Creating a Vision for Teaching Writing

This week's article summary is Creating a Vision for Teaching Writing.

To me, writing instruction is one of the biggest challenges teachers face because there are so many steps and components to a well-crafted piece of writing, including its need for frequent practice, its slow process, and its essential complement, reading.

Near the end of the article, the author imagines a third grade teacher explaining to parents at back-to-school night that her class will be devoting at least one hour a day to writing. That’s a tall order with a curriculum packed with so much stuff. (As an aside, it’s interesting to me that almost every discipline curriculum comes with the recommendation of one hour a day of concentrated focus. In a vacuum, sure, but there are many competing needs in schools, including time for mental and physical breaks.)

For me there are three aspects of writing I particularly follow:

• First, I read a lot, usually 2 or 3 books at the same time: fiction (one in hard cover—which I still prefer--and one that’s digital—which is more convenient), non-fiction (history is my favorite genre) and something relating to education. I don’t subscribe to the idea you have to finish every book; if a book doesn’t captivate me after 50 pages or so, I move on to something else. When I’m reading, I’m not overly conscious of the style of different writers, yet I know I pick up via osmosis writing techniques, especially sentence construction. (This is why ‘mentor sentences’ are an effective tool in the classroom.) 
• Second, I have learned to embrace the slow process of writing. When Stephen King finishes a first draft of a novel, he locks it in a filing cabinet for a few months before going back to revise it. The first part of writing is idea inspiration, followed by revision and finally editing. Like King, I let my ideas flow freely when I’m drafting and I don’t worry about sentence construction/vocabulary, usage/mechanics, or overall unity/coherence. Different parts of the brain are used for different aspects of writing.
• Third, I cherish revision, which is very different from editing (a necessary yet mundane and mechanical procedure). Revision allows me to take the idea I had and further model and shape it so it’s readable and understandable to others. Writing’s initial focus is inward then evolves outward, i.e., to be shared with others. Sometimes this means reorganizing, reshaping, and rewriting much of my first draft. This is the part of writing I like the most but it’s taken me a long time to understand its importance, savor its slowness, and view my work through a constructively critical lens. This is often where young writers (our students) struggle. I’ve had students who love to write and write but then don’t have the patience or perspective to revise. They can’t yet see the bigger picture of what they’ve already written as a great start but an imperfect end.

There’s been so much research about the importance of stressing a growth mindset for our students and writing is a perfect example. It takes much practice, trial and error, persistence, and self-evaluation.

Joe

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Three things are necessary for children to learn how to write well: 

• Teachers need a theory of action for writing instruction. Writing is a social activity and needs to be embedded in and shaped by the classroom and community in which it’s enacted.
• The teaching of writing should be guided by the best research evidence, which includes the need for frequent writing, pre-writing, skills and usage instruction, writing on a computer, and lots of feedback and support.
• Teachers need to bring their own knowledge and experience to writing instruction.

Collectively, these three ingredients make it possible for teachers to make informed, judicious, and intelligent decisions when conducting a vision for teaching writing. 

Imagine a third-grade teacher who has these elements in place being asked by a parent at back-to-school night how she teaches writing. “Writing is central to everything I do in my classroom,” says the teacher with a smile. “Children will write frequently and for many different purposes:”

• To sharpen their understanding of what they read
• To extend their thinking about social studies and science
• To communicate with each other and with students in other classrooms and schools
• To persuade and argue, gather information, explore the meaning of events, chronicle personal experiences, and create imaginary worlds
• Students will write about their own experiences and culture and use writing to explore the experiences and cultures of others
• They will share the writing they create with you, and they will ask you to share things you have written with them
• I will make sure they know why writing is important

 The teacher then explains how students will be taught to write:

• Discussing the purpose of each type of writing (informative, persuasive, stories, personal narrative) and its basic features
• Using these same features in their own writing
• Learning spelling, handwriting, grammar, and sentence construction so students can do their own best writing
• Learning to plan, assess, revise, and edit what they write
• Facilitating the brainwork of invention, speculation, deliberation, reflection, and evaluation
• Reading each other’s papers and giving constructive feedback, in the process developing an understanding of what makes good writing
• Using reading to reinforce good writing – for example, why authors use specific words or devices like cliffhangers
• Using writing to reinforce good reading.

 The teacher then describes the amount of writing students will do and the support they will get. “My goal,” says the teacher, “is to create a positive and enthusiastic writing environment where your children are encouraged to try hard and do their best, feel comfortable taking risks, and work together in a positive manner:”

• At least one hour a day will be devoted to writing and writing instruction
• Students will do additional writing in other subjects and in their homework
• Students will get clear directions and goals for their writing geared to individual ideas and needs
• Feedback will be constructive and not overwhelming
• Students will have time to plan and improve what they write

The teacher closes by encouraging parents to visit the class during writing time and giving feedback as the year progresses.

This teacher has successfully combined vision and action, and quotes the American futurist Arthur Barker on the possibilities that creates:

• Vision without action is merely a dream
• Action without vision just passes the time
• Vision with action can change the world. 

The Importance of Retrieval Practice for Long-Term Memory

This week's article summary The Five Things to Know About Retrieval Practice is a follow up to last week's summary on how to make semantic memories stick in long-term memory.

When it comes to learning, people often focus on getting facts into their heads, yet experts recommend that to really make learning stick, we should focus more on practicing extracting information out of our heads, i.e., retrieval practice.

While the term ‘retrieval practice’ is currently in vogue in educational jargon, it simply means using teaching/studying strategies like brain dumps, summaries, and quizzes that ask learners to recall information without any cues, aids, or prompts like note cards. 

By recalling information frequently and over time, our brain establishes that this information is important and hence develops more synapses and further myelinates those synapses so they remain in long-term memory and can more easily and quickly be recalled and applied when needed. Like mastering a physical skill, memory is the result of frequent practice and repetition.

The article points out a number of classroom techniques to help students practice retrieving information and warns against popular but ineffective strategies like highlighting and re-reading material.

The bottom line is the more active, frequent, and unprompted retrieval practices can be, the more effective we are in storing information in long-term memory. 

Joe

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These types of active learning strategies are known as retrieval practice.

The rationale behind retrieval practice is three-fold. First, actively trying to remember something or perform some skill is a more effective way of learning than passively re-reading about it. Second, learning practice provides people with better ways of monitoring what they know. In other words, retrieval practices help engage metacognition. Finally, retrieval practice keeps people focused. The act of re-reading a textbook, for instance, often encourages mind wandering, but retrieval practice can keep individuals engaged in the task at hand.

Many studies have shown that when people attempt to recall or retrieve information, they are actually improving their memory. In this sense, the brain works like a muscle: recall exercises the brain to strengthen memory. Also, much like exercise, retrieval activities build habits that lead to long term learning.

Retrieval Practice Works: Retrieval practice is one of the most-well researched learning strategies. Research has established that repeated retrieval enhances learning with a wide range of materials, in a variety of settings and contexts, and with learners ranging from preschool ages into later adulthood.  “Spacing,” or pausing between retrieval exercises, allows for the brain to rest and forget some information. Self-testing after “spacing” increases information recall and promotes long-term learning.

Retrieval Practice Makes Learning Active: Not long ago, I was rereading my notes in an attempt to get ready for a speech. In a room by myself, I realized that I was using my notes like a warm blanket. They were there just there to keep me feeling confident about the speech. This is a weak approach to learning. It’s too passive, and I quickly realized I should be doing retrieval practice instead. It is a powerful strategy that boosts learning by pulling information out of students’ heads (e.g., quizzes, clickers, and flashcards), rather than cramming information into students’ heads (e.g., lectures). It’s a no-stakes learning opportunity that is flexible and quick, with a huge impact on long-term student achievement. One of the reasons that retrieval is so effective is that memories are not “fixed” objects. Instead, our brains can mold memories at any point in time. Thus, it is essential that newly learned information is given permanence. When practicing retrieving a memory, the brain can strengthen that memory by filling in the blanks with any missing information while also connecting the memory with new ideas. In this regard, retrieval practice takes the basic skeleton of a certain idea from past learning and allows it to be expanded upon, which helps the information stick into the mind long-term instead of just short-term. One of the easiest ways to incorporate retrieval practice into learning and teaching is via low-stakes tests or quizzes. According to learning scientist. The effect of bringing information to mind from memory is going to increase learning. Teachers need to view retrieval practice as a learning activity, not an assessment, i.e., keep it formative not summative. Also, retrieval practice is more effective when it occurs in short spurts versus one long study session. This allows learners to have time to forget some of the information and attempt to recall it, which helps the information stick. 

Retrieval Practice Encourages Knowing About Knowing: Generally, people tend to believe that they are more knowledgeable about specific topics than they actually are. Most people believe they are better looking than average. They also tend to think they are smarter and know more information than the average person. Participating in retrieval practice combats this sort of overconfidence. It allows learners to see exactly what they can remember and gives educators a chance to provide tips and feedback along the way. For example, some learners suffer because they are overconfident in what they believe they have retained, often having notes as a crutch. When convinced that they have all of the required knowledge on a certain subject, learners tend to become, well, lazy. They study less and don’t try to assess or correct themselves while learning. Retrieval practice helps prevent this sense of false security, which in turn allows learners to study efficiently, targeting the information they cannot recall. Retrieval practice causes learners to measure what they are familiar with against what they actually have learned. In other words, retrieval practice forces learners to think critically about what they have learned instead of simply repeating the first piece of information that comes to mind.

Retrieval Practice Encourages Higher-Order Learning: Research shows that we gain expertise by producing what we have learned. Retrieval practice creates higher-order learning, which leads to long-term retention. Learning is a generative activity. First, people need to pinpoint what exactly they’re going to learn—like psychology for example. Then people need to create some type of mental connection between their current knowledge and the new information they have yet to absorb. The power of “mentally doing” (creating value in an area of expertise) is clear in basic memory tasks. Trying to remember the Spanish word for “door”, or “la puerta?” It’s easier to recall the word if a letter is missing from it. For example, “p_erta” creates an activity to engage in. When someone has to add the “u,” they’re completing the word. It is the act of finishing the thought—and this strengthens learning, in turn, making it more meaningful. This idea also branches into more complex cognitive tasks such as problem-solving. Encouraging yourself to overcome difficult obstacles or dissect complex issues helps the brain retain more information in the long run. This is because practicing your ability to solve problems teaches you to apply the knowledge already in your brain that is waiting to be put to use, thus aiding in its permanence. The research on learning as a type of “mental doing” has altered the wisdom surrounding how people retain knowledge. For example, studies show that highlighting is an ineffective means of learning new information. This act does not push people enough mentally to influence any meaningful learning. Re-reading text is not very beneficial either. The activity doesn’t spark enough “mental doing,” which means the brain needs more stimulation. The most effective techniques are the ones that require more effort, self-quizzing, or self-explaining for example. This is a fundamental feature of how our minds work. To learn, we can’t just copy the information. We need to make sense out of facts.

How to Encourage Retrieval: Retrieval practice makes learning a bit of a struggle, but it also makes learning more effective. Here are some examples: 

• “Brain Dumps” are useful for exercising retrieval practice. In this exercise, learners write down everything they can think of on a topic to test their knowledge. 
• Concept maps are another useful tool. A learner may fill out a concept map to encourage retrieval. They are beneficial since they allow a person to see the bigger picture instead of just individual pieces of a puzzle. Concept maps also allow learners to group important information together and establish meaningful connections
• Flashcards. One of the most familiar ways of using retrieval practice is through flashcards. These can be very effective if used the right way. Students should keep cards in their deck until they have retrieved the information at least three times. They should also consciously and vocally recall the information before turning the card over to review the answer.
• “Repeat backs” are also great, and the next time a person gives you a set of detailed instructions, take time to repeat the instructions back to them. When you repeat back everything in your own words, you’re taking steps to generate knowledge, and you’ll be far more likely to remember the information long-term.
• The “Think-Pair-Share” exercise can be powerful. In this approach, learners think about a topic, jot down what they have learned, and share it with a partner. Learners should be allowed to think independently before exchanging information. 

How to Optimize Our Students Remembering (and Hence Learning)

 This week's article summary is Why Do Students Remember Everything That's on Television and Forget Everything I Say?

An article summary from last year focused on the different ways episodic (more emotional) and semantic (more repetitive) experiences get stored in long-term memory.

Emotional experiences are placed in our long-term memory because our brain is stimulated in a variety of ways. Our brain stores big, emotional events (like weddings, births, UGA football winning this year’s college football championship) because our brains experience them via many senses. We don’t have to do any studying, reviewing, or thinking about these emotional experiences: they naturally get placed in our memories because they are so unique and dramatic.

Learning in school, on the other hand, primarily results from semantic experiences. To store in long-term memory what we experience in school, we must intentionally and frequently think about them, reflect on them, and review them. Just because you may not be able to remember much about your third grade classroom doesn’t mean you didn’t learn a lot that year. It’s just not stored in your brain as an episodic experience.

As the article below attests, for semantic experiences to stick, kids need to think over and over again about the material, what it means, and, most importantly, practice retrieving and using it. It’s basically what metacognition is: having kids think about their thinking, why the information matters, and how it connects to prior knowledge. The article provides a number of ways teachers can help guide students to think, reflect, retrieve, and remember. 

Joe

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Memory is mysterious. You may lose a memory created 15 seconds earlier, such as when you find yourself standing in your kitchen trying to remember what you came there to fetch. Other seemingly trivial memories (for example, advertisements) may last a lifetime. What makes something stick in memory, and what is likely to slip away?

We can’t store everything we experience in memory. Too much happens. So what should the memory system tuck away? 

Your memory system lays its bets this way: if you think about something carefully, you’ll probably have to think about it again, so it should be stored. Thus, your memory is not a product of what you want to remember or what you try to remember; it’s a product of what you think about.

The cognitive principle that guides this article is memory is the residue of thought. To teach well, consider what an assignment will actually make students think about (not what you hope they will think about), because that is what they will remember.

We all know that students won’t learn if they aren’t paying attention. What’s more mysterious is why, when they are paying attention, they sometimes learn and sometimes don’t. What else is needed besides attention?

A reasonable guess is that we remember things that bring about some emotional reaction. Aren’t you likely to remember really happy moments, such as a wedding? You are, and in fact if you ask people to name their most vivid memories, they often relate events that probably had some emotional content.

If memory depended on emotion, we would remember little of what we encounter in school. So the answer Things go into long-term memory if they create an emotional reaction is not quite right. It’s more accurate to say, Things that create an emotional reaction will be better remembered, but emotion is not necessary for learning.

Repetition is another obvious candidate for what makes learning work. Repetition is very important, but not just any repetition will do. Material may be repeated almost indefinitely and still not stick in your memory.

It’s equally clear that wanting to remember something is not the magic ingredient. How marvelous it would be if memory did work that way. Students would sit down with a book, say to themselves, “I want to remember this,” and they would! You’d remember the names of people you’ve met, and you’d always know where your car keys are. Sadly, memory doesn’t work that way.

Your brain lays its bets this way: If you don’t think about something very much, then you probably won’t want to think about it again, so it need not be stored. If you do think about something, then it’s likely that you’ll want to think about it in the same way in the future.

There are a couple of subtleties to this obvious conclusion that we need to draw out. First, when we’re talking about school, we usually want students to remember what things mean.

The second subtlety (again, obvious once it’s made explicit) is that there can be different aspects of meaning for the same material. For example, the word piano has lots of meaning-based characteristics. You could think about the fact that it makes music, or about the fact that it’s expensive, or that it’s really heavy, or that it’s made from fine-quality wood, and so on. 

The obvious implication for teachers is that they must design lessons that will ensure that students are thinking about the meaning of the material. A striking example of an assignment that didn’t work for this reason came from my nephew’s sixth-grade teacher. He was to draw a plot diagram of a book he had recently finished. The point of the plot diagram was to get him to think about the story elements and how they related to one another. The teacher’s goal was to encourage her students to think of novels as having structure, but the teacher thought that it would be useful to integrate art into this project, so she asked her students to draw pictures to represent the plot elements. That meant that my nephew thought very little about the relation between different plot elements and a great deal about how to draw a good castle. 

Now you may be thinking, “OK, so cognitive psychologists can explain why students have to think about what material means—but I really already knew they should think about that. Can you tell me how to make sure that students think about meaning?” 

When we think of good teachers, we tend to focus on personality and on the way the teachers present themselves. But that’s only half of good teaching. The jokes, the stories, and the warm manner all generate goodwill and get students to pay attention. But then how do we make sure they think about meaning? That is where the second property of being a good teacher comes in—organizing the ideas in a lesson plan in a coherent way so that students will understand and remember.

The human mind seems exquisitely tuned to understand and remember stories—so much so that psychologists sometimes refer to stories as “psychologically privileged,” meaning that they are treated differently in memory than other types of material. I’m going to suggest that organizing a lesson plan like a story is an effective way to help students comprehend and remember.

Before we can talk about how a story structure could apply to a classroom, we must go over what a story structure’s four principles, often summarized as the four Cs. The first C is causality, which means that events are causally related to one another. The second C is conflict. A story has a main character who is pursuing a goal but is unable to reach that goal. The third C is complications. The final C is character. A good story is built around strong, interesting characters, and the key to those qualities is action.

Using a story structure brings three important advantages. First, stories are easy to comprehend, because the audience knows the structure, which helps to interpret the action. 

Second, stories are interesting. Reading researchers have conducted experiments in which people read lots of different types of material and rate each for how interesting it is. Stories are consistently rated as more interesting than other formats (for example, expository prose), even if the same information is presented.

Third, stories are easy to remember.

Structure your lessons the way stories are structured, using the four Cs: causality, conflict, complications, and character. This doesn’t mean you must do most of the talking. Small-group work or projects or any other method may be used. The story structure applies to the way you organize the material that you encourage your students to think about, not to the methods you use to teach the material.

For my teaching, I think of it this way: the material I want students to learn is actually the answer to a question. I sometimes feel that we, as teachers, are so focused on getting to the answer, we spend insufficient time making sure that students understand the question and appreciate its significance. To us, the question and its importance are obvious. To them, they aren’t.

Thinking about meaning helps memory. How can teachers ensure that students think about meaning in the classroom? Here are some practical suggestions.

Learning is influenced by many factors, but one factor trumps the others: students remember what they think about.

The Counterintuitive Secret to Raising Kind Kids

This week's article summary is The Counterintuitive Secret to Raising Kind Kids.

There’s been a common motif to the past few article summaries: significant to helping children grow into kind, considerate adults is parents and teachers spending a lot of time talking with kids about and describing the full gamut of feelings from happiness to frustration to anger, especially when they’re young.

As the summary points out, a stern talking to or a lecture on the importance of sharing after kids misbehave does not help a child learn to share, be empathetic, or develop self-regulation. Punishment can actually result in the child recognizing he/she needs to be sneakier do as not to get caught. Dealing only with the infraction, i.e., providing a consequence/punishment, doesn’t deal with the cause of the misbehavior or help children learn about how their actions affect others. 

As I mentioned in Wednesday’s faculty meeting, the most provocative point from the article for me is that before children can understand others’ feelings, they need to understand and gradually learn to harness theirs. I’ve been in education for over 40 years and I wish I had learned this long ago as it would have dramatically changed how I worked with my students.

It can be a challenge for a teacher or parent to help kids voice how they feel after they’ve gotten into a spat, argument, or power struggle. Our tendency as adults often is to try to quickly fix situations and right the wrong. Yet we must keep the bigger goal for our kids in the forefront as well: guide them to learn from their both their successes and missteps. 

Regarding the ability to self-regulate emotions, ample research illustrates that we all need to be able to ’name it to tame it.’ Or as we say at Trinity, we helps our students ‘develop a strong sense of self and a sincere care, concern for others.’

Joe

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The world, as most of us have sadly noticed, seems to be filled with an increasing number of jerks lately. Most of us don’t want out kids to grow up and join their ranks. Which is why I'm pretty sure science writer Melinda Wenner Moyer's new book will fly off the shelves. It's brilliantly title How to Raise Kids Who Aren't A**holes and offers a deep dive into what research says about making sure your darling offspring end up kind and generous. 

In a recent interview with Scientific American, Wenner Moyer offered a sneak peak of what you'll find within. In the interview, she stresses that a lot of good science has been done on how to make sure your kid doesn't end up being a jerk that offers parents plenty of guidance. Some of it is quite counter-intuitive.

How to teach your kid empathy: Take the question of how to make sure your child is kind and generous. Almost every parent has experienced the embarrassment of your child being the one who refuses to share his or her toys on the playground, and most of us react the same way  -- you take your kid aside and deliver an age appropriate chat on the importance of sharing for friendship while pointing out how unpleasant it feels to be the one whose excluded from a toy or game. There's nothing wrong with this age-old technique of trying to lecture your kid into kindness, but Wenner Moyer claims research shows there is a more effective way. It's just not one that's instantly obvious to most of us. The secret to raising kind kids, according to science, is to talk about feelings more. This is counterintuitive. What your three-year-old is probably feeling when he refuses to share his ball is that he would like to play with that ball and sharing it with others is not very fun. So why would encouraging him to talk about how much he wants to keep his toy for himself lead to him willingly giving it up to another child? "Helping our kids understand their feelings gives them the capacity to understand others' feelings and helps them make decisions to help their friends and be more generous toward them," Wenner Moyer explains. "This is part of something called theory of mind--how to understand others' feelings." And it's not just talking about your child's feelings that helps. It's talking about your own too." Research suggests that the more parents talk about their feelings and other peoples', the more kids are likely to be generous and helpful," she adds. 

High EQ helps kids thrive: Helping your kid recognize and name their feelings and those of others, as well as developing strategies to cope with less-than-pleasant emotions, might seem like a small thing or too touchy feely for some tastes. But Wenner Moyer isn't the only one pointing out that the effects of this simple parenting move can end up being profound. For example, in her TEDx talk family therapist Lael Stone explains that the first step to developing the kind of high EQ that pays huge personal and professional dividends later in life is speaking openly and empathetically with your child about their feelings (and yours too). This teaches your child to recognize and sit with their own emotions, Stone explains, which later enables them to recognize and empathize with the emotions of others. While it may feel counterintuitive to name and validate your child's feelings when all you want them to do is think of the other kid's, science suggests making space to talk about emotions Isn't likely to turn them into self-obsessed navel gazers. Instead, it teaches them about the power of emotions generally, and understanding and acknowledging the emotions of others is the foundation of adult kindness and generosity.