If you’re reading this as a student, it’s likely because you are being asked to complete an activity like a SWOT analysis or a blueprint for a passion project. There is sometimes a question about when, in our makerspace, we will get to the so-called “real work” of English. This is a response to that question, and it is written to help even those who already know the answer.
The TL:DR is that the makerspace is dedicated to building habits and developing substructural skills and traits. English is about reading, thinking, and writing; you’ve been immersed in the Humanities since you entered the room. We must occasionally focus on a skill or trait in order to better read a novel or write an essay. We must dedicate the time to putting those skills and habits of mind into practice.
In a makerspace, the focus is on creating, so students read what they write and write what they read as often as possible. Emulation is at the heart of the creative process. For most students, that means essay-writing, with poetry and short fiction occasionally.
The first section of that post pitches reading as a tool for understanding ourselves and our world. As the video, “What Is Literature For?” puts it:
We should learn to treat [literature] as doctors treat their medicine, something we prescribe in response to a range of ailments and classify according to the problems it might be best suited to addressing. Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others: because it’s a tool to help us live and die with a little more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.
So literature is the most effective tool in the Humanities. That doesn’t address literary analysis. When do we analyze the symbolism, leitmotifs, imagery, etc., of a work of literature? When do we write essays of literary analysis?
Well, as much as Paul Graham seems to be right about how that subtype of essay-writing is “three steps removed from real work,” he’s not right to call it pointless. All analysis has a point:
Comedians deconstruct jokes; musicians deconstruct songs; writers deconstruct writing. Literature is slightly different, because it can teach us how to write well, even if we’re not interested in writing novels ourselves. There’s a reason that Hunter S. Thompson copied literature to learn how to write. Good writing is good writing.
Probably no student should copy Fitzgerald’s fiction verbatim (Hunter S. Thompson was special), but we can apply an emulation-through-analysis lens to literature, just like we would to nonfiction essays.
Emulation Through Analysis (ETA)
We’re going to use a series of questions adapted from The Language of Composition, a textbook on college-level argument and rhetoric, to apply an emulation-through-analysis lens to literature. From Chapter 2:
When we talk about diction, we might look for interesting or powerful vocabulary, but we also consider figures of speech like metaphors, similes, personification, and hyperbole. When we consider syntax, we want to notice interesting constructions like parallelism, juxtaposition, and antithesis, along with sentence types such as compound, complex, periodic, cumulative, and imperative, among others. We also might look at the pacing of a piece of work: Does the writer reveal details quickly or slowly? How does he or she build suspense?
The bolded terms here probably are worth memorizing, because they are the easiest to vary in your own work.
Use the following questions to analyze diction:
What type of words draw your attention? Do they tend to be a particular part of speech, such as verbs, nouns, adjectives, or adverbs? Is the language general and abstract or specific and concrete?
Is the language formal, informal, colloquial, or slang?
Are some words nonliteral or figurative, creating figures of speech such as metaphors?
Are there words with strong connotations? Words with a particular emotional punch?
Use the following questions to analyze syntax:
What is the order of the parts of a sentence? Is it the usual order (subject-verb-object), or is it inverted (object-subject-verb, or any other pattern that is out of the ordinary)?
What are the sentences like? Are they periodic (moving toward something important at the end) or cumulative (beginning with an important idea and then adding details)?
Are many of the sentences simple? Complex? Compound? Are the sentences on the long side, or are they short?
How does the writer connect words, phrases, and clauses?
If you are able to load the original textbook chapter through Google Classroom, you’ll note that the fourth question in the second set (“Does the writer ask questions?”) has been dropped. It’s a good question for certain texts, but it doesn’t have universal usefulness across different modes of writing.
From the profile of an INTJ, or “Architect.” Click for the website by NERIS Analytics Limited, which includes a free test and explanation of these personality classifications.
Getting Things Done, Part 1
The school year, regardless of course or level, comes down to two elements:
The GAP process governs our units of study, whether you are an AP student practicing for the exam in May or a tenth grader reading a novel in November. Grade abatement profiles, skills, and traits govern our learning. You receive three profile scores per quarter.
Your personal or community-based projects will be the focus of most Fridays. You’ll be in charge of how you spend that time. Each course will have a calendar that indicates when these projects will be presented and shared, too.
These two elements require you to be organized, and organization is one of the universal skills and traits you need. Load the grade abatement profiles, skills, and traits, and notice that the foundation of your learning is organization. The rest of the components concatenate1, but they can’t be linked together without organization:
This screenshot is from one of the older iterations of grade abatement, and I’m using it to highlight the header:
Above all else:
Explore, create, learn
“Explore, create, learn.” That really is the focus of our work, and when you’re immersed in self-directed writing or putting time into your Pareto Project, it’ll be exciting work. But it’s the much-less-exciting work of organization that gets us into that maker mentality.
You are reading this post because you need to organize the academic stuff you have on you. That word, stuff, comes from a root meaning “to equip,” and that’s the idea: You equip yourself every day in order to deal with school and the work it requires. You gear up.
So you need a frank assessment of how you do that. You need to assess your organization. Divide that assessment into these four categories, and then use our in-class discussions and workshops to improve each one.
① Physical Organization
Start by opening up your backpack or bag, any and all notebooks you keep for your classes, your vintage Trapper Keeper, etc., and then pouring that stuff out onto a table. (That can be a metaphorical act, of course.) Then assess the extent to which you have a system in place. Can you find materials you need? How ordered is your physical stuff? What does it all look like?
② Digital Organization
You probably have a number of tabs open right now, as you read this instructional post. Start there: How do you keep track of what you’re reading and studying online? Do you have a system for organizing those tabs? Then consider specifically your use of Google, especially Google Drive, Google Classroom, and Gmail. Do you have a system of folders in Drive to keep your work clear and accessible? Do you use a system to sort through email? How do you keep track of assignments, announcements, and instructional posts?
③ Schedule Organization
Your schedule overlaps with the first two, but it has been helpful in the past to separate it. Consider specifically your use of a calendar or planner. Do you use the calendar provided for this course? If so, to what extent? If not, how do you organize your days and weeks? How do you keep up with your responsibilities?
④ Mental Organization
This category overlaps with the rest, too, but it helps to isolate it. It is, in essence, about the grade abatement profiles, skills, and traits that direct all of your learning:
To what extent do you understand the universal skills and traits at the heart of this process? How do you organize your work in here around those skills and traits? Do you use the profiles to map out your work during each GAP triptych panel? What does that learning map look like?
⑤ All Together
Your goal is to find the room for improvement in each one of these organizational categories. To do that, you need accurate self-assessment and observation, discussion with your peers and teachers, and concrete plans for improvement.
If this post is assigned formally, you will be given further directions. You don’t need them, though. You need to test your improvements. You’ll know if they work by putting them into practice.
Getting Things Done, Part 2
As a possibly important sidebar, let’s talk about your personalities. Your self-awareness and sense of self-efficacy are tied to that amorphous idea of “personality,” and you can gain some important insights through simple, online tests.
This isn’t required, of course, but you’re likely to be interested enough in the concept to take the test. It will give you a four-letter code and a detailed explanation of what those letters mean. Once you have the code, either before or while you are reading the explanations, make sure you know what the Forer effect is:
No online test dictates who you are. Understanding the Forer effect is one way to ward off taking these things too seriously. These sorts of tests can help, though, and here is why: When we’re talking about how you organize yourself in here, we’re really talking about you as a whole person. A personality test, especially one as steeped in good research as this one, might be useful, if you are cautious and remember how powerful the Forer effect is.
The idea is not that a personality test is inaccurate or useless. It’s that you must be metacognitively vigilant about anything a website tells you, especially when your goal is self-improvement. I have long thought of myself as an INTJ, for instance, but I see more and more of myself in the description of an INTP these days. I don’t need to take the test itself again; I can read through the differences and apply that knowledge to myself. Since I believe those differences are crucial to my development as a teacher, I have a starting point for meaningful metacognitive discussion and writing.
It’s the same for you. You want a sense of yourself as a whole person:
This kind of self-assessment is organizational because it can generate forward momentum. It can improve the efficacy of other elements of your approach to learning. If you take this online test — or any others; here’s a much lengthier one called the IPIP-NEO that some students have said taught them about themselves — be sure you read all the context and explanation the site provides, keep the warning of the Forer effect in mind, and then do some reflective and metacognitive writing and discussion.
From the profile of an INTP, or “Logician”
Look that word up. I’ve always liked it because it sounds like its definition — like links being clipped together. ↩
This page archives the previous home page, which was used until September of 2018. It contains many useful links and rundowns of the material in here, including guides and handouts not found elsewhere.
The most recent and/or useful guide and handouts should always be available through the main menus.
Pareto Projects | Overview of year-long, student-driven, “genius hour” projects
Recent Comments | Static page listing the 42 most recent contributions to the learning environment.
[/expand]
Daily Checkpoints
[expand title=”Click for three quick guides that provide daily direction(s).”]
Three Steps to Repeat
Semester Calendar
Classroom Posters
[/expand]
Other Essential Info
[expand title=”Click here for more instructional posts and essays.”]
✰ Guide to Feedback (and More) | Probably the best example of how interstitial instruction works, plus it serves as a thorough breakdown of assessment and feedback. Start here, if you’re new.
GAP Scoring Basics | An up-to-date overview of the grade abatement scoring process. It condenses or replaces some of the resources below.
WIP GAP Triptych | Explains how we generate a GAP score every three weeks (and why).
Grade Abatement Profiles (Tiered) | Copies of the profiles used for assessment, but broken up into tiers. Includes notes on moving between the tiers.
Grade Abatement Protocol | The end-of-quarter protocol for determining a GAP score. Condensed elsewhere, but still very, very useful.
Pareto Project Guide | Complete guide to our version of 20 Time or Genius Hour projects.
An interesting thing about the word syllabus is that it comes from a misreading of Latin. That doesn’t change its meaning now, but it does let us think more critically about what a syllabus actually does, not just what we expect it to do.
This syllabus is an overview of our course. It includes the grading policy, homework policy, etc., but it is also an example itself of how instruction works — flipped so that you can access it at your own pace, with plenty of opportunities to ask questions and receive feedback.
Note: You can download a copy of this post for printing or digital annotation by using the PDF and printer options at the bottom of the page. Look for these on all instructional materials:
This course extends the foundational work of ninth grade through the study and emulation of various modes of discourse. Students read fictional and nonfictional narratives, argument, drama, poetry, and exposition. They learn the writing process through many of the same modes of discourse, including literary analysis, argument, exposition, and narrative. A research-driven synthesis paper of exposition, argument, or literary analysis is also completed. The English 10 curriculum is aligned with the Common Core Standards.
Use the following two links to see how the district’s Strategic Coherence Plan corresponds exactly to our course:
Tenth graders will also spend the year learning how they learn best, in preparation for the harder metacognitive work of eleventh grade, twelfth grade, and beyond. We will hone empathy as the most crucial skill for collaboration and the skill most sought by colleges and careers.
Your teachers are your best resource through all of this. To help, they have developed a nontraditional space — one in which they act as “guides on the side,” not “sages on the stage.” Here is a guide that touches on this:
To see an example of what this space produces, and to read testimonials from former students and other stakeholders, visit the following Google Site:
The Makerspace
This classroom is a makerspace. For a quick look at what that means, watch this clip:
That scene from Apollo 13 shows the traditional makerspace experience: A group of like-minded and similarly trained folks confront a real-world problem, gather all the tools and resources they need, and then collaborate on a solution.
This reenactment of a historical scene has NASA engineers pour out a box of mechanical components. Using their expertise, they reimagine how the components can be used. As in most makerspaces, the components are physical — gears, electronics, plastic, and so on. The components can even be as small as DNA:
Trying to hack DNA to create cow-less milk requires the same general kind of makerspace thinking that it takes to save a bunch of stranded astronauts. Both examples fit the usual acronym attached to a makerspace: STEAM, or Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math.
English doesn’t often get a seat at the table, because its components are more abstract. Literature and writing don’t always evoke the same modular, experimental sensibility. We can change that, however, by answering two questions:
What important, real-world problems are we solving in an English classroom?
What components and tools do we need to solve those problems?
Well, the problems you face as a student are the problems all of us face, which are the problems that the Humanities exist to solve: What does it mean to be a human being? What does it mean to coexist in a society? What are my beliefs? How do I want to live my life?
There is also a framing study of education and learning, which is part of the metacognitive framework of English: What does it mean to be educated? What is the purpose of school? How does each of us learn best, and what are the most important skills and traits for our futures?
Like any makerspace, we will experiment to try to solve those problems and answer these questions. We’ll think outside the box. Sometimes we’ll dismantle the box and build a better one. Our tools and components are a set of universal skills and traits, the other human beings working beside us, and the literature and nonfiction that best teaches us how to be human.
Grading Policy
This course uses grade abatement, which is a profile-based system using a set of universal skills and traits. Here is a printable handout:
Copies of this and other assessment tools are available throughout the classroom. That includes this walkthrough of how each evidence-gathering and analytical process works:
Every three weeks, you will collaborate with your teachers to determine which profile fits the work you’ve done during those three weeks. This is a consistent, fair, and objective process. It rewards growth and collaboration much more than performative skill.
Here is a calendar that indicates (among other things) the exact date of each profile:
Make a copy of the calendar for your own use.
We are looking to self-report on Fridays, if possible, to avoid giving you work over the weekend — and to give me the weekend to do an initial run-through of your self-assessments. Note that these are 15-day evidentiary panels, three per quarter, which is enough to give us a triptych metaphor. Because of scheduled vacation days, the first semester fluctuates more; by Q3, each panel has exactly 15 scheduled class meetings1
These twelve profile scores have also been set up in advance in Infinite Campus.
Pareto Projects
That provisional calendar also shows you the shape of our year together, including the opportunity to do a one-of-a-kind project:
Right now, the plan is to start the first projects in October. We will go over the process then. For now, you are free to read about our version of a Genius Hour project. Your first one will be personal in nature, like last year’s projects; the second, which will start in February, will be community-based.
Homework and Classwork Policy
The homework policy is built into the grading policy, specifically into the thresholds that separate upper- and lower-tier profiles from each other. Read them carefully. The penalty for failing to complete homework is significant.
Google Classroom is the central hub for required assignments. It tracks completion, including time and date stamps for submitted and edited work. We will also familiarize you with Turnitin.com, Google Forms, and other mechanisms for sharing and evaluating work.
Classwork and homework are part of what’s called interstitial learning, which is best understood through practice. It allows you to work when you work best, with one exception: You must use class time effectively. This is outlined here:
This is the usual give-and-take of a classroom: The two most basic requirements of this course, in-class focus and feedback, are also the two keys that unlock the best performance and strongest growth — as well as the highest scores. What observable habits and behavioral patterns do you create over time?
When you are uncertain about what to do in class or at home, ask for help. You can also read this annotated step-by-step guide, which is available in class, online, and as one of our classroom posters:
Tenth graders take a final exam in June. You will sit for that exam during exam week. It will be designed to help you practice for the Common Core English Regents, which is given to all juniors.
We will practice the tasks on the English Regents periodically, especially the close reading and multiple-choice work that makes up half of the exam. You can read more about the structure of the exam here:
Again, you do not take this test until you are a junior. We will practice its components this year, with a final exam in June that is based on the Regents.
Required Materials
Bring your district-issued Chromebook or another Internet-ready device every day. Bring paper and a pen or pencil. Keep our current novel, nonfiction, writing prompt, etc., organized and with you at all times.
Otherwise, we’ll determine together what you need to be most successful. The onus is on you to start that process, and not just because we are an English makerspace. At this point in your academic career, you need to individualize a system that helps you accomplish your goals.
We are also going to try to be as paperless as possible this year. We need to be able to edit some documents in real time and to collaborate in a more 21st-century way. You need access to the hyperlinks and connections that make up the bulk of all contemporary writing and reading.
You will still have the ability to print any materials you want printed. Think of it as responsive printing: If you need a copy of something, then you’ll get it. It’s up to you to determine that need, though, and usually to take care of it. We have a printer connected to the desktops in Room 210 for this purpose.
We will obviously print essays and other texts that we annotate together. Not everything can be done on a computer, and that’s not the point; the point is to minimize our paper use and strengthen your digital skills.
Writing Requirements
One of your goals this year is to create writing that expresses who you are before you apply for college and/or a career. You will organize yourself through Google Drive, publish through Medium and other online platforms, and document your growth in different ways.
That’s a powerful digital footprint — the kind of thing an admissions board or prospective employer will see when they search for you online. The world wants you to have a digital presence. This course will help you build it.
The writing itself will be driven by a universal rubric and collaborative writing process. The steps are carefully constructed to help you develop your own style while learning how to answer any prompt you are given.
Part of grade abatement is an approach to writing that gives feedback without scores or points on the writing itself. This is to encourage risk-taking, revision, and metacognition.
Reading Requirements
You need to develop a reading habit. Your success, now and in the future, increases the more you read discerningly and actively. Read a little of everything, and read whenever you can. Emulate Malcolm X, who wrote, “I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.”
One way to encourage this habit is through posts like this. All instruction will be flipped online, with class time reserved for face-to-face discussion and small-group collaboration. The more we balance and preface that in-class work with the written word, the stronger both parts of your learning will be.
The beauty of the devices we all have is that they give us access to limitless text — they put us, at all times, close to compelling essays, powerful short stories, beautiful poetry, even the best books. If you learn to read for yourself, not just because you are in school, you will have a lifelong habit.
And if reading for yourself seems clichéd, reject that seeming cliché. Embrace the truth of it, which is that reading makes you a better person. This works for literature as well as the essays you will strive to emulate. It’s the simplest shortcut:
That orientation post will acclimate you more quickly to this style of learning than anything else at this stage. Take your time, read carefully, and ask questions. The deeper you dive, the more quickly you will feel comfortable.
You can post any of your questions so far in the comment section below. You can also send an email or schedule a time during the school day to meet.
The shape of the year is interesting. Class time — face-to-face time — matters most, and the first two quarters have lots of starts and stops. You can (and will) learn interstitially — you have to learn interstitially in this day and age — and you can augment your learning online. You can’t replace face-to-face work. So it’s interesting that the first two quarters are desultory: long weekends, days off in the middle of the week, plenty of fire drills, etc., plus distractions like Spirit Week, college applications (for seniors), and the inevitable influx of bad weather. The second semester is pretty solid, though, with plenty of time to build momentum and shake off the effects of the desultory start of the year. Spring break is predictable. The rest of our schedules lines up in 15-day blocks of time. ↩
An interesting thing about the word syllabus is that it comes from a misreading of Latin. That doesn’t change its meaning now, but it does let us think more critically about what a syllabus actually does, not just what we expect it to do.
This syllabus is an overview of our course. It includes the grading policy, homework policy, etc., but it is also an example itself of how instruction works — flipped so that you can access it at your own pace, with plenty of opportunities to ask questions and receive feedback.
Note: You can download a copy of this post for printing or digital annotation by using the PDF and printer options at the bottom of the page. Look for these on all instructional materials:
Designed for students who have completed English 10, this course builds upon the skills introduced and cultivated in the previous two years with an emphasis on a close reading of a variety of texts, listening, speaking, and writing. Student writing portfolios will contain examples of the four modes of discourse. English 11R students will work towards a mastery of the elements of argument and rhetorical appeals. In June, the students will write the NYS Regents Examination, which they must pass in order to graduate. The English 11 curriculum is aligned with the Common Core Standards.
Use the following two links to see how the district’s Strategic Coherence Plan corresponds exactly to our course:
Juniors will focus on argument, which also helps prepare you for the Regents Exam you take in June. You can also expect more rigorous metacognitive work as a precursor to your senior year, college, and beyond. We will continue to hone empathy as the most crucial skill for collaboration and the skill most sought by colleges and careers.
Your teachers are your best resource through all of this. To help, they have developed a nontraditional space — one in which they act as “guides on the side,” not “sages on the stage.” Here is a guide that touches on this:
To see an example of what this space produces, and to read testimonials from former students and other stakeholders, visit the following Google Site:
The Makerspace
This classroom is a makerspace. For a quick look at what that means, watch this clip:
That scene from Apollo 13 shows the traditional makerspace experience: A group of like-minded and similarly trained folks confront a real-world problem, gather all the tools and resources they need, and then collaborate on a solution.
This reenactment of a historical scene has NASA engineers pour out a box of mechanical components. Using their expertise, they reimagine how the components can be used. As in most makerspaces, the components are physical — gears, electronics, plastic, and so on. The components can even be as small as DNA:
Trying to hack DNA to create cow-less milk requires the same general kind of makerspace thinking that it takes to save a bunch of stranded astronauts. Both examples fit the usual acronym attached to a makerspace: STEAM, or Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math.
English doesn’t often get a seat at the table, because its components are more abstract. Literature and writing don’t always evoke the same modular, experimental sensibility. We can change that, however, by answering two questions:
What important, real-world problems are we solving in an English classroom?
What components and tools do we need to solve those problems?
Well, the problems you face as a student are the problems all of us face, which are the problems that the Humanities exist to solve: What does it mean to be a human being? What does it mean to coexist in a society? What are my beliefs? How do I want to live my life?
There is also a framing study of education and learning, which is part of the metacognitive framework of English: What does it mean to be educated? What is the purpose of school? How does each of us learn best, and what are the most important skills and traits for our futures?
Like any makerspace, we will experiment to try to solve those problems and answer these questions. We’ll think outside the box. Sometimes we’ll dismantle the box and build a better one. Our tools and components are a set of universal skills and traits, the other human beings working beside us, and the literature and nonfiction that best teaches us how to be human.
Grading Policy
This course uses grade abatement, which is a profile-based system using a set of universal skills and traits. Here is a printable handout:
Copies of this and other assessment tools are available throughout the classroom. That includes this walkthrough of how each evidence-gathering and analytical process works:
Every three weeks, you will collaborate with your teachers to determine which profile fits the work you’ve done during those three weeks. This is a consistent, fair, and objective process. It rewards growth and collaboration much more than performative skill.
Here is a calendar that indicates (among other things) the exact date of each profile:
Make a copy of the calendar for your own use.
We are looking to self-report on Fridays, if possible, to avoid giving you work over the weekend — and to give me the weekend to do an initial run-through of your self-assessments. Note that these are 15-day evidentiary panels, three per quarter, which is enough to give us a triptych metaphor. Because of scheduled vacation days, the first semester fluctuates more; by Q3, each panel has exactly 15 scheduled class meetings1
These twelve profile scores have also been set up in advance in Infinite Campus.
Pareto Projects
That provisional calendar also shows you the shape of our year together, including the opportunity to do a one-of-a-kind project:
Right now, the plan is to start the first projects in October. We will go over the process then. For now, you are free to read about our version of a Genius Hour project. Your first one will be personal in nature, like last year’s projects; the second, which will start in February, will be community-based.
Homework and Classwork Policy
The homework policy is built into the grading policy, specifically into the thresholds that separate upper- and lower-tier profiles from each other. Read them carefully. The penalty for failing to complete homework is significant.
Google Classroom is the central hub for required assignments. It tracks completion, including time and date stamps for submitted and edited work. We will also familiarize you with Turnitin.com, Google Forms, and other mechanisms for sharing and evaluating work.
Classwork and homework are part of what’s called interstitial learning, which is best understood through practice. It allows you to work when you work best, with one exception: You must use class time effectively. This is outlined here:
This is the usual give-and-take of a classroom: The two most basic requirements of this course, in-class focus and feedback, are also the two keys that unlock the best performance and strongest growth — as well as the highest scores. What observable habits and behavioral patterns do you create over time?
When you are uncertain about what to do in class or at home, ask for help. You can also read this annotated step-by-step guide, which is available in class, online, and as one of our classroom posters:
Juniors take the New York State Regents in English in June. We will practice the tasks on the English Regents periodically, especially the close reading and multiple-choice work that makes up half of the exam. You can read more about the structure of the exam here:
Individual help will be offered through Castle Learning and one-on-one workshops as needed.
Note: Because of the Regents Exam, juniors do not sit for a final exam in English during exam week.
Required Materials
Bring your district-issued Chromebook or another Internet-ready device every day. Bring paper and a pen or pencil. Keep our current novel, nonfiction, writing prompt, etc., organized and with you at all times.
Otherwise, we’ll determine together what you need to be most successful. The onus is on you to start that process, and not just because we are an English makerspace. At this point in your academic career, you need to individualize a system that helps you accomplish your goals.
We are also going to try to be as paperless as possible this year. We need to be able to edit some documents in real time and to collaborate in a more 21st-century way. You need access to the hyperlinks and connections that make up the bulk of all contemporary writing and reading.
You will still have the ability to print any materials you want printed. Think of it as responsive printing: If you need a copy of something, then you’ll get it. It’s up to you to determine that need, though, and usually to take care of it. We have a printer connected to the desktops in Room 210 for this purpose.
We will obviously print essays and other texts that we annotate together. Not everything can be done on a computer, and that’s not the point; the point is to minimize our paper use and strengthen your digital skills.
Writing Requirements
One of your goals this year is to create writing that expresses who you are before you apply for college and/or a career. You will organize yourself through Google Drive, publish through Medium and other online platforms, and document your growth in different ways.
That’s a powerful digital footprint — the kind of thing an admissions board or prospective employer will see when they search for you online. The world wants you to have a digital presence. This course will help you build it.
The writing itself will be driven by a universal rubric and collaborative writing process. The steps are carefully constructed to help you develop your own style while learning how to answer any prompt you are given.
Part of grade abatement is an approach to writing that gives feedback without scores or points on the writing itself. This is to encourage risk-taking, revision, and metacognition.
Reading Requirements
You need to develop a reading habit. Your success, now and in the future, increases the more you read discerningly and actively. Read a little of everything, and read whenever you can. Emulate Malcolm X, who wrote, “I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.”
One way to encourage this habit is through posts like this. All instruction will be flipped online, with class time reserved for face-to-face discussion and small-group collaboration. The more we balance and preface that in-class work with the written word, the stronger both parts of your learning will be.
The beauty of the devices we all have is that they give us access to limitless text — they put us, at all times, close to compelling essays, powerful short stories, beautiful poetry, even the best books. If you learn to read for yourself, not just because you are in school, you will have a lifelong habit.
And if reading for yourself seems clichéd, reject that seeming cliché. Embrace the truth of it, which is that reading makes you a better person. This works for literature as well as the essays you will strive to emulate. It’s the simplest shortcut:
That orientation post will acclimate you more quickly to this style of learning than anything else at this stage. Take your time, read carefully, and ask questions. The deeper you dive, the more quickly you will feel comfortable.
You can post any of your questions so far in the comment section below. You can also send an email or schedule a time during the school day to meet.
The shape of the year is interesting. Class time — face-to-face time — matters most, and the first two quarters have lots of starts and stops. You can (and will) learn interstitially — you have to learn interstitially in this day and age — and you can augment your learning online. You can’t replace face-to-face work. So it’s interesting that the first two quarters are desultory: long weekends, days off in the middle of the week, plenty of fire drills, etc., plus distractions like Spirit Week, college applications (for seniors), and the inevitable influx of bad weather. The second semester is pretty solid, though, with plenty of time to build momentum and shake off the effects of the desultory start of the year. Spring break is predictable. The rest of our schedules lines up in 15-day blocks of time. ↩
An interesting thing about the word syllabus is that it comes from a misreading of Latin. That doesn’t change its meaning now, but it does let us think more critically about what a syllabus actually does, not just what we expect it to do.
This syllabus is an overview of our course. It includes the grading policy, homework policy, etc., but it is also an example itself of how instruction works — flipped so that you can access it at your own pace, with plenty of opportunities to ask questions and receive feedback.
Note: You can download a copy of this post for printing or digital annotation by using the PDF and printer options at the bottom of the page. Look for these on all instructional materials:
This Advanced Placement course focuses on developing maturity and complexity in reading, thinking, and writing, with special emphasis on collaborative learning, reflection, and metacognition. Students read, analyze, and emulate primarily nonfiction prose; the writing and reading processes are taught, however, through all modes of discourse. Scaffolded onto this is continual, portfolio-driven self-analysis. Each student will be required to take the AP examination in May. In June, the students will write the NYS Regents Examination, which they must pass in order to graduate.
You don’t need to read the entire document, but some of the specifics might help to clear up confusion. That excerpt, from page 11 of the PDF, matches up with what you’d do in any English course. But Language and Composition is meant to be paired with Literature and Composition. On page 12:
We will still study literature, starting with your summer reading memoirs, but this is the College Board course in rhetoric, argument, and civic discourse. See the section on “Required Reading” for more.
You should also peruse the following two pages to see how the district’s Strategic Coherence Plan corresponds exactly to our course:
You can expect more rigorous metacognitive work as a precursor to what you’ll need next year, whether you will be a senior or in your first year of college1. We will continue to hone empathy as the most crucial skill for collaboration and the skill most sought by colleges and careers.
I am your best resource through all of this. To help, I’ve developed a nontraditional space — one in which I will act as a “guide on the side,” not a “sage on the stage.” Here is a discussion of how all stakeholders can take advantage of that resource:
To see an example of what this space produces, and to read testimonials from former students and other stakeholders, visit the following Google Site:
The Makerspace
This classroom is a makerspace. For a quick look at what that means, watch this clip:
That scene from Apollo 13 shows the traditional makerspace experience: A group of like-minded and similarly trained folks confront a real-world problem, gather all the tools and resources they need, and then collaborate on a solution.
This reenactment of a historical scene has NASA engineers pour out a box of mechanical components. Using their expertise, they reimagine how the components can be used. As in most makerspaces, the components are physical — gears, electronics, plastic, and so on. The components can even be as small as DNA:
Trying to hack DNA to create cow-less milk requires the same general kind of makerspace thinking that it takes to save a bunch of stranded astronauts. Both examples fit the usual acronym attached to a makerspace: STEAM, or Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math.
English doesn’t often get a seat at the table, because its components are more abstract. Literature and writing don’t always evoke the same modular, experimental sensibility, and even an AP course in rhetoric and argument has “English” attached to it. We can change that, however, by answering two questions:
What important, real-world problems are we solving in an English classroom?
What components and tools do we need to solve those problems?
Well, the problems you face as a student are the problems all of us face, which are the problems that the Humanities exist to solve: What does it mean to be a human being? What does it mean to coexist in a society? What are my beliefs? How do I want to live my life?
There is also a framing study of education and learning, which is part of the metacognitive framework of English: What does it mean to be educated? What is the purpose of school? How does each of us learn best, and what are the most important skills and traits for our futures?
Like any makerspace, we will experiment to try to solve those problems and answer these questions. We’ll think outside the box. Sometimes we’ll dismantle the box and build a better one. Our tools and components are a set of universal skills and traits, the other human beings working beside us, and the literature and nonfiction that best teaches us how to be human.
Grading Policy
This course uses grade abatement, which is a profile-based system using a set of universal skills and traits. Here is a printable handout:
Copies of this and other assessment tools are available throughout the classroom. That includes this walkthrough of how each evidence-gathering and analytical process works:
Every three weeks, you will collaborate with your teachers to determine which profile fits the work you’ve done during those three weeks. This is a consistent, fair, and objective process. It rewards growth and collaboration much more than performative skill.
Here is a calendar that indicates (among other things) the exact date of each profile:
Make a copy of the calendar for your own use.
We are looking to self-report on Fridays, if possible, to avoid giving you work over the weekend — and to give me the weekend to do an initial run-through of your self-assessments. Note that these are 15-day evidentiary panels, three per quarter, which is enough to give us a triptych metaphor. Because of scheduled vacation days, the first semester fluctuates more; by Q3, each panel has exactly 15 scheduled class meetings2
These twelve profile scores have also been set up in advance in Infinite Campus.
Pareto Projects
That provisional calendar also shows you the shape of our year together, including the opportunity to do a one-of-a-kind project:
Right now, the plan is to start the first projects in October. We will go over the process then. For now, you are free to read about our version of a Genius Hour project. Your first one will be personal in nature, like last year’s projects; the second, which will start in February, will be community-based.
Homework and Classwork Policy
The homework policy is built into the grading policy, specifically into the thresholds that separate upper- and lower-tier profiles from each other. Read them carefully. The penalty for failing to complete homework is significant.
Google Classroom is the central hub for required assignments. It tracks completion, including time and date stamps for submitted and edited work. We will also familiarize you with Turnitin.com, Google Forms, and other mechanisms for sharing and evaluating work.
Classwork and homework are part of what’s called interstitial learning, which is best understood through practice. It allows you to work when you work best, with one exception: You must use class time effectively. This is outlined here:
This is the usual give-and-take of a classroom: The two most basic requirements of this course, in-class focus and feedback, are also the two keys that unlock the best performance and strongest growth — as well as the highest scores. What observable habits and behavioral patterns do you create over time?
When you are uncertain about what to do in class or at home, ask for help. You can also read this annotated step-by-step guide, which is available in class, online, and as one of our classroom posters:
Your AP exam is on Wednesday, May 16. It will be one of the last exams you take, if you have more than one, and toward the end of the school year, regardless. We will spend a good amount of time honing your ability to do well on this test, both in terms of the skills and knowledge it requires and your ability to grind through the Sisyphean difficulties of school.
While you are reading about this course and classroom, read this:
Ignore (obviously) the teacher-specific stuff. This is the test you’ll take, and we’re lucky that it’s a good test — one that requires the same universal skills and traits you need in every walk of life. Even the vestigial elements have some merit.
Be sure to read the testimonials for this course, if you have any doubt that you will be given all the tools you need to be successful:
The AP exam is important, and you’ll be as ready as your effort allows you to be. But you’ll benefit in many other ways, of course.
Juniors also take the New York State Regents in English in June. We will not practice the tasks on the English Regents until after the AP exam in May, because the Regents based their Common Core exam also exactly on the AP exam for Language and Composition. You can read more about the structure of the exam here:
The single essay is identical to the synthesis essay on the AP exam
There are reading passages and questions like your AP exam
There is a short analysis prompt exactly like the rhetorical analysis prompt on the AP exam
Because of the Regents Exam, juniors do not sit for a final exam in English during exam week.
Senior Talks
Any senior taking Language and Composition will (obviously) not take the Regents Exam again. You will, however, complete and present a senior talk as part of your final exam. This will be distributed and reviewed later in the school year.
Required Materials
Bring your district-issued Chromebook or another Internet-ready device every day. Bring paper and a pen or pencil. Keep our current novel, nonfiction, writing prompt, etc., organized and with you at all times.
Otherwise, we’ll determine together what you need to be most successful. The onus is on you to start that process, and not just because we are an English makerspace. At this point in your academic career, you need to individualize a system that helps you accomplish your goals.
We are also going to try to be as paperless as possible this year. We need to be able to edit some documents in real time and to collaborate in a more 21st-century way. You need access to the hyperlinks and connections that make up the bulk of all contemporary writing and reading.
You will still have the ability to print any materials you want printed. Think of it as responsive printing: If you need a copy of something, then you’ll get it. It’s up to you to determine that need, though, and usually to take care of it. We have a printer connected to the desktops in Room 210 for this purpose.
We will obviously print essays and other texts that we annotate together. Not everything can be done on a computer, and that’s not the point; the point is to minimize our paper use and strengthen your digital skills.
Writing Requirements
One of your goals this year is to create writing that expresses who you are before you apply for college and/or a career. You will organize yourself through Google Drive, publish through Medium and other online platforms, and document your growth in different ways.
That’s a powerful digital footprint — the kind of thing an admissions board or prospective employer will see when they search for you online. The world wants you to have a digital presence. This course will help you build it.
The writing itself will be driven by a universal rubric and collaborative writing process. The steps are carefully constructed to help you develop your own style while learning how to answer any prompt you are given.
Part of grade abatement is an approach to writing that gives feedback without scores or points on the writing itself. This is to encourage risk-taking, revision, and metacognition.
Reading Requirements
You need to develop a reading habit. Your success, now and in the future, increases the more you read discerningly and actively. Read a little of everything, and read whenever you can. Emulate Malcolm X, who wrote, “I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.”
One way to encourage this habit is through posts like this. All instruction will be flipped online, with class time reserved for face-to-face discussion and small-group collaboration. The more we balance and preface that in-class work with the written word, the stronger both parts of your learning will be.
The beauty of the devices we all have is that they give us access to limitless text — they put us, at all times, close to compelling essays, powerful short stories, beautiful poetry, even the best books. If you learn to read for yourself, not just because you are in school, you will have a lifelong habit.
And if reading for yourself seems clichéd, reject that seeming cliché. Embrace the truth of it, which is that reading makes you a better person. This works for literature as well as the essays you will strive to emulate. It’s the simplest shortcut:
Summer reading will be our first look at how literature, including nonfiction, affects us. While we will follow the College Board’s requirements and move away from literature as the driving force of instruction after that, we will still refer to the importance of empathy and life experience in what we read.
Course Orientation
We are now at the end of the course syllabus. While you continue our in-class writing and reading, use your homework time to continue here:
That orientation post will acclimate you more quickly to this style of learning than anything else at this stage. Take your time, read carefully, and ask questions. The deeper you dive, the more quickly you will feel comfortable.
You can post any of your questions so far in the comment section below. You can also send an email or schedule a time during the school day to meet.
Or traveling, or starting a career — this is universal preparation for how to think, to read, and to write. No path you take will be judged, as long as you take that path with a clear and critical purpose. ↩
The shape of the year is interesting. Class time — face-to-face time — matters most, and the first two quarters have lots of starts and stops. You can (and will) learn interstitially — you have to learn interstitially in this day and age — and you can augment your learning online. You can’t replace face-to-face work. So it’s interesting that the first two quarters are desultory: long weekends, days off in the middle of the week, plenty of fire drills, etc., plus distractions like Spirit Week, college applications (for seniors), and the inevitable influx of bad weather. The second semester is pretty solid, though, with plenty of time to build momentum and shake off the effects of the desultory start of the year. Spring break is predictable. The rest of our schedules lines up in 15-day blocks of time. ↩
Actually, it’s less a reminder than a reanimator. We’re all a bit dead on our feet by June. There’s more than the course’s final triptych to consider, too.
1. Summer Reading
Read the post covering your 2018 summer assignments. Start the work now, even if you only consider your choices. Your work ethic is going to atrophy by August; you need to exercise it regularly.
Of course, you should only focus on summer reading if you’ve truly finished up everything required of you for this year.
2. Junior-to-Senior Jumpstart
This, too, should only be your concern when and if you handle the rest of your responsibilities, especially in this class. Time will keep on keeping on, though, and in two weeks, you can start to consider some of the bigger stressors of the fall of your senior year:
Asking for letters of recommendation
Drafting the college essay
Completing the Common App
Completing your Junior Autobiography
Organizing an online portfolio of writing, art, etc.
If you can dedicate some time to these over the summer, the fall will be much less stressful.
3. Pareto Projects
The goal was always to grapple with the soritical paradox of most projects and final exams. That’s a way of saying that these projects should involve work you take with you into the summer, into next year, etc., because the work is meaningful. Any arbitrary end date ought to exist to prompt feedback and validation, not to truncate your progress so we can assign it a score.
Share anything you want to share through the Google Classroom assignment created this morning. I’ll populate a Google Site created for this purpose, and we’ll see how much feedback and validation we can gather from the rest of the district and community. Unless you’re a senior (and probably even then), this kind of community feedback will matter as much in July and September as it will next week.
4. Final Essay
The retrospective consideration of your writing life is due on Monday, June 11. Late work affects your profile — of course it does — but it is more important to write meaningfully than to compromise your insight through a last-second rush job.
It’s possible that some of you did not organize your time well over the last three weeks. If so, you should take a few extra days to write this retrospective. Get through the Regents Exam first. Make sure you’ve done what you needed to do for your Pareto Project. Then carve out the necessary time, starting after the Regents Exam on June 12, complete your final essay.
The prompt is in the “Final Triptych” post and on Google Classroom. You should submit your response on Classroom, unless you are using Medium or another site to publish; in that case, you can link directly to your essay.
Note: Some of you negotiated an alternative subject for this final essay. That deal still holds. Submit your response to Google Classroom.
5. THE Regents Exam
By now, you should be deep into this prep. You ought to have finished it, really, since doing a complete practice exam right before taking the real exam is a surefire way to court burnout.
As necessary, the exam posted to Castle Learning is the best use of your remaining time. It has the metacognitive work built in. Load your account and work through the multiple-choice and writing. Refer back to your notes on these posts:
To a significant extent, the Regents Exam reflects your preparation more than your talent for writing, reading, and thinking. Weak work ethic leads to low scores; strong work ethic leads to high scores. If you work hard, even at this late hour, you will do well. The data will tell us your story.
In fact, you might consider everything happening now as another chance to tell a story about yourself. It can be a story of continued investment and insight, of apathy and entitlement, of perseverance and turning points — all narratives stitched together from the choices you’ve already made and the choices you will eventually make. Create something meaningful.
Something to keep in mind: We are always, even on the last day of the year, still making the makerspace, not just using it. We can always learn more about how to use the Humanities to build a better version of ourselves. There will always be meaningful problems to solve and new ways to learn.
On the course calendar, this was the shape of the next and final part of the school year:
That remains a helpful framework — red for collective test prep, green for autonomous makerspace work, and yellow for your Pareto Projects. But you could also set your own schedule. This is not just the last panel of this quarter’s triptych of studies, but a triptych itself, split unevenly between three focuses.
Pareto Projects
From September, when we started these Pareto Projects:
This year, you’ve used 20% of your time to work on a project of your choosing. You have set (and often reset) the goals, schedule, parameters, etc., with time in class every week or so to work.
It’s time to showcase what you’ve accomplished. We’ll partner with the high school’s Media Specialist, Mr. Breen, to share some of your work online and in the iLC. We’ll fill the walls and shelves of our classroom. If we can, we’ll spread into other areas of the building. It’s up to you.
In fact, figuring out how to showcase your project is part of the project — a problem to solve, as we would any other problem, through collaboration and experimentation. This moment is about you and what you have created.
There won’t be a Google Classroom assignment for these projects. They are part of your final profile score, though.
Writing Life Retrospective
Meanwhile, you are encouraged to create a writing life retrospective, which is exactly what it says on the tin: a look back at your writing life. The scope and sequence of this retrospective are up to you. The form is up to you. It could be a portfolio of essays and other writings from this year, but I’d encourage you to think bigger.
Whatever your exploration looks like, you need to pull together an essay that bills itself as a retrospective answer to a question about your writing life. That will be the assignment on Google Classroom, available from May 21 on.
The essay should follow Paul Graham’s idea of “err[ing] on the side of the river,” or mining for insight and interesting perspectives. You’ll want to think creatively. Scour old folders in Google Drive, boxes of work your parents have kept, the corners of old Internet haunts — wherever you might gather unique details and meaning.
And think of your writing life as much more than just essays written in school. Your writing includes anything written, from essays to poetry to online posts to the occasional bit of bathroom graffiti. Use it all.
We’ll shape this work as we explore it, same as we will for the Pareto Project showcases. Keep Piet Hein’s idea in mind: “Art is solving problems that cannot be formulated before they have been solved. The shaping of the question is part of the answer.”
Regents Exam Triage
On the other end of the educational spectrum is the Regents Exam, for those of you who must take it on June 12. There is no art to test prep, at least not as Hein or any other creative person would define it. Think of it as triage — self-directed, teacher-assisted triage.
Castle Learning has also been set up for each of you. You’ll need your login information, which I’ll provide in class. Here is the main site:
I’ll help you through the registration process, if you need help. Once you’re registered, you’ll find these five assignments:
8/16 Practice: Part 1 – Passage A
8/16 Practice: Part 1 – Passage B
8/16 Practice: Part 1 – Passage C
8/16 Practice: Part 2
8/16 Practice: Part 3
This practice all comes from the ELA Common Core Regents Exam given in August of 2016. Follow the directions carefully. For each assignment, there is a CR — constructed response — that asks you to be metacognitive about your choices and performance.
These metacognitive constructed responses are essential. They turn cursory work into meaningful work, and they force you to take the test seriously, even if you are burned out on tests.
For each reading passage, the metacognitive prompt in Castle Learning is this:
Use teacher feedback, your peers, and the correct answers that are provided by Castle Learning to engineer an understanding of how these questions and answer choices work. Write metacognitively about the passage, the questions, and your problem-solving efforts.
And for both writing responses, the metacognitive prompt in Castle Learning is this:
Identify and analyze several writing choices you made in this response. You can focus on your use of detail, your arrangement, your central meaning, or your rhetorical manipulation of grammar and style.
All five assignments will be open until June 11 at 11:59 PM. Your overall diligence and effort in preparing will be part of your final profile score, so try not to wait too long to do this.
If you are in P1 English Regents Prep
You have these five assignments already. Your role is that of a proxy teacher: Use your experience and our work in P1 to help your peers. That’s the kind of collaborative work that boosts your profile score, and it’s the best way to continue to improve your own skills.
If you are in AP English Language & Composition
You also have access to the most recent Regents Exam, which was prepared for you here:
This one is not on Castle Learning. Copies are in our classroom. You can choose between the two versions of the exam. Both will force you to learn the format of the test, so it’s more a matter of personal preference.
You should also keep in mind that the Common Core ELA Regents Exam is a lot like the AP exam you take. If you’ve prepared well for the latter, the former will feel far easier. Avoid overconfidence, and you’ll be fine.
Well, that was unexpected. Where I live, the storm tore up the trees and knocked out the power for a day, but everyone is safe; I hope you can all say the same.
To Twitter for an update on your AP exam:
Due to BCSD being closed on 5/16, all students scheduled to take the AP English Language exam today will instead take the exam during the late administration period on May 23rd. Mrs. Sullivan will be in touch with more details. @brewsterschools@BHS_class_of_19@BrewsterHS18
— Michelle Gosh, Ed.D. (@BCSD_Asst_Supt) May 16, 2018
May 23 is next Wednesday. Here is the silver lining: You have another week to prepare. You also have another weekend to do the assigned test prep, which is a lucky thing for some of you.
I will adjust the deadlines for anything that posted recently to Google Classroom, so if you see a Friday or weekend deadline, expect that to change. I’ll make sure you all have time in class for GAP reports, since some folks are without power right now.
The TL;DR here, however, is that anyone who didn’t do any part of the assigned test prep over the last two weeks is now expected to make up that work by next Tuesday. That’s a practice test requiring three hours and fifteen minutes, plus data entry, writing revisions, and a bit of metacognition.
About two dozen of you never input your multiple-choice answers. Many of you, whether you wrote responses to the free-response questions or not, never got to the revisions and metacognition.
That’s obviously a poor way to prepare for a high-stakes exam, but it’s also a poor way to build evidence for any sort of profile. Here’s what I have on my end for the GAP period that ends tomorrow, May 18:
That’s lifted from Google Sheets. As always, there’s in-class focus and individualized work to consider, but this is pretty much it: AP exam prep, a couple of quasi-optional responses1, and your end-of-panel GAP reports.
That is the first thing you see on the main instructional page of this website, and an entire bookshelf in Room 210 was overtaken, like so much Southern kudzu, by physical copies of this stuff. For a couple of weeks now, you have had one goal: Prepare to take down the AP exam on May 16.
So you need to do this prep. You’ve been given another chance, and that will make it much more damning if you do nothing. Here are the other two posts you need to consider, including the one from May 15:
Q4B GAP scores will be run for students in AP at some point early next week. Q4A scores will be up tonight. If you are missing any part of the test prep assigned on April 29, you have three or four days to get it done.
About Q4A
Most of you got a massive extension on the start of Q4, because it all had a purpose tied to the exam and the end of the year. Consider:
4x Onomatopoeia Quizzes on Grammar as Rhetoric and Style
GARAS Review
GARAS: Final Analysis
All of the grammar work was collaborative, open-note, etc., and built to boost your writing and reading on the exam, plus every other exam you take as juniors. Absolutely essential stuff.
Pareto Project: Final Goals
This is what we’ll use to set up the last three weeks of the year. Pretty essential, considering it’s been a project since September.
GAP Evidence and Formal Self-Assessment
This, too, was essential: An in-class, incremental look at your learning profile for the start of Q4. The form was much more substantial, so that finishing it would almost automatically produce the metacognition and reflection you need.
If you see a GAP score you don’t like, you didn’t do some of that. Make sure you do a little detective work on your own before asking about a profile score.
If you have questions about the rescheduled exam, the test prep, or anything else expected over the next few days, you can ask here or in the comment section of the appropriate post. Hopefully, we’ll see each other tomorrow to talk in person.
Meanwhile:
And that exam debriefing is going to need to be truncated considerably. By the time you get back to class from the AP exam, it will be only three weeks before the end of the year. ↩
