entries were accepted for publication and printed!
Two students later wrote poems that were submitted to a summer poetry
competition, both of which were accepted for publication.
She attributes her students’ success to the foundation
and interest created from her prose poetry unit.
The purpose of Oretha’s prose poetry unit is to transition sophomore
students from reading prose to reading poetry and to help students gain
an interest in and an appreciation for poetry.
To prepare her students for the unit on prose poetry, she uses a PowerPoint
presentation.
Click here
to see this prose poetry PowerPoint presentation in a separate browser
window. (Important Note: Use Internet Explorer
for best result. Click on Slide
Show button in the lower right corner to view full screen
with audio efffects. Use space bar to advance
slides.)
The first eight slides of the PowerPoint presentation introduce students
to a brief explanation of prose poetry and the use of figurative language
to create striking images.
After the eighth slide and a brief introduction of the author, students
follow along in their text books while listening to the audio of “A
Storm in the Mountains” by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
In response to the audio, students share their personal, unique encounters
with nature, such as if they have gone camping, fishing, or hiking.
For example, one student shared her experience with an unexpected thunderstorm
while camping in the woods. Another student related his experience
of hiking in the mountains during an unexpected torrential downpour.
Another student talked about a raging fire she witnessed, while another
told about his close encounter with a tornado. In response to
the audio, students connected their “personal encounter with nature”
to the prose poem. This engages the students.
Before showing the PowerPoint slide “Compare and Contrast,”
students brainstorm ideas of how “A Storm in the Mountains”
compares and contrasts to short stories. The objective for comparing
prose poetry with short stories is to help students discover the unique
imagery found in prose poetry. A Venn diagram is perfect for leading
students to find this striking difference.
After proceeding in the PowerPoint to the “Quickwrite”
slide, students are given the Quickwrite worksheet that serves as a
prewriting for their personal prose poem.
Click here
for a copy of the Quickwrite worksheet (Note: Acrobat
Reader is required for viewing the file).
Before leaving class, students have a strong foundation with which
to successfully write their own prose poem, and write they do!
Students are now ready to read poems by Baca, Cummings, Dickinson, and
Shakespeare.
Assessing Student Progress with a Rubric
The purpose of designing a lesson is not simply to ensure that
students are taught, but to ensure that they learn. That
is, it is one thing to teach a lesson, but it’s another thing
to ensure that the students learn the objectives of the lesson.
Teaching does not mean to lecture.
Teaching means to find the methods necessary to utilize your
genius and creativity to deliver a lesson so that the students learn
what you want them to learn. The opposite of this would
be a teacher who says,
“I covered it. If they don’t want to learn it,
it’s not my fault.”
Sorry, but if they do not learn it, you haven’t taught it well
enough.
To help students learn, begin every lesson with a set of objectives.
To review what this means, please read our April 2006 column, “They're
Eager to Do the Assignments.” (http://teachers.net/wong/APR06).
In this column, we shared how a teacher, Julie Johnson, structures
a lesson.
- She decides what her students are to learn
(objectives).
- She shows them what they are to learn (demonstrates
and teaches).
- They practice or do the assignment on what
they are to learn (guided and independent practice).
- They are tested on what they know they are
to learn (assessment).
Julie says, “There is no secret as to what is expected of them.
When I do this they all succeed.”
Also, please read Chapter 22 in The First Days of School.
This chapter talks about how to structure an assignment for student
understanding. We make the statement that if the students
know what they are to learn, you increase the chances that they will
learn (page 214).
| Likewise, in 1993, the National Association of Secondary School
Principals said that students will learn more if they know |
- what they are to learn,
- how they are to learn it,
- how they are to demonstrate what they have learned, and
- how the quality of their learning will be evaluated (rubrics).
|
Prose Poetry Rubric
Andrew Erikson, who was a student in Oretha Ferguson’s class
last year, says,
“Having the rubric was like having the poem in front of me.
The rubric guided me through the process of writing the poem, when
otherwise I would have been clueless."
On page 209 in The First Days of School,
we say that
- The greater the structure of a lesson and the more precise the directions
on what is to be accomplished, the higher the achievement rate.
- Learning has nothing to do with what the teacher covers. Learning
has to do with what the student accomplishes.
To structure a lesson so that the students know beforehand
what they are to accomplish, give the students a scoring guide, or rubric,
before each writing assignment. To review what a rubric
is, please review our October 2006 column, “Assessing Student
Progress with a Rubric.” (http://teachers.net/wong/OCT06)
Rubrics give students a beginning focus point and a sense of direction
for their writing. Oretha not only uses the poetry rubric to evaluate
students for grading, but also to evaluate students’ learning.
It also evaluates how well she created her lesson.
To write a rubric, you first decide what factors you are looking
for that will tell you if students have learned what you want them to
learn. For Oretha’s lesson, she decided that five
factors were important to measure student ability. They are as
follows:
- Ideas: How well can the student develop focus,
interest, and involvement?
- Organization: How logical and organized are the
ideas?
- Sensory Images: How vivid, detailed, and intense
are the images?
- Use of Language: Are the choice of words rich and
imaginative?
- Presentation: Does the presentation enhance and
go beyond the assignment?
She then took each factor and divided it into four levels of
competency, giving each a point value.
Students are graded and student learning is assessed on the following
domains on a scale of one to four, with four being the highest level
of achievement.
Prose Poetry Rubric
IDEAS
Advanced ideas that captivate and involve the reader deeply (4)
Proficient ideas that are well focused and interest reader throughout
(3)
Basic ideas that have some focus but lack continuity (2)
Basic ideas that are unfocused and author seems unsure of direction
(1)
ORGANIZATION
Advanced ideas that use a logical, effective organizational strategy
(4)
Proficient organization where sequencing is logical and the poetry form
has been followed with few errors (3)
Basic organization that shows some sequencing but is not evident throughout
the poem (2)
Below basic organization where sequencing is illogical or not evident
(1)
SENSORY IMAGES
Advanced sensory images that are vivid, detailed, and intensely felt
(4)
Proficient sensory images that are clear and portray ideas or emotions
(3)
Basic sensory images that express thoughts marginally (2)
Below basic sensory images that are difficult to visualize and do not
express emotion (1)
USE OF LANGUAGE
Advanced use of language that expresses rich and imaginative language
(4)
Proficient use of language that states appropriate choice of language
(3)
Basic language that only uses thoughts marginally (2)
Below basic use of language that is imprecise or shows an inappropriate
choice of words (1)
PRESENTATION
Advanced use of presentation that exhibits features beyond the assigned
requirements which enhance meaning. Presentation is neat and legible
(4)
Proficient presentation that demonstrates assigned format is followed
and presentation is neat and legible. (3)
Basic presentation that shows a limited quality of appearance. The assigned
format is not followed throughout. (2)
Below basic presentation where no quality of appearance is visible.
The format is not followed. (1)
Rubrics or scoring guides come in many forms. They can be presented
in a list as shared above. The same information can easily be turned
into a chart or spreadsheet. Ease of understanding should drive your
format choice.
To see such a rubric, click here.
Remember, as we explained in last month’s column, the
purpose of a rubric is to provide meaningful feedback that will help
teachers modify their instruction and will help students to improve
their learning.
To help a teacher modify instruction, we say on page 238 of The
First Days of School:
- If the student MASTERS an objective, give the student enrichment
(not more) work or ask the student to help other students in a supportive
mode.
- If the student DOES NOT MASTER an objective, give the student remediation
or corrective help.
Effective Teachers Have Structured Classrooms
Oretha Ferguson’s success goes way beyond just a single
lesson. Her classroom is structured and organized from
Day 1.
- There is structure at Oretha’s school. The staff has agreed
on five school wide rules. These are part of a PowerPoint presentation
and you can see it by clicking here.
(Note: Images can take a while to load.)
- She distributes a tri-fold that lists her classroom procedures and
rules. The students are required to keep the brochure in their English
notebook for reference throughout the year. The parents also get this
tri-fold. To see this tri-fold, click here.
- She also has a Welcome Back Newsletter. Click here
to see this.
Her class runs so smoothly that if a student forgets what to do, such
as throwing away trash properly or sharpening a pencil, all she has
to say is,
"What is the procedure, please?"
Oretha explains that the reason there is so much familiar material
in her tri-fold is because her procedures are based on The
First Days of School that the district gave to all new
teacher inductees during New Teacher Induction.
Students Learn What Gets Taught
The most effective schools and teachers are organized and structured
for learning. If you would like to learn how to organize
a well-managed classroom, please go to
www.ClassroomManagement.com.
The ineffective teacher stumbles from day-to-day, wondering what to
do next and has no structure to the classroom. This is why students
ask, “Why are we doing this?” or “I’m bored.”
When this happens, no learning takes place and behavior problems start
to escalate.
The effective teacher has a well-managed classroom where more
teaching and more learning takes place.
In a study it was discovered why one teacher was so much more successful
with his students. He taught 28 times as much science as the teacher
down the hall, but no one knew this until the researchers came and observed
a set of teachers, because in most schools teachers teach in isolation.
It should be common sense that if you do not teach it, they won’t
learn it. Just as, if a sales person does not sell the product,
the customers are not going to buy it. If the quarterback does
not throw the ball, the end will have nothing to catch. And, if
you don’t throw a party, the guests are not going to come!
The research is very specific about student achievement.
- Mike Schmoker says, “Lay out a sound set of standards and
then actually teach these standards and we will get a rise in levels
of achievement immensely.”
- Robert Marzano did a study of what affects student achievement and
says, “It is what gets taught!”
- Andrew Porter of Vanderbilt University says, “What gets taught
is the strongest possible predictor of gains in achievement.”
In Oretha Ferguson’s classroom, the students know what
they are to learn and Oretha knows what she is to teach.
Rubric for How to Write a Rubric
If you use rubrics in your teaching, take the test below to check for
your understanding. Give yourself the points shown in the parentheses.
IDEAS
Advanced ideas on how to incorporate rubrics in your lesson (3)
Proficient ideas that are well focused and guide the students throughout
the assignment (2)
Simple ideas that have some focus but lack depth and direction (1)
ORGANIZATION
Advanced ideas that provide a clear path for student success (3)
Proficient sequencing of criteria for evaluating the lesson (2)
Basic organization that shows some sequencing but is not evident throughout
the lesson (1)
USE OF OBJECTIVES
Clear alignment of tasks and scoring to objectives of the lesson (3)
Acceptable use of most of the lesson objectives in evaluating student
performance (2)
Marginal use of the lesson objectives in evaluating student performance
(1)
PRESENTATION
Expectations and scoring criteria are written in simple language and
presented for maximum understanding (3)
Expectations and scoring criteria are confusing and not presented in
an organized fashion (2)
Expectations and scoring criteria are written but never shared with
the students (1)
If you scored a 12, you are on target for student success. Congratulations,
for we know you and your students are working hard and accomplishing
much in the classroom.
If you scored fewer than 12 points, watch for our December/January
column where we will “reteach” rubrics and give you more
concrete examples of how they are written. Then try your hand
at using a rubric and come back to this column and evaluate yourself
once more.
Best wishes as you work to achieve maximum student success in your
classroom!
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