Putting Yourself On(the)line

By creating and completing innovative performance-based assessments with an authentic audience, we show students that the task is valid based on our willingness to do the assignment along with them.

For years I had expected my students to go on swimming without me while I barked orders from my chaise lounge… I had lots of ideas to share... but no idea if they’d really work... My teaching was all tell, no show.

- Penny Kittle

It is this camaraderie with the students that creates passion in both the learner and instructor. Completing the task that we are asking students to accomplish is the only way to fully understand the creative process that must be undertaken in order to complete the goal.

In turn, this helps us predict where students may struggle, or where the assignment needs fine-tuning. The intent with teacher modeling is not to manufacture the "perfect example" but to demonstrate an authentic attempt at the assignment with all of its ensuing successes and failures.

A lot of secondary teachers enter the field because of their passion for what they are teaching. It's an unusual teacdher who comes into secondary education wanting to teach students how to learn. Yet, if we're going to be good teachers, that's really eessential.

- Marcia D'Arcangelo

The model should serve as a dialogue between teacher and student that informs practice. Just as modeling shows our students that they are not alone in their endeavors, collaboration connects us as teachers in the creative process. It is our responsibility as educators to find time to collaborate and share ideas and assignments, to model for each other, and to put ourselves out there among our peers.

With help, students are able to discover topics they deeply connect to and dig to find out more about these connections. This process makes their writing more honest, and also helps them think through the parts of their lives that are important to them. For some students, it might be the first time they realize that there are important subjects in their lives. Helping them take themselves seriously is crucial for them as writers and as maturing human beings.

- Lucy Calkins

Ultimately, this will allow for greater student success because the assignments are innovative, the instructors are passionate, and the students have a vested interest in their educational community and their own learning.

Summer Reading Assignment - all grades

A Multimodal PBA is a Performance Based Assessment that asks students to present information effectively in a variety of modalities (Oral, Written, Visual, etc).

Honors World Literature - Multimodal Poster Assignment

A vlog is a video (or recorded) blog. Here, we've asked students to take their critical analysis of a text to the screen, instead of to paper. This medium allows for visual representation that aid both in directorial portrayal of ideas as well as viewer understanding of concepts.

We use John Green's vlogs as exemplar models for ourselves and for our students:

• THS Tribute Poem - provides the assignment, teacher model, and student work
• College Essay Pre-Writing Task - this brainstorming activity helps students generate ideas for essay topics. The model should be artifacts from the teacher's life when s/he was about 16.
• Waiting for Godot "Do Something" Task - this assignment asks the students to take action instead of stagnating like Estragon and Vladimir. Each year the teacher does the assignment alongside the students so that the models are past accomplishments of both the teacher and former students.
• Cross-classroom Shared Inquiry Discussion - here students from an Honors World Literature class served as models, mediators, and participants as they combined with students from 10 ACP in a Shared Inquiry Discussion. Seniors and sophomores came together to work through the question: "Does something need to be tangible to be real?" They gleaned examples from their class texts and came to a deeper understanding of concepts such as belief, faith, validation, and conciousness.

Modeling writing with your students reinforces the idea that we are all authors who have ideas to publish. Memoir may be a natural starting point as students generally have a lot to say about themselves. Watching you take the risk first will make them more comfortable sharing their stories.

"I wouldn't give my son the keys to our Subaru if I hadn't driven beside him talking through my decisions at each turn and then gripped the dashboard as he tried it...talking through the skills he was learning to use. He needed me to show him first...We have to ride together." - Penny Kittle, Write Beside Them

The Color of Water Memoir Assignment - 11 ACP

Introduction to Memoir done with The Color of Water