The homework involved writing about a person or event that spurred you to go to college.  The instructions reminded students to use PLENTY of details because the audience (their classmates) wouldn’t know the person and hadn’t been at the event.

Here’s what we did in class:

1. Students printed a copy of the homework WITHOUT their name on it.  They had to be sure to have a TITLE (not a label) on the written piece.
2. I collected the pieces and read ALL the titles outloud (even those without titles — four in this group of 23 students — and those with the same title [i.e., the name of the assignment], which amounted to 12 of the 23 students).
3. I read titles again, and students chose which essay to read.
4. After reading the essay, students had to DRAW the person or event.  They were sure to sign their work of art.
   • I provided markers and paper.
   • I also provided “Smarties” candy (because they make you smart).
5. I handed back the homework, with the drawing,.
6. Students REWROTE their earlier drafts so that the details emerged.  (They used bold to show the added details changes.)
7. Students printed their drafts again, this time WITH their names.
8. Artists got back the revisions and their original drawing so they could ADD DETAILS to the work of art.

This exercise worked VERY WELL with this group of not-quite-ready-for-college-work students.  They were diligent in their reading and drawing.  They offered real, substantive comments to their classmates’ drawings and writing.

At the very end of class, I wrote on the board, “What do you think the LESSON is from today’s activity?”  They all chimed, “Use details!”

Yep!

• Give each letter in  your name its numerical value (A=1, B=2, Z=26).
• Add them, then add that number to your partner’s number.
• Choose that page in the text.
• Find a passage that resonates with you.
• Explicate it for the class.

I have students do a writing task in class — perhaps like today’s task: freewriting about the most useful resource they used to produce their researched essays — and then copy-and-paste their paragraph into Wordle.

The software creates a word cloud, with some words bigger, some smaller, in relationship to each other.  You can then manipulate the image, creating a visual image that’s pleasing, and print it out or save it to the Wordle gallery. 

These visual results then provide another writing opportunity:  interpretation!  I asked students to answer questions such as these:

• What does this image mean? 
• How can we interpret the image, when one word is really huge and others are small? 
• How does this image help us understand what the writer was thinking about the writing task?

Mine do.

What if we responded to these expressions the way some coaches do in the world of sports?

• You’ve seen the billboards:  “Pain: Weakness Leaving the Body.”
• You’ve probably heard that “real athletes play with pain.”

What if educators said something similar?

• “Discomfort: Education Entering the Brain.”
• “Real students deal with difficulty.”

I don’t know if this analogy works: what do you think?

Here’s how:

• Begin a class with freewriting, asking students to write about the *strongest image* they remember from their homework/reading.  Rationale: Writing prompts memory, priming the pump for some class discussion.

• Ask students to talk about their writing with one other person in class.  Rationale: Sharing prompts classroom cohesion, connection, collaboration.

• Tell these pairs to pull out another piece of paper and DRAW the image that was most memorable between the two of them.  Rationale: Drawing seems a bit silly, and students talk a LOT when they’re deciding who should draw, what to draw, what the drawing looks like.
  

• Ask everyone to circulate around the room to see what each pair has drawn, noting similarities and differences.  Rationale: Movement is good!  Usually, students see that certain strong images rise up more than once.

Use the observations as a basis for discussion about the important point(s) revealed by what students remember, especially the power of visual images to help our memories.

Try this to slow down the “why didn’t I get 100?” knee-jerk response:

Don’t add up the score.

Rationale: This technique presumes you use a rubric that has separate categories with separate point values. In my case, I evaluate an essay along five criteria (content, development, organization, expression, correctness — or some variation of these). Each criterion can earn up to 20 points.

The points are recorded on a “grading grid” that has room for the total. But leave that blank and the students will have to look at the five categories — and any explanatory feedback you’ve offered — to do the math themselves.

I provide the interview questions, using some variation of these:

1. name/major/hometown
2. hobbies/non-school interests or commitments
3. other courses similar to this one
4. goals for this course
5. one unusual characteristic.

Over time, I’ve modified number 4 in order to avoid the “My goal is to get a good grade in this class.” This year, my modification seems to be extra helpful.

Here it is:

Instead of asking simply, “What do you hope to get our of the class?,” I added, “What do you hope to *give to* the class?”

This addition made people think about 1) their commitment and 2) their responsibility. I had students say, “I hope to give time and motivation,” for example. I had other students add, “I hope to give an open mind.”

Rationale: This small change came about because I am trying to figure out how to engage my students as a “community of learners” among whom “knowledge is socially constructed.” I think classes are organisms, and the instructor must try to foster good growth in this ecology of learning.

This small change really works. Try it.

Question: How are baby birds fed?

Answer: Their parents eat food, partially digest it, and then regurgitate or vomit it into their mouths. This practice provides nutrition, certainly.

Question: What function do (re)sources like SparkNotes serve?

Answer: They interpret works of literature, philosophy, and history for you so you don’t have to read them yourself; you know “what it’s about” by reading the summary.

Thus: SparkNotes vomits the information into your brain. But are you a baby bird? Do you need to rely on a grown-up bird for your own nutrition? Or do you want to chew it on your own?

Rationale: Encounter the information on your own first; chew it on your own first; think about it on your own first.

And then, perhaps, you can swallow the regurgitation of others. Perhaps. If you’re into that kind of thing.

P.S. Most undergraduate students love this story: it’s the right combination of vivid, gross, and thought-provoking.

• Ask students to write down (on their own paper OR on a slip of paper you give them) an alias.
• Ask students what topic/issue/question they’d like to spend about 12-20 minutes in class discussing with everyone. (Hint: it’s important to be specific about a time frame AND to word your prompt in such a way that students know they don’t have to present anything to the class.)
• Collect these slips. (Hint: asking students to walk up and make the pile for you encourages a bit of energetic conversation.)
• Group slips by the topics that emerge.
• Write the aliases on the board so that everyone can find their groupmates.

Rationale: Creative ways of knowing each other emerge with this exercise. Often, folks end up working with people they’ve not worked with before.

Match the story title to the list of first lines.

Match the story title to the list of last lines.

Famous ones?

“Call me Ishmael.”

“There was no possibility of a walk that day.”