In some of my assignment instructions on Google Classroom or Nearpod I will include “Have a discussion with someone or a group to explain how these literary movements connect to…Include the First & Last name of the whom you worked with. Write a summary of your discussion. Your summary must match your peer’s”. This does require students to work with at least one other person, especially if they’re primarily self-pacing for a portion fo the unit. I also remind students to use the Public Progress Tracker as a way to see if a classmate can help them when I’m not available. To ask three before me. 

One-on-one instruction: Thanks to MCP, I use the Public Progress Tracker as a way to communicate to students what lesson they’re on and whether or not they’ve received feedback from me via Google Classroom. I also use MCP’s daily-check in tool to see at a glance which students declared that they’re “feeling stuck” for the period. Both of these tools allow for me to attend to the students who I want to work on revisions with or those that said they need help from the Google Form Daily Check-in.

Small-group instruction: Related to the Public Progress Tracker, I will often start the period off by reminding students to do their daily check in and call on the students that are highlighted orange on the tracker. “Student A, B, and C, grab a chromebook and meet me at the high tables so we can review Lesson 2.7 on Realism. I’m going to reteach and answer any questions you have about the feedback I gave you.”

Whole-group instruction: Whole group instruction usually takes the place of me overviewing instructions on Google Classroom, assignment handouts/instructions, general feedback about student work, reminders, or announcements. Other forms of whole group instruction are forms of literary analysis or all-class discussions I facilitate after reading an article or section of the book. When it is related to a reading, I often facilitate a community literary analysis for students to share out their ideas so their peers can also hear their findings. 

One of my favorite things is having a Course Trailer (click here) to get students excited about the curriculum that’s ahead of them. It’s a great visual way to get students engaged with the syllabus and thinking about what they’re going to learn. 

Another way I like to get students to read or engage with the text is with a read-a-long mixtape (click here for example). These are audio books that I recorded myself and also have sections where I breakdown the reading or what was just read. Students really appreciated this avenue to reading as the content in this American Literature Unit is drawn and inspired from some of my undergraduate classes. I found that this approach to reading difficult texts did increase the number of students reading! So when we got to a novel it was a lot easier to have students follow along when I was no longer providing mixtapes.