1. Literacy Summit 2008 More Writing Across the Curriculum

2. Mike Schmoker’s presentation Day 1  “The Opportunity: from Brutal Facts to the Best Schools We’ve Ever Had” Day 2  “More Writing, Less Grading”

3. The Brutal Facts Only 7% of low-income students will ever earn a college degree Only 32% of our college-bound students are adequately prepared for college “Understanding University Success” Center for Educational Policy Research

4. The Brutal Facts “Under-developed literacy skills are the number one reason why students are retained, assigned to special education, given long-term remedial services, and why they fail to graduate from high school.” Fernandino and Tirozzi, presidents of NAESP and NASSP

5. Brutal Facts Writing is rarely assigned, even more rarely taught. William Zinsser, National Commission on Writing Even U.S. student’s best writing is mediocre NAEP report on “best” US high school writing Students “with 3.8 GPAs” in highly selective colleges, write poorly NAEP writing Study

6. The Challenge The key to K-12 and college success:  Analytical Reading and Discussion  Persuasive Writing

7. The Challenge Draw inferences and conclusions Analyze conflicting source documents Solve complex problems with no obvious answer Write multiple 3-5 page papers supporting arguments with evidence Read far more books, articles & essays than they now read in high school classes College Knowledge by David Conley

8. Brutal Facts “If we could institute only one change to make students more college ready, it should be to increase the amount and quality of writing students are expected to produce.” David Conley College Knowledge

9. Brutal Facts: Golden Opportunity Worksheets are developed to consume time, not to teach. 25-30% of class time is spent doing worksheets This translates to 2 to 3 months of the school year

10. Brutal Facts: Golden Opportunity Why Movies? Video clips or movie segments can enhance a lesson, engage students Showing a movie in its entirety is one more way to fill time

11. Brutal Facts ; Golden Opportunity The Golden Opportunity is presented when we realize that by replacing the fillers (worksheets, movies, etc.) with more analytical reading and discussion and persuasive writing, we can increase student exposure to the types of assignments they need.

12. Writing More / Grading Less Conventional grading practices are too time- consuming for teachers and have a negative impact on students. Student overload Infrequent writing assignments Delay in feedback

13. Writing More / Grading Less Recommendations One trait (voice, transitions, sentence fluency, conclusions, supporting arguments with evidence) at a time  Use rubric and exemplars  Assign and grade only 1-3 paragraphs for that trait only

14. Writing More / Grading Less: Recommendations Recommendations Use exemplars!  Professional papers or paragraphs  Anonymous student work

15. Writing More / Grading Less Recommendations Give short assignments  Not every assignment has to be a term paper

16. Writing More / Grading Less Suggestions for longer assignments “Vet” thesis statements  Teach thesis statements every year, at different levels of sophistication “Vet” outlines  Students freewrite or make lists of quotes or evidence from readings  Select best points to create an outline

17. Writing More / Grading Less Suggestions Have students evaluate exemplars and revise poor samples in pairs or by themselves  Look for one trait at a time  Follow up with own paragraph or two focusing on same trait

18. Engaging Students Teenagers love to express their opinion Teenagers love to discuss “social issues” Give students a controversial article to read, and develop a writing lesson around their response to the article.

19. Engaging Students Sample pro/con topics Should sodas be banned on campus? Is the bailout good for Main Street? Should there be more testing for drugs in sports? Do statistics used in a particular article show bias by the author? Is Dr. Frankenstein culpable for murder?

20. Finding Articles Newspaper articles Magazine or journal articles Library databases www.sonorahs.org/librarywww.sonorahs.org/library  Go to the Sonora website  Select “Library”  Select “Online Databases and eBooks”

21. Critical Reading Lesson Plans Read article Develop a writing prompt based on the article In groups of 4-6, share writing prompts; select and refine the best In the same group, outline a lesson plan using the prompt Time permitting, you can go online to explore the library databases