Written Essays

Lesson 2 - Assertive Discipline

Assertive discipline may be seen as a direct extension of Thorndike's Law of Effect if we hold one important statement to be true: what works in changing behavior in animals will also work in humans. Then, we need to question this statement even further: even if it does work in humans, too, is it a "meaningful" way of changing student behavior?
Assertive discipline works along the same lines as Thorndike's Law of Effect: reward desired behavior and it will continue; negatively reinforce undesirable behavior and it will decrease. Whereas Thorndike used a hungry cat and strengthened its response to exit the cage by pulling a string, thus allowing it to reach a bowl of food, assertive disciplinarians reward positive student behavior with rewards or PAT, and try to extinguish negative actions with consequences. However, later social psychologists found that "Expected tangible rewards produce a decrease in intrinsic motivation as measured by free time on task when they are given to individuals simply for engaging in the task." (Cameron and Pierce, 1994 p. 394 as quoted in Mayer). Therefore, rewarding a behavior to strengthen a response was not working as well as psychologists hoped.
These findings were consistent with earlier findings of other social psychologists such as Kohn (1993), Condry (1977), and Weiner (1974). Condry found that people who were offered rewards "choose easier tasks, are less efficient in using the information available to solve novel problems, and tend to be more answer oriented and more illogical in their problem-solving strategies. They seem to work harder and produce more activity, but the activity is of a lower quality, contains more errors, and is more stereotyped and less creative than the work of comparable nonrewarded subjects working on the same problems." (as quoted in Stiggens' Student-Involved Classroom Assessment p. 37)
At the root of shaping student behavior is the desire to create an environment that enables all students to learn. It is generally agreed upon that such an environment needs to be respectful, orderly, and safe. Once these conditions are met, the teacher is free to concentrate on content rather than behavior, and therefore student achievement will increase.
This system of behavior modification worked through the 1970's when the goal of our educational system was to educate students and then create a ranking of students that showed who was most successful in comparison to other students. However, our educational system is changing to where society wants us not to rank students and accept that someone has to be at the bottom of the list, but rather to ensure that all students are competent readers, writers, and thinkers. Therefore, teaching students to behave and follow rules is only part of the classroom struggle. Just as our system has changed from a system of rote memorization to critical thinking, so our discipline strategy must be updated in correlation to this change. This means that assertive discipline may be effective in shaping behavior, but the change is not the "meaningful" change that is necessary to motivate all students to meet the strict competency requirements of today's schools.
Today's search into behavior modification by Covington suggests that students must have self-esteem to do well in school. Richard Stiggens advocates a student-involved classroom to raise self-esteem and student achievement. He feels that giving students clear goals and a picture of quality will enable them to achieve success. He states, "The alternative [to a simplistic system of motivation] is to find ways to help students learn to respond to more than external motivational forces. We need to help them go on internal control - to learn to take responsibility for their own academic success." (Stiggens 48). This translates into having a clear picture of quality work for students to examine, along with inferior work to compare and analyze. Once students understand the elements of quality work, they will have specific goals to work toward.
Teachers in my district are reporting success in implementing Stiggins' method of a student-centered classroom as a precursor to raising student achievement. The elementary schools and middle school have done extensive work with the Standards-Based Classroom Initiative, based on Stiggens' theories, and our high school has begun implementation this year. As a member of this committee, I find that using rubrics with specific indications of quality work are effective in motivating students and controlling student behavior. These clear expectations give students a feeling of safety, knowing what they need to do to be successful. Students are then less afraid of failure, increasing positive classroom behavior. Perhaps, then, this experience leads me to believe that the answer to the question posed for this discussion is "No, assertive discipline is not the most meaningful way of changing student behavior."

References
Mayer, Richard E. Learning and Instruction. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill Prentice Hall, 2003.

Stiggens, Richard J. Student-Involved Classroom Assessment. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill Prentice Hall, 2001.

Wolfgang, Charles H. Solving Discipline and Classroom Management Problems. United States of America: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2001.

(1991-2004) Personal Teaching Experience, Sterling High School.

Lesson 3: Use of Punishment

According to Tom Anderson, punishment can fall into two categories: giving an aversive stimulus, or taking away a pleasant stimulus. In my classroom, I have used both types to shape student behavior. There are situations in which I use aversive stimulus, such as giving a detention for misbehavior for a substitute or accumulating tardies. There are also situations where I take away a positive stimulus, such as only allowing the students with all homework assignments in to participate in the end of unit grammar scavenger hunt. Both methods are somewhat effective, but on a short-term basis. Students will eventually fall into old patterns of behavior, most likely because the punishment is mild and short-lived.

I think that giving a pleasant stimulus, under certain circumstances where it does not become a pattern, is more valuable in changing student behavior. For example, this year during the research unit with my lowest-level English II class, I knew there were some students who would not attempt the unit. I have two students in the class who are not passing any classes and who do not care, only wishing to pass enough time to drop out. I offered the class as a whole a reward if the entire class turned in their papers: a pizza party. One of the two students who wasn't going to attempt the unit responded that "He always hated those kids who lost the pizza party for the class", so he was going to attempt the unit. Although they didn't finish, both students completed more of the project than they might have otherwise, and the other members of the class found that motivating each other helped the class as a whole.

Resources:

Anderson, Tom. "Punishment and Other Uses of Aversive Stimuli".

Lesson 6: Procedural Knowledge

As an English teacher, most of the year is spent on procedural knowledge, showing students how to decipher the deeper meaning in literature and how to infuse their own writing with deeper meaning. What we cover (or try to cover) in one year is so extensive that I need to narrow it down for this lesson. Because this type of procedural knowledge is so apparent in teaching writing, I will use that as the basis for this discussion.

The very starting point of writing requires students to use procedural knowledge, if the form of the following "If-then" bundles:

If you know the purpose of your writing, then you can choose an appropriate organizational pattern. This is taught throughout the year as we try out different types of writing and discuss the organization for each different type. Sometimes, students want to interchange expository and persuasion, and they are very similar in many ways. I always show my students "real-world" writing, where published authors mix the methods of writing within one piece and then encourage my students to do the same. For example, they may choose to incorporate some narration into a classification essay to expand the types of second-level support they use. However, the basic bundles are as follows:

If you are writing to inform, use an expository pattern. Then students must determine which type of pattern, whether it be comparison/contrast, extended definition, classification, etc.
If you are writing to persuade, use a persuasive pattern. Then, examine your audience. If they are receptive to your ideas, use a classical arrangement. If they are deeply opposed to what you are going to say, use a Rogerian arrangement. If you don't know, then you research your audience.
If you are writing to tell a story, use a narrative organization.
If you are writing for self-expression, then poetry may be a genre to try.

Once students have identified the structure, then they must consider the actual writing.
If you understand your audience, then you choose the appropriate tone, diction, sentence structure, point-of-view, support, and attention getter for that audience.

Finally, students learn to self-assess their writing to see if it is ready for publication or a grade.
If you know the elements of good writing, then you can evaluate your own writing on those same criteria. This is often done through the use of rubrics in my class. (Such a detailed category and group of "if-then" bundles)

I have tried to keep this very brief, but I try to spend the most time on the audience and good writing portions, as I teach sophomores and organization should have been covered already. In order to teach the elements of good writing, we do a lot of work with rubrics, to focus each writing assignment on specific, clear goals for the students and me. Then, we carefully go over drafts so that students compare what they have done to the established benchmarks for each goal. Also, students collaborate on their writing by sharing drafts of what they have written with each other for feedback. This year is the most successful year of this type of sharing, due to an online discussion board that I started using this year after creating my project for our first CTER class. The students have been amazing in what they are willing to share online - I guess it seems less threatening and more anonymous. The poetry that I have been seeing really represents a level of trust in each other that I have never seen before in a high school class. Their writing is maturing as they are able to give and get feedback, much of which occurs in "If you are trying to create rhythm, then..." or "If you start that way, then I expect..." This is the first year (of eight) that I feel I have reached this level of student collaboration. This is such an important part of a successful English classroom, as evidenced by its inclusion as one of the prominent features of exemplary English instruction at the secondary level, according to a study by the National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement. According to this study, led by Dr. Judith A. Langer, "...understandings and capacities grown and deepen through thoughtful interactions with others, both present and imagined. Students in effective programs regularly engage in collaborative and active group learning. Students frequently share ideas with each other, respond to one another's thoughts, and respectfully challenge those ideas they feel need to be tested." I think that this is one of the most important aspects of writing that we can get high school students especially to buy into, because, as I tell my students, there are often no "rough drafts" in college or real life. They need to be able to read their own and each other's writing and critique it before they send it in for a college-entrance essay, a scholarship essay, a letter to the newspaper, a business proposal, etc. And they learn how to do this through procedural knowledge.

References:
Anderson, Tom. Cognitive Psychology: The Interaction of Memory Structures and Cognitive Strategies. Lesson 6.

National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement. (1999.) "Uncommonly Successful English/Language Arts Programs Share Common Instructional Features." University of Albany.

1996-2004 Personal Teaching Experience. Sterling High School, Sterling, Il.

Lesson 7: Computers and building lessons

Resources:
Mayer, Richard E. Learning and Instruction. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill Prentice Hall, 2003.

Lesson 8: Website Analysis

Reading Comprehension and Websites

In giving our students any material to read, there are criteria the readings must meet to be useful in our classroom. We must consider physical readability, reading level, organization, clarity of writing, use of diagrams or explanatory drawings, credibility, depth of coverage, and date of material. When we take that writing out of the conventional printed text form, and put it into a web page, we need to evaluate the reading on the criteria that we use for printed text, but we also have to adapt those criteria to the uniqueness of the internet. There are situations that arise when reading information online that do not occur in a traditional format. For example, because of the ability to add animation and music to a website, we have to consider distractibility of the site and loading times, two factors that do not occur in a printed text. Another factor that is unique to the internet is the student's ability to get "lost" because of links that take the student out of the original site, whereas a printed text is a confined piece of writing that the student can not use as transfer to other pieces of writing (unwittingly, at least). Therefore, in addition to using signaling, advance organizers, adjunct questions, and structure, as outlined in Mayer, internet texts need to provide a clear map to the reader of where he/she is located within the site, contain enough material within the site that readers aren't leaving the site for all important material, and load completely so that the reader gets all important information in a timely manner.

Two websites that might be accessed by students in my sophomore English class during the research paper are Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) and the Internet Public Library. Each site contain a unit on the research paper, with similar information, but the layout of each site is quite different. Below are the links:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/hypertext/ResearchW/

www.ipl.org/div/aplus/

Review of Purdue's OWL

OWL has a very professional looking site that does not distract the reader with unnecessary animation or sound. The only illustration is for the OWL logo, with is, by internet standards, very discrete. The pages within the site contain a menu bar along the right side of the page to let the reader know where he/she is. Additionally, most of the information is contained within the site itself, so the reader does not have to leave the site to learn what he/she needs to learn. Navigation is simple and clearly defined.

The site uses signaling to alert the reader to important information and to transition between ideas. For example, in the page titled "Scope", the site uses bullets to direct the readers attention to the reasons for doing preliminary research. The site also uses enumeration to direct attention to steps within a process or to give a preview of the information within the page.

The site uses minimal adjunct questioning to activate a response in the reader, and most often just before the site gives the answer(s). Because the site is more of a how-to guide, there isn't really the need for many questions. This should be supplementing or acting as a review for a student who is writing a research paper, so the absence of these types of questions is not detrimental.

One aspect that the site could improve on is the use of advanced organizers or explanative and organizational illustrations for the set-up of the research paper. For example, many students need a clear visual of what an outline should look like, or what citation looks like when used correctly. There could be stronger examples of these for visual learners. Some of these visuals are available, but through links to other sites.

Overall, this is an easy-to-read site that follows many of the instructional techniques as outlined by Mayer.

Review of Internet Public Library

This part of the Internet Public Library site is actually contained within its "TeenSpace". One of the most noticeable differences between this site and the previous one is the use of graphics. The IPL site employs decorative illustrations to attract the reader's attention to its main points, which is somewhat distracting, but not as bad as many sites. The biggest drawback when looking at the unit online is that there is no "map" for the reader. The table of contents is not on all pages, but rather a link from the first page. Then, whatever page the reader clicks on next is a separate entity with no trail for getting back to the beginning except the browser's back button. Therefore, it is easier for the reader to get off-track within the site. This is virtually a site of links, and so the reader will go from page to page and then end with a list of links to outside sites, which also makes it harder to get back to the original information. For beginners to the internet, the lack of clear mapping would make this site confusing and frustrating to navigate.

The site does make good use of signaling to alert the reader to steps within processes and important information within a sentence or paragraph. Most steps are enumerated and many key words are in bold.

Their site does not make good use of advanced organizers. There are no explanative or organizational illustrations, even though there is a great need for them when beginner writers are trying to outline or correctly use citation. The site also does not guide the reader with adjunct questioning, although, as stated above, that might not be particularly necessary for this information.

Overall, I would not recommend this site to my students for information on writing a research paper because the information is scattered around the internet instead of being in one contained site. A student can not get through a reading if he/she keeps losing the place because of the information's being maze rather than a clearly marked path.

Resources

Mayer, Charles E. Learning and Instruction. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall, 2003.

Lesson 9 – Metawriting

The term “meta” refers to a person’s ability to reflect on the process he or she is undergoing in terms of how well the person is achieving a set goal. For example, if a program evaluator finishes an evaluation, the next step is to conduct a meta-evaluation, or an evaluation of how well the evaluation progressed and how it met the goals that were set at the beginning of the evaluation. Likewise, metacognition refers to a person’s ability to think “about one’s own thoughts” (Hacker). The person will examine how he or she is undergoing the process of making sense of an issue. Therefore, a reader will, as stated in Mayer, use metacognition strategies to determine if a reading is making sense by asking questions while reading.
The concept of metawriting is then reflecting on the writing process and how well the author has met the set goals for a piece of writing, or “writing about writing”. There are two types of writing that may be considered metawriting, one that is external to the author and one that is internal to the author.
The external type of metawriting is used when a student is writing about another person’s writing. For example, during a poetry unit, the students may be asked to answer a question such as, “What is the tone of the poem and how did the author establish that tone?” In this case, the student is reflecting on the translating phase of someone else’s writing. This type of writing is similar to the writing that many students in AP classes engage in on a regular basis. This type of metawriting is based on the assumption that there is a correlation between reading and writing: if students understand how others engage in the writing process and infuse a piece of writing with meaning, they will transfer that knowledge to their own writing.
The internal type of metawriting is used when a student is writing about his or her own writing. For example, during a poetry unit, the students may be asked to turn in one final poem that showcases what improvement/knowledge they have gained during the unit. This poem is to be accompanied by a reflection piece of writing that asks the author to answer these basic questions about the writing process, divided into the three processes identified by Hayes and Flower (1980), and with one additional category of reflection.
· Planning – Why did you choose the structure that you did? How did the structure impact the meaning of the poem?
· Translating – How did you establish the tone of the poem? How did you deepen the meaning of the poem or the impact of the poem?
· Reviewing – What choices did you make in revision and why?
· Reflection – Why is this the best piece of writing to illustrate your ability in this unit?
This internal type of metawriting is based on the assumption that although students may be able to read good writing and analyze the choices those authors made, reading good writing alone is not enough to enable students to produce their own good writing. It is a process that must be taught, reflected upon, and revisited with each new writing task.

Although metawriting, if parallel to metacognition, should occur as the process is happening, it might better serve the student as a backward process, looking at a finished piece of writing to evaluate the journey of writing from generating an idea to publishing the piece, especially in light of Glynn, Britton, Muth, and Dogan’s (1982) study that showed students who felt free to write unpolished first drafts produced better final drafts than those who tried to make the rough draft as polished as possible. This might suggest that metawriting, although a concept of reflection students should be aware of throughout the writing process, should not be stressed until the reviewing or reflection stage. Eventually, however, students would begin to internalize the process and use it without being prompted throughout the creation of any written work.

Lesson 11 - Misconceptions

As a high school English teacher, one of the misconceptions I encounter most is that students feel they do not need another year of English because they can already read and write it. To them, English is like a foreign language. I have even had students and parents complain that although the student was earning and A in Spanish, he was only getting a C in English, and that couldn't be right. I have to remind them that in Spanish, they are most likely learning vocabulary, syntax, and grammar. However, in English they are learning higher level reading and writing skills to become more proficient. Even marathon runners continue to train in hopes of improving, and they do improve. Likewise, so do users of the English language.
Another misconception students have is that because they can write informally on the internet, it is acceptable to write that way in a paper. I have to remind students that there are two styles of writing: informal, and formal. It is okay to write informally when the purpose supports it, but when the purpose is serious (to educate, persuade, influence, etc.) so should be the writing. Students quickly revert back to the rules of Standard English after that.

Lesson 13 - Class meetings

Glasser is a proponent of the classroom meeting, a time for the students and teacher to work together to solve classroom problems. There are three types of meetings: open-ended, where students reflect on real-world issues; educational-diagnostic, where the teacher inquires about students' prior knowledge; and problem-solving, where students address classroom issues that need to be solved. A classroom meeting is held in a circle, with all students free to participate in a non-aggressive manner. Students who are experiencing behavior problems in the classroom may be the topic of the day's meeting, stating his or her problem and then brainstorming solutions with the rest of the class or hearing about how those actions affect the rest of the students.

I do not use Glasser's idea of the classroom meeting as dictated by his definition, nor do I use them as he recommends on a daily or weekly basis. There are times, however, when I use a modified version of the classroom meeting. I do engage my students in a class conversation to determine their prior knowledge in certain units and to help students come up with real-world situations where they would transfer the knowledge we are learning. For example, when I start the research unit with my sophomores, we devote two class periods to discussing how research plays a role in our lives as professionals, parents, and community members. This really helps the students understand why we are studying the unit and affects the level of student participation and "buy-in" for the unit. I do not arrange the classroom in a circle, however, because my classroom is extrememly small and the desks won't all fit in that way. How does Glasser address size issues?

The use of computers does solve the size issue - simply have students log in and "face" each other in a chat room. This idea is good, as students may not feel as intimated to participate when not looking at each other face to face. However, when used asynchronously, how long does the process take? Does the process become dragged out? Do students lose interest when the process is not synchronous? It would be interesting to talk to teachers who orchestrate the classroom meeting using technology. Personally, I have used asynchronous classroom discussions online with my sophomores, and I found that some students respond religiously while others don't participate. In relating this experience to a classroom meeting, I wonder if it is harder to pull in non-responsive students online than in a classroom where the teacher can signal with nods, looks, and direct questioning? Whether Glasser could have anticipated the incorporation of technology in changing his classroom meetings or not, it certainly does bring more possibilites to how the classroom meeting is arranged and run.

Lesson 15: Cognitive apprenticeship

Writing is a task that many students balk at, feeling that the process is cumbersome, they aren't good at finding ideas, or they don't understand why they have to learn those skills. In the world outside of school, however, we realize that writing is a necessary skill and can be the only avenue to solving certain problems. For example, clearing up an insurance claim when there is a dispute is often done in writing. However, students often don't see the relationship between "school writing" and "real-world" writing.
In the apprenticeship approach to learning, writers learn to write by working closely with writers whose skills are already developed; listening and modeling those skills is the informal process of learning how to become a proficient writer. When this approach is taken into the classroom, through cognitive apprenticeship, students learn to write by watching the teacher, an expert, model the writing process.
The use of technology provides further options for this participatory modeling of the writing process. Many classrooms are turning to writer's workshops, where students don't all write on the same topics at the same time. Rather, students find writing assignments that are meaningful to them, hopefully bridging the gap between what students see as school learning and meaningful assignments. When this approach is taken, however, it means that a teacher might have students working on all types of writing at the same time, making group instruction in organization and support harder. This is where technology becomes useful. A teacher can stream video of herself modeling the process of writing and have those videos available on the class writing workshop website. Then, if a student decides to write a comparison-contrast paper on two products he is deciding to buy and is having trouble remembering how to fully elaborate the paper, he can access the website and watch the teacher model how she went about the writing assignment. Likewise, a student in the same class who wants to write about his experience swimming with the dolphins over spring break can watch the video clip that models how to build up to a climax in narrative writing. The teacher then has more time to work with students on other writing problems, while still providing the necessary support to her students. Meanwhile, the students who have watched the video clips can then compare the teacher's process to their own process and decide how to proceed with their ideas or get over the stumbling block. The teacher would still be available for prompting the student through the writing, but would not need to spend as much time per student.
One of the greatest benefits of something like this is that it actually allows the teacher to "clone" herself. After all, how many of us have said, "I need two of me to get to all of the students in one hour!" Additionally, the teacher would be avaiable to the students when they were at home working on an assignment, as long as the students have internet access. The teacher would also be available for students who were not in the classroom, such as homebound students.

Resources:
Mayer, Richard E. Learning and Instruction. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall, 2003.

Lesson 15: Priming Student Motivation

Facing a classroom full of unmotivated students with board looks on their faces might be the most intimidating moment a teacher can face. When students are bored or uninterested, we know they are not likely to perform well during the unit. As stated by Mayer in chapter 14, students are motivated by three factors:
1. Motivation is based on interest
2. Motivation is based on self-efficacy, or the belief by the student that he can do well
3. Motivation is based on attribution, or the realization that a student will do well if he tries.

In order to ensure that students are participating and learning in our classrooms, we must address these three issues, especially with our lower level students or students whose parents have not instilled in them the worth of an education. Luckily, the use of computers has made it easier for teachers to address these three factors.

When I teach sophomore English, students often do not see ways in which the skills taught during the poetry unit will help them or be useful in later life. Many students feel that poetry is a genre that is intimidating and, because of the lack of rules, too easy to get wrong. Using technology during the poetry unit really helped me and my class address these issues this year.

This year, I told students they may earn participation points one of two ways: by discussing the poems in class, or by posting comments on the class discussion board under an anonymous login, known only to me. In previous years of teaching, I have found students to be reluctant to interpret poems or share poems if they think they are going to be wrong or if they are unsure of whether or not their poetry is "good". The discussion board provided a place for students to post poems and get feedback, which was wonderful at motivating other students to share. Because the feedback was so positive, it made reluctant students less afraid of appearing stupid or of going out on a limb. More students openly shared their poetry through this method than through anything else I have done in the classroom.
The discussion board also let students discuss ahead of time their ideas for interpretting the poems given as homework, so students could bounce ideas off each other and receive informal feedback before answering in the classroom discussion. Many students were able to talk through their interpretations with each other ahead of time, often with other students they wouldn't have used a resources, and that gave them the self-confidence to speak aloud in class.
The additional exposure to each other's poetry also gave students an idea of the diverse purposes of poetry. Some students wrote about sports, some about objects, and some about relationships, proving that poetry can be used as a release, as a way of expressing a problem, as a tribute, or as way of immortalizing a moment or a person. Students were able to see how other people used poetry, helping them to find a way to make it meaningful to themselves as well.

Technology can expand our classroom resources, provide a "safe" or anonymous place for students to participate, and provide a publication place for student work. All of these benefits help student achievement by enhancing student motivation, one of the greatest reasons to implement technology into the classroom.

Resources:
Mayer, Richer E. Learning and Instruction. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall, 2003.

1996-2004. Personal Experience, classroom teacher.