Daybook Defense

The daybook defense is  way to assess student learning through selection and reflection of daybook assignments.  It is more than a simple notebook check where students and/or teachers are just looking for an item to be present or in the correct order. With a daybook defense, students are combing back through their work to find evidence of progress and learning. Here is a sample daybook defense assignment:

Take a few minutes to look through your daybook. Use sticky notes to find examples of the following points. Label each sticky note and adhere it to the page so you can reference it later.

Find an example of:

1. A relevant and strong connection you made to something you read
2. Where you were confused
3. When you showed understanding of an idea or concept
4. An "a-ha" moment
5. A favorite daybook passage
6. Something you wished you understood better

After you have marked and labeled these passages in your daybook, take a few minutes to reflect (through writing) why you picked the passages you did. One the next available page in your daybook, spend the next 10 minutes writing your daybook defense. This is when you can show your understanding of what you have been able to accomplish this year in this class. Use the daybook as "evidence" of your accomplishments. You can write in paragraph form or bullets, but try to address each of the six sections you marked in your daybook.

Here is an example of a daybook defense shared in a blog from a college student: http://understandmylingo.wordpress.com/daybook-defense/.

Happy writing and reflecting,

Chandra

Daybook and Interactive Notebook Tips

"Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences."

The words above are Writing Anchor Standard 10 from CCSS in Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. Yep, that's right. Routine writing is an expectation for subjects beyond just English/Language Arts.

This summer, I used a daybook for everyday writing during our extensive writing professional development experience. I was sold. It helped me with reflection, revision, and a quickly referencing important terms, ideas, and notes. Although I love tech ed, it was really valuable to have this low-tech task. Not soon after my daybook experience, I read an Edutopia article, "The Lowdown on Longhand: How Writing by Hand Benefits the Brain," which provided even more support for using handwritten journaling and note-taking.  

The weekend before school started I was unable to find any traditional marble composition books in the back-to-school section! I hope that was indication that many of you are using them in class, too. Here are just a few tips to help in your implementation:

• I found a tip on Pinterest (yes, I'm obsessed with Pinterest, too) to link technology to your notebook: create and print QR codes for videos or sites that students can access with a smart phone or tablet for additional practice. (Photo Source: Teaching...the art of possibility Blogspot)

• To make sure that you and students value these notebooks, plan out the way you will use them in advance. Click here for a Google Doc link to an interactive notebook plan sheet.

• Encourage students NOT to tear out sheets. It is actually beneficial for students to see the progression of their thinking. Too often, students go with their first idea, when often times, third or fourth thoughts are far better (Gallagher, 2011). 

Happy writing,

Chandra

Peer Feedback

When I was a growing up, I loved being my mother's helper and grading papers from her 1st grade class. She gave me a red pen and I was ready to roll with a check, check, check, and topped with a "Good Job! :)". When I became a teacher, I will admit that I was still guilty of sometimes giving "empty" feedback to students. It took (and still takes) intentional practice for me, now a veteran educator, to provide descriptive feedback. That little trip down memory lane is to show that giving feedback must be intentional as well as specific and targeted. When we pair up student peer reviewers to discuss their writing, we cannot expect that students will naturally have beautiful and articulate academic peer review conversations without some instruction, modeling, and scaffolding.

Here are a couple of strategies to get peer review started off right with your classes. 

TAG Strategy

During the August 19 PD Session, we showed pictures of students in the high school writing camp group working together to provide feedback on their writing. Prior to them trying it out, the teachers in the group modeled the TAG Strategy with our own writing. It is easy, yet effective.

Peer Feedback Sentence Starters

If your students need more help with academic discourse around peer review, click here for a bundle with sentence starters and other response cards (Source: Panicked Teacher). These can be used across content areas and for a variety of writing and project-based learning tasks.

Be sure to connect with me or one of the UNCG writing workshop participants to learn more about students sharing their writing with peers. 

~Chandra

Using Mentor Texts to Support Student Writers

The Northern Nevada Writing Project defines a mentor text as "a published piece of writing whose idea, structure, or written craft can be used to inspire a student to write something original." Mentor texts can be used in multiple ways to support student writers:

• To be studied and imitated
• Help students make powerful connection to their own lives
• Help students take risks and try new strategies

(International Reading Association, 2008).

So how do we avoid cookie-cutter writing products when providing models for writing? We must give students time to: 1) analyze and talk about mentor texts, 2) practice what they have studied, and 3) share their own efforts with peers for feedback. The ACS Literacy Plan includes the use of mentor texts in its "Framework for Writing Instruction at the Secondary Level" (Section 5). Here is a resource from that section that will provide more insight into using mentor texts:

Movingwriters.org is site created by two secondary English teachers to support writing instruction. The site has a collaborative Mentor Text Drop Box Project for any teacher to find and/or add mentor texts. It is a Google folder that you can add to your own Google account in just one click.

Participants from a 2013 Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts Conference named some of their favorite mentor texts:
Thank You Notes by Jimmy Fallon
World Shortest Stories by Steve Moss
Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite by June Casagrand
Six Word Memoirs from SMITH Magazine

I am currently reading a young adult novel called Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar. Despite being entertaining, educators may pick up on how the main character uses "mentor texts" from his English teacher to emulate in his articles for the school newspaper. Check it out!

~Chandra