- What did you notice about the assignments when taken as a whole group? What is valued? What is emphasized? What is not? What is missing?
- What struck you, in particular, about certain individual examples? Please be specific in this section and "point" to others' work.
- What revisions did you make to your own assignment based on what you saw in others'? Why?
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Response to the Gods' Man assignments
Please craft a 500-750 word response to the packet of Gods' Man assignments that I gave you last week, paying attention to the questions below as guides for your writing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I originally wrote the assignment with terms that I felt a high school student would understand. I thought the hardest word I used was “foreshadowing”, which I would be teaching the students about anyway. I thought they may be unfamiliar with the term “depiction” and perhaps even “sympathy” was a stretch for them. Although, I do believe that student’s vocabulary should be challenged. If they don’t know what a word means, it gives them an opportunity to ask. Wouldn’t that help them in the long run? I noticed that many of the other assignments were very long and wordy, especially in the criteria section. I knew that this was something that turned me off as a student so I made sure to keep it simple.
ReplyDeleteI also noticed the use of scaffolding in others work, which I originally intended to use as is shown in my first outline of the assignment. For some reason I forgot to include it in my proposal. I had said they would work with a group, which I then changed to a pair in my second draft and that they would have a one-on-one meeting with me to make sure they were on the right track. I believe this helps the student feel confident about the direction they are taking, knowing that they are making great strides.
Another tip I picked up from my classmates was offering to help with the supplies needed for those students who may not have access. I thought if they needed materials that I would provide them with old magazines (easy finds for free to little money), glue sticks (I horde up on these when they are $0.10 each at back-to-school time) and poster board (3 pieces for $1.00) but that they would have to go to the library to have access to them. I wanted to do this as a rouse to get them into the library to take a look around and see what else it has to offer in the way of materials and programs. I’m always advocating for the library so I thought this would be a good way to actually get them in the door. An exception would be made for those without transportation available and I would provide them with materials after school.
I loved when my fellow classmates spoke of working on examples in class, something I did as well. Some offered templates to use for their assignment, which I thought was a way to scaffold in itself. I made a copy of what we had done in class which is helpful to both students that were there and those that were absent that day. I also think the visuals help to give the students a clear picture of what I am looking for, especially ELL students. Speaking of visuals, I loved the film assignment’s entire layout, complete with prompts and fun movie-like images.
As a fifteen year old, who enjoys fun assignments (audience), I found that some assignments seemed scary and/or not fun at all. I went back to mine to see if there was anything I found overwhelming or disengaging, keeping in mind that there were always going to be students who didn’t want to do my assignment. It’s no secret that Heather created my favourite assignment and as I read over it here, I realized why. It’s an assignment that every student will enjoy because everyone likes music. I loved how she mentioned talking about the characters feels and then told her students to notice how they felt when they listened to songs to find the similarities.
After reading through all of these, I attempted to apply all the things I noticed in others assignments to my own. I felt pretty certain of my direction but there was definitely room for improvement. Some assignments I felt didn’t have enough writing or enough work (rigor), which was an early concern of mine. I fixed that problem in my assignment with a reflection piece. The example from my class allowed my students to me reminded of what I was looking for. The way I paced out the steps, now with due dates, would help to keep my students on a diligent path, one that I could monitor in the beginning stages. I too wanted to play to the emotions of the characters and my students just as Heather does with her assignment. I truly believe reviewing my classmates’ assignments helped me to make mine even stronger!
The first thing I noticed while going through the assignments was the creativity levels each one showed. While there were a few similarities in a couple of the assignments, no two were exactly alike. Each of them displayed some level of deep thinking as to how they were going to engage the student(s); they also displayed the creativity all of us asked out students to use. As I carefully looked them over, I made some notes where I thought an assignment had strong points and tried to imagine what each final project would look like to me, as a teacher. Out of the ones that struck me most, I narrowed these down further in the perspective of our rough and tough skateboarder and determined what assignments she would enjoy and take something from. After that, I borrowed bits and pieces of other assignments, in terms of structure and creative strengths, to help me revise my own.
ReplyDeleteThe first assignment I looked at was “Feeling- Nothing More Than Feelings Gods’ Man Assignment”. Right away, I saw that it was asking students to talk about emotions. Maybe, students can relate to a character and work from that point. The final product is also a great way for students to express themselves while utilizing a writing process, for I think the final product of this assignment, creating a collage, would be the most “fun” and still remain challenging. It would probably be the most challenging part of the project, especially for our specific students. There is a chance that she has some skateboarding magazines of follows some blogs that she can collect images from to develop her collage.
Assignments that result in a physical project, or performance, rather than an essay or reflection, would be seen as the most rewarding tasks for out student. Creating a CD, a scrapbook, a collage, a mini-movie, etc. While those may appear as more fun, they do present their own challenges, mainly time. If this student of ours spends most of her time skateboarding, and does not enjoy busy work, how much time would she be willing to invest in the project and how can we, as teachers, approach that. In some of these assignments, my own included, a reflection was also required. Overall, a time consuming process should be broken down, which is why I think there should always be allocated time in class. This in mind, I think my project, over the course of one or two class periods and their reflections done at home should be successful. I can allocate work time and monitor student progress, providing immediate feedback hat they can use when working on the reflection at home.
To really engage a student’s interests, there has to be some sort of connection they can draw, a “why should I care” sort of question. Assignments where a student is allowed to talk about their own feelings-relate a text to their life-even we enjoy assignments like those! Teachers and students feel some merit for their hard work, some gratification. Sometimes, as I have seen it even when I was in high school, students are so proud of their work they do not want to let it go! This is why I chose to expand and explain the creative process for my assignment a little more; I wanted to make sure that not only students knew what I expected, but to know what I expected myself. This is a chance to take something like Gods’ Man, a text from 1929, and modernize it. Doing so will allow most students to dive into the work and pull something out of it (themes, connections) and verbally tell their peers what they discovered in a way they are familiar, like a text message or a song. They can relate it to other class relevant topics and compose a poem or write in Elizabethan. Either way, it is a chance for them to tell us what they know.
........
I saw these elements work well in many of these assignments; they gave students an opportunity to explore so many options and work I various mediums. In creating a film, students can work with many genres and styles. I actually was able to pinpoint a moment where classroom discussion could occur and provide students an opportunity to monitor their own progress and share their experiences up to that point. It is also an opportunity to check their progress yourself. Is our skateboarding student in her video? Does she have the artist drink bubble tea? Is she herself the artist?
DeleteI tried to come up with similar questions for my own assignment. Whatever I thought was important, and what I believed my students would enjoy and grow knowledge from, I attempted to place emphasis mainly on that. While I want the assignment to be fun and creative, it still needs to be challenging. It felt too simple when I looked at my first draft in comparison to the other assignments. I still believe that if the assignment is done in one or two class periods, they can get that sense of compiling a rough draft and try to see the big picture. Later on, we can create projects that slowly allow students to dig further into a text. This assignment can work as a starting point. This is also a good chance for students to collaborate with their peers. Maybe someone else in the class likes bubble tea and their project takes place in a skate park?
When I was reading through the packets, I was first struck by the physical layout of many of the assignments. I thought that I had been good at using the physical format and layout to emphasize certain things, but I was kind of blown away by the uniqueness of some of the designs. I loved Jocelyn’s use of text boxes to separate the different steps rather than just numbers, and the highlighting in Nadezhda’s rubric.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there seemed to be a feeling of enthusiasm and joy among the assignments. There were exclamation points, funny examples, and other “positive” aspects. Mark and Nathan were really good at this, letting their personal quirks and enthusiasms break up the dry academic tone that I think was my default when writing.
I also really liked how many of the assignments were based on multi-media, not just what one might think of when they first hear the word “writing.” There were collages, performances, presentations, soundtracks, films, scrapbooks, picture books, and more, along with the many, many options Nadezhda allowed in her RAFT. Yes, there were paper components, both critical and creative, but these are the ones that caught my attention, and made me want to participate. If they were getting me more excited, then I can only imagine what these assignments would be like for students, who can break out of the “stuffy essay” for a more visual or hands-on assignment.
There were different grading methods, but the rubric was the most common one. I am personally a big fan of the rubric, so I was happy to see it. I was also very interested by the use of bolding, different fonts, and spacing as a way to emphasize things. Not only in headings, but in the middle of sentences, as was done in a number of them.
I did take some ideas into consideration. I made my fonts more varied, making sure each “portion” was different in some way to make I stand out. My traditional Times New Roman was neat and orderly, but it made it a bit boring to read. I also reworked my formatting and “details” in an attempt to make to look more polished and eye-catching. The last assignment in the packet used a border, which I fell in love with and used. Never underestimate the “finishing” power of a good border.
I clarified my language, and took a cue by defining my terms even more. Rather than point hem out, and then break it down, I gave smoother “worked in” directions and details. I also just generally re-worded a lot of it, in an attempt to make it more “friendly.” I did go into more detail when I gave instructions or latitude. In my initial draft, I said that I wrote “Feel free to play around with the specifics of the story. You can make minor changes.” What was minor changes?
Mark’s assignment had a portion about being allowed to have characters guess that the mysterious stranger is an alien, but not being allowed to chronicle an alien invasion, as that did not happen. That was what I was looking at. I wanted to maintain the storyline, not necessarily the specifics. So, I revised it to say “Feel free to play around with minor details, it’s the storyline we want. Maybe the main character is a woman? Or a pianist?” I hope that sounds clearer, and makes it a bit more fun to think about.
I did enjoy looking at the assignments, and being able to edit my own due to it. I found it was more of my presentation that the content that changed, with the exception of MLA format. By default I had added MLA requirements to the writing components. Then I got to thinking, and I realized that I really didn’t care. The point of the assignment was what they handed it, and the format wouldn’t add to it. Plus, I wasn’t asking for a research paper, but questions and a script. MLA format is hardly necessary.
DeleteI also needed to add some Common Core information. I noticed I was not the only one who had forgotten it, so I added some in. I also noticed that lines of information at the very top and bottom tend to get overlooked. So, I got rid of most of mine, unless there was some way to draw attention to it. All in all, I think my second version is better than my last, thanks to the help of my classmates and their own work.
I really enjoyed looking through the packet of Gods’ Man assignments. It really helped me get a sense of where I was in my own assignment in regards to everyone else. But more importantly it was really inspiring. Some of the assignments you guys thought up are cooler than anything I’ve done in some of my past high school classes. They were all fresh ways of looking at a book and having students really embody the story.
ReplyDeleteSome of the assignments that really stuck out to me was Jessica’s rewind dniwer assignment where she has her students read the story in backwards order and write a story based around Gods’ Man. This is something very simple but mind blowing to students, including myself, who just read in normal order everyday of their lives and never question it. Taking a story in backwards order can be powerful and implants an idea of reading other things backwards too. So not only is Jessica having students be creative and write something, she is showing them other ways to look at texts. This reminded me of an exercise in Kelly Gallagher’s book Write Like This where he has his students write reverse poems that mean one thing one way and something completely different the opposite way.
I also really enjoyed Nathan’s assignment, primarily because of the way he wrote it. It was really enthusiastic and boarded on corny at moments and that something that will get students to do it. In a way Nathan is modeling an attitude that can and will infect his students. In his assignment, Nathan asks his students to pick three characters, “furniture counts too” and write a background on them. He also provides an example of this by using himself. This attitude makes students excited or if they are stone hard rebels, it makes them laugh enough to humor you into doing the assignment. It also opens up a connection that would make a student feel left out if they did not complete the assignment; who would want to miss out on the fun.
Jocelyn’s piece was also very audience appropriate. I really liked how she had her steps clearly written out and the requirements she was looking for clearly defined out on a page. More times than none students ask themselves, “Well what exactly is considered clear language?” Jocelyn leaves no room for confusion. Her visual example and the breakdown of it is the cherry on top and something that I know I personally would use when doing the assignment.
In terms of rigor and audience, I feel as though the majority of my fellow classmates were spot on. Most of the assignments don’t seem too difficult and all of them have an element of creativity and fun to them. It was refreshing to see assignments that focused more on the creation of something art like rather than an informative essay. That was one other thing I noticed, we all seem to assignment some sort of essay at the end but they are all pretty low stakes. This is amazing to think about. Maybe our generation of teachers will put an end to the essay heavy tasks in a back lash to our own horrible experiences with them.
A theme I saw throughout most of the assignments was a listing of steps. I personally did not write out a list of steps and going through and seeing it in action makes me realize I need to. It’s just so much clearer for students to grasp what the teacher is asking of them. It’s also a way for students to feel as though they are progressing along the work by being able to check off steps. In this fashion, students build momentum and may even start to work more productively or quicker. Each step completed is a small victory. I also realized I didn’t put any Common Core standards on my sheet, which I did for my revision.
Overall, the packet really got me excited. At first I was dreading going through because I really don’t have a high opinion of my “teachery” work. But seeing everyone’s and mine together made me feel like as a class we’re all kind of connected. We all strive to do something different in teaching and all share the thirst of a common goal.
Heather,
DeleteI just finished your assignment....well my variation of your assignment! I'm so excited to share it with you. I keep listening to it over and over again! Oh, such a great idea!
While looking at the assignments I noticed that the product seems to be the highlighted part of the projects and not necessarily what is learned during the assignment process. It seems like more time on the assignment sheet should be gauged toward process and thinking throughout the assignment. This is something that we have addressed in class and a large part of my I-search. I do notice a lot of directions on formatting which is very useful to students because they definitely need to know what to include and how a final product should look in the end. This can definitely help organize student thinking.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find missing from a lot of the assignments are explicit step by step instructions that will help students complete and complete well each aspect that is needed to complete the assignment, whether that is a first draft or even just simple parts of the whole. Steps are very valuable to scaffolding assignments and obviously help with planning both on the teacher end and student end.
I really enjoy the whole look of Jocelyn’s assignment, the way she has boxes and a pictures, it is very visually pleasing and memorable. I would find it hard to misplace this assignment because it has a very unique look to it, which may be a necessity for many students. Jessica’s assignment was also awesome visually and really caught the eye. I also liked Jessica’s Recap schedule. Schedules are very useful as checklists for students, and I rely on schedules for everything I do, it is my happy place. I loved Danielle’s rubric too, it seems like it covered everything that the students would be graded on very well. The use of reflections was also definitely something I enjoyed throughout reading the assignments and I started thinking about how I could create a simple reflection piece for students to do much like this one.
When it came to revision I decided to clear up some of the aspects of my directions and I developed some of the idea that I was working on developing in the students. I simplified some of the concepts to make them seem a little bit easier for students to do. I tried to make them not as threatening for students. The second thing I decided I needed was a simple schedule to go along with the schedule that was worked into the assignment. This was a day by day schedule so students can peak at it and immediately know which part we were working on and can find where they had left off in the assignment sheet. This as I had mentioned is extremely useful as a checklist and organizer in general. Another change I made was the addition of a presentation and a reflection. The use of presentation in my assignment allows students to show a piece of work I hope they are proud of. I know doing this assignment myself I would have so much fun that I would want to share it with the class. The reflection will then allow students to see how important character development is, whether it is done through action or detailed description. It can also show students that the choice belongs to the author.
Gods’ Man Assignment Reflection—Does My Assignment Measure Up?
ReplyDeleteI would first like to mention that I had a lot of fun reading everyone else’s Gods’ Man Assignments in preparation for revisiting mine. Our SED 445 class is so full of clever, creative, and insightful future teachers! I definitely learned a lot about my own design by examining the assignments that my classmates created. Overall, I ended up reconsidering several aspects of my assignment. In terms of audience, I decided I needed to be more specific and clearer in many ways. In terms of rigor, however, I actually ended up leaving my assignment the way it was, but I clarified a piece of my assignment for which the rigor (or what, specifically, was expected and at what level) was unclear on the assignment sheet.
As I read through everyone’s assignments, I noticed a few patterns relating to an awareness of audience. There was an overall effort to cater to the needs of high school students in designing this assignment. I did notice, however, that some of the vocabulary used in many of the assignments needed tweaking to be more approachable to an audience of high school students (particularly ELL’s and/or Students with Learning disabilities). I was much more careful in looking at my own work after considering this fact. I shifted a few things around and added explanation here and there in an attempt to fix this small problem. I feel that explanation was an area that confused me a bit—how much is too much?
I also considered the role of the assignment sheet overall as I read through the assignments of my classmates. I decided something: a student should be able to complete the assigned work with little to no spoken commentary from me to go along with the assignment sheet. This led to my decision to be more specific with my directions in general. Many of my classmates’ assignments were successful on this front—that is, I felt that I could complete their assignments without any further explanation—so I endeavored to improve my own work in this sense. I believe that the product I present as my second draft is more successful in giving students all the information they need to complete the assignment.
This is where things get interesting. I was lucky enough, while completing this portion of our “Gods’ Man Assignment assignment,” to have access to input from real-live non-English-loving high school students. I asked my sister (16) and her friend (15) to go through the packet of assignments and to look at my assignment specifically. I then asked them to consider the things they liked about each assignment and things they were less crazy about. Based on this information, I actually created two different new drafts of my writing assignment. The first is the draft I created after going through the packet of my peers’ work. The second is the draft my sister and her friend helped me create in their image of a “good writing assignment,” meaning one that they wouldn’t dread doing based on looks alone. They liked that some of my peers’ assignments were visually appealing based on groupings of information, so I made my grouping of steps more obvious. They also thought my assignment was way too wordy in some ways, so I cut down on a lot of “fluff” information. Last, they felt that I wasn’t clear enough about the stakes of the presentation portion of my assignment, so I tried to clarify that information as much as possible.
In general, I really enjoyed reading the assignments that my classmates created. I hope that we have the opportunity to see some revised assignments, because I feel that we can all learn a lot form looking at the assignments of our peers. Just from scanning the comments of others, I feel that many of us already have.
Allie, i agree with you and the rest of our class in regards to how creative (and talented our future teachers (!)) are! I, too, found myself tweaking here and there, trying to make my assignment as understandable as possible without an additional word from me. It is so cool that you were able to have a council with your sister to test the assignment!)
DeleteI t was very unusual and and at the same time - rewarding - going through the packet of my classmates' assignments. You, indeed (guys, agree), always wonder: how everybody else did it.
ReplyDeleteWhen opening the packet and, then, going through it, first thing I noticed was how creative and unusual they all were. Personally, I don't remember myself engaging in any of these in school (food for thought: if all assignments were like that, going to school would be so much fun!)
One of the first features that I have noticed my assignment was missing was the visuals. I knew I needed to keep my ELL’s in mind, but I guess I blanked out on it and didn’t give it a necessary “dose” of attention until I have put myself into the shoes of one of the bilingual learners and read the assignments myself.
I have also found that such modifications as large and bold print and/or separating the steps into the tables when listing them have turned to be also a huge plus and, thus, aided to a better comprehension of the assignment; personally, I think it kept me focused more that way. Needless to say, I added those features to my assignment as well.
I also noticed that the assessment rubric (that is meant to be read by 15 year old) seemed to be too long and/or too confusing in some of the assignments. So, pretending to be a high school sophomore, I caught myself on the thought that I am not even going to bother reading the whole page assessment rubric at all, thus, sabotaging my grade.
Next, having samples of some (if not all) of the assignments would be great to have (for instance, provided that I have never come across Six-Word-Memoir assignment, I would appreciate to see the final result of it that I would be working towards). Having said that, I will be considering providing my students with samples of students’ work along with their assignments in future.
I have also noticed that the longer the assignment is, the less enthusiasm there is to start it. The task should be easy and interesting to implement.
To cope it with, after going through all of my colleagues’ work, I have learned that my own assignment needs to have better explanations in regards to how this assignment is connected to the work the students have been doing in class. What the rationale is, in other words. I also included a lot of visuals, especially on the pages that contained multiple options that students could choose to work with, and, turns out, the visuals just are a way to keep them focused.
Also, I did reduce my list of Common Core objectives to just the main one – I found it too destructing to the students’ eye otherwise.
I didn’t make many changes in my assessment rubric; I have took “accuracy” component out and replaced it with “quantity”, as originally I asked students to make sure their info is accurate or correct but I have come to the conclusion that this wouldn’t be required if I wanted students to be creative, therefore, I am now asking them to keep the necessary “quantity” or length of the assignment instead. In my rubric I have also explained the grading criteria in better terms, for instance, “5 – Exceptional” equals to a “WOW” factor and “4-Effective” is “very good” and so on.