1. What Our Students
Are Writing About—
And Why
Barry Gilmore

2. Prompt: Write an essay about names and identity in The House on Mango Street.
Most of the women Esperanza knows on Mango Street are either trapped in their marriages or tied down by their children. For example, Esperanza’s grandmother. Esperanza did not want to “inherit her place by the window.” She neither likes what she has already inherited from her grandmother—her name. Esperanza plays with words when she first expresses her dissatisfaction with her name. She says that in Spanish, her name means “too many letters. It means sadness [from the opposite of esperar, which is desesperarse], it means waiting [from the verb esperar].”

3. Names are a very important part of one’s personality
Names are a very important part of one’s personality. The name Sarah, for instance, comes from the Bible. This shows that names have a long tradition for many people. Tradition helps to determine the adult one becomes.

4. Dear Joel,
Did you know that my name comes from the Bible? Actually, I’m not sure who Sarah was, but my mom told me she learned about my name in Sunday School when she was a kid.
Sarah

5. Dear Sarah,
That’s cool. Joel is a religious name, too. It means God. So I’m like God, only I don’t really think that so don’t think I’m full of myself please. You should find out more about your name. Let me know if you do.
Your friend (but not God),
Joel

6. Hey Joel,
I don’t think your God either.
Sarah
P.S. Hey I’m just kidding and I think Joel is a cool name.

7. Sarah.
HA HA HA.
I just asked Ms. R about you’re name and she says Sarah was Abraham’s wife and she had a baby when she was 90!!! I don’t know who Abraham was, though, but he’s in the bible too. You should write about that.
Joel

8. That’s a good idea but I don’t want to have a baby when I’m 90 because I couldn’t pick it up or something. Babys are gross anyway. Do you want babies someday?
Sarah

9. Dear Sarah,
No way.
Joel

10. From an exchange student…
The correct way to pronounce my name is “a’-kee-eh”. Each sylable pronounced distinctly and sharply without blending into the next sylable. Unfortunately, when people try to pronounce it “in the right way,” they actually mispronounce it by creating a whole different word, sound, and meaning: a’-ki-ya. Which means an “empty house” in the Japanese language. In my opinion, being “a key” is better than being an “empty house,” because akie is from the word aki. Which in Japanese language means autumn the best season of the year! Even though the pronunciation of autumn aki is different from the English word “a key” I am willing to be “a key”. I could lock door of an empty house.
-Akie Maekawa

11. Several drafts later….
My name is Sarah. It’s a name from the Bible, but that’s not why I like it. I love my name because it rolls on your tongue, because my mother gave it to me as a gift, and because it ends with the sound you make when you see a beautiful mountain or sunrise. I like to think of my mother holding me after I was born, looking down at me wrapped up like a present and saying my name: Sarah.
I don’t know what the grown-up Sarah looks like yet, just like I don’t know what grown-up Sarah does for a job, where she lives, or whether she has a family of her own. When she looks back, I don’t know what she’ll remember about me. But we’ll have one thing in common: a name.

12. Teaching Strategies

13. Sample student introduction (Spencer)
A symbol is an object, action, or event that represents something or that creates a range of associations beyond itself. In the book A Thousand Splendid Suns, one symbol is the clothing that women have to wear. This clothing reveals many things about the characters and the themes of the work as a whole.

14. Creativity?
Ingenuity?

28. Showing engine-uity

36. n

37. What Are We Talking About?
Pressure: Time
Pressure: Grades
Intent
Intent
Pressure: Time
Ease
Ease
Teacher Choices
Student Choices
Culture
Plagiarism
Systems
Assignments
Turnitin.com
Honor Codes
Assumptions
Failing, rewriting?
Ethics Gap
Expectations
Punitive response

38. Rethinking Assignments
Write a 3-5 page formal essay on “Harrison Bergeron.”

39. Rethinking Assignments
Write a 3-5 page formal essay on “Harrison Bergeron.”
"It took me about ten seconds to find a free essay online, but it wasn't very good. I could have paid $6.95 for a better one, though--probably worth it."

40. Rethinking Assignments
Write a 3-5 page formal essay on “Harrison Bergeron.”
Make prompts more specific
Make prompts more personal
Use unlikely comparisons

41. Rethinking Assignments Make prompts more specific

42. Rethinking Assignments Make prompts more specific
Choose three characters from the story "Harrison Bergeron" and find two quotations from each character. Using those six quotations, write an essay in which you compare the motivations and choices of the three characters.

43. Rethinking Assignments Make prompts more specific
Choose three characters from the story "Harrison Bergeron" and find two quotations from each character. Using those six quotations, write an essay in which you compare the motivations and choices of the three characters.
"What a pain, I have to cut and paste those quotations into an essay that I found online on the general topic. This would take me about ten minutes, I guess, and I might have to pay for the original essay if I wanted it to be any good."

44. Rethinking Assignments Make prompts more personal

45. Rethinking Assignments Make prompts more personal
Imagine you could spend one day in the world of “Harrison Bergeron” and talk to the characters in the story. Write a letter to the U.S. Handicapper General describing your experiences and your views on the society within the story after your visit.

46. Rethinking Assignments Make prompts more personal
Imagine you could spend one day in the world of “Harrison Bergeron” and talk to the characters in the story. Write a letter to the U.S. Handicapper General describing your experiences and your views on the society within the story after your visit.
"The personal voice makes this one harder, but not too hard. I could probably do it mainly by changing pronouns with the find and replace function in Word and with a bit of formatting. Most teachers wouldn't catch on."

47. Rethinking Assignments Use unlikely comparisons

48. Rethinking Assignments Use unlikely comparisons
Write an essay comparing “Harrison Bergeron” to the story “The Lottery.”

49. Rethinking Assignments
Use unlikely comparisons
Write an essay comparing “Harrison Bergeron” to the story “The Lottery.”
"Done. Took me about a minute. Do you want that double-spaced?"

50. Puck:
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: If you pardon, we will mend. And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call: So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.
(A Midsummer Night’s Dream V.i.)

51. Puck:
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: If you pardon, we will mend. And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call: So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.
(A Midsummer Night’s Dream V.i.)

52. Puck:
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: If you pardon, we will mend. And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call: So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.
(A Midsummer Night’s Dream V.i.)

53. Sample student-generated questions (prompts)
Does the play suggest it is okay to lie?
Why is it called a “dream?”
Why do both Theseus and Puck use the word “shadow”?
Why are some people “pardoned” in the play?
Why do only Puck and Bottom break the fourth wall?
Is Puck ultimately benevolent or malicious?

54. A process for developing prompts (without the need to plagiarize)
Create topics
Go back to the text—find examples
Discuss in pairs or groups
Write a thesis
Share and discuss (PINE)
Write an essay

55. Sample student introduction 2 (Spencer)
When Puck asks us to “pardon” him at the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he points out the deep irony of the play: there is no justice in Shakespeare’s comedy, poetic, legal, or otherwise. We have no more power over Puck than the humans have over the fairies, their own fates, or love itself. Shakespeare’s world seems to include justice, but it can be seen that events in MSND are decided by power, not right and wrong.

56. Rethinking Assignments
Read the story “Harrison Bergeron”
In groups or as a class, brainstorm topics and connections
Choose an individual topic
Find textual evidence, write a thesis
Share thesis statements and discuss
Draft a first paragraph, outline
Write an essay

57. Study Guide Questions 6.1 and 6.5

58. Rethinking Research Assignments
65% of students wrote a research paper for English class
38% of students wrote a research paper for social studies classes
Of English research papers, 67% were on a historical/biographical topic
75% used all internet sources

59. Rethinking Research Assignments Participant Responses

60. Rethinking Research Assignments
My current assignment

61. Rethinking Research Assignments
Are students invested?
Offer choices, make topics relevant

62. Rethinking Research Assignments
Are students invested?
Offer choices, make topics relevant
The discipline problem: what should research look like for each discipline?
Connect content to course content and skills

63. Rethinking Research Assignments
Are students invested?
Offer choices, make topics relevant
The discipline problem: what should research look like for each discipline?
Connect content to course content and skills
Digital literacy: are students using the internet wisely?
Discuss research strategies

64. Rethinking Research Assignments
S.E.A.R.C.H. (searching for reputable sites)
C.A.R.S. (evaluating web material)
C.A.P.I.T.A.L. I.D.E.A. (citation information)

65. Rethinking Research Assignments
Are students invested?
Offer choices, make topics relevant
The discipline problem: what should research look like for each discipline?
Connect content to course content and skills
Digital literacy: are students using the internet wisely?
Discuss research strategies
What’s the point of the research paper?
Discuss, specify audience and purpose

66. Citation?
Note taking?
Collaboration?

68. Two Case Studies
Sydney: Is This Learning?
Duke: Collaboration or Cheating?