KWL for the New Literacies Era

One of the basics in the teacher toolbox is the old KWL chart - you know the one, where you introduce a new topic by having kids brainstorm what they Know and what they Want to know, and then revisit the chart at the end to document what they have Learned.  That's all well and good, but - by hopping from the intro to the conclusion, it misses the whole process.

Thanks to Langwitches, and the Curriculum Mapping Institute, we have a couple new takes on this old tool.
Here's the first:

One little letter can change anything:  the H is for "How will we find out" - looking ahead to the process of discovery - and can also be post-reflection: "How did we learn it?"  This is critical for the critical skills we're teaching our kids - they are immersed in sources of information and knowledge, and tracking this process - making them active participants in the discovery of information - livens the old KWL and focuses their efforts on the research itself.  

How to implement this?  One problem I've had with traditional KWL charts is the chart paper part - I'd fill one out, and forget about it... or lose it in some stack on top of a cabinet, where all old posters go to die... (yes, I know, I should leave it on the easel of chartpaper, and flip back to it, but I never keep that big easel kicking around, either...)  Why not create a digital, web-based chart that students can update throughout a unit, perhaps requiring posts at key points throughout?  This can be done on a blog, or on a Web 2.0 app like Wallwisher:

Here, I created four columns - one for each stage - and the nice thing with Wallwisher is students can embed links to whatever resources they discover during the process.  Anyone can add to the poster, and it is viewable at any time.

For those who really enjoy acronyms, the chart has also been expanded to this:

This format takes the KWL to another level, and is particularly good for action projects - where students are expected to take what they've learned and apply it to real-life problems and situations, to make change.  Within this, we add on two new phases to the process:

A is for "What ACTIONS will we take?"

Q is for "What QUESTIONS do we now have?"

The Q really anchors the entire thing into a constant process - a growth model that emphasizes learning as continuous, as new knowledge and action leads to further questions worth exploring.

The Process of Creating

This great little video shows all the steps that Picasso went through in order to create his painting - as it plays, you can see elements get added, changed, distorted...



This video would make a great discussion opener - for art class, ELA... any class in which creation is a process.  Often, when I'm teaching writing, I find students who are attached to a particular construct, idea, or sentence.  One of the toughest lessons for a writer to learn is that it is a process - that, much like a sculptor might reshape clay to better convey their idea, a writer needs to reshape their words.

Letting students see that the act of creation often contains acts of change  - which can seem like destruction at the time - is important.

Widening the net

So... I've decided to broaden the focus of this blog.

Each day, as I've been culling through my RSS reader and the net as a whole, I've found numerous items worth discussing that focus on other subject areas in my building, ideas I'd like to bring up with my colleagues.  Thus, from here on out, the blog will focus on critical thinking skills at the middle level as a whole, not solely in ELA.

Coming up:  some connections for art and social studies classes...

Thinglink: 5 ways to use it in your classroom

A recent post on Free Technology for Teachers really caught my eye:

This little add-on is pretty clever - it allows you to add scroll-over text to any image in your blog.  Take the example below - scroll your mouse over the picture.

Through installing the add-on, I am able to add these text points - and links - anywhere in a picture.  I also have the option of allowing others to do the same - anyone can come on and add their commentary.

This brings us to classroom applications...





1.  To prompt classroom discussions.  To spur discussion on a topic, you could do something similar to the example above - create a picture with several scrollable text points.  Each one can pose a question - historic, analytic, whatever.  In the classroom, students can be grouped for small discussions, each group given access to the image on a shared laptop /tablet.  For five minutes, each group discusses the prompts, choosing one on which they'll focus.  This can then lead into a whole-group discussion / analysis of the image.

Consider the possibilities for art history, connecting images / art objects to texts being studied, etc.

2.  As a discussion extension on a blog.  Earlier, I talked about setting up a blog for novel discussions across teams.  A good discussion prompt would be one of these pictures - using it as a menu, with several discussion bases embedded in it, based on which students post their entries and build off of one another's ideas.

3.  For group presentations / collective assignments.  Student groups could each be assigned an image, with a requirement to label / analyze x amount of elements.  For example, a colleague of mine - Jeremy Mularella - starts his science class with a lab safety unit which culminates in a CSI-styled investigation of a lab accident, to determine which safety rules were violated.  This could be augmented with posted shots of the 'crime scene,' on which students tag the various elements of the scene which portray broken safety rules.

4.  To create descriptive how-tos.  When walking students (or associates) through a a problem, or elements of a diagram, etc.  This could be a very useful tool for giving additional information on a particular image.  A scroll-over of specific materials laid out for a lab, etc.  I sometimes post screen shots of exemplars - I could use the scroll-overs to highlight elements of the example that are particularly note worthy.

5.  For a visual quiz / self-test.  In a language class, or any class with vocabulary, including an image that has visual representations of the terms could be very useful - the terms themselves are not visible until the mouse interacts with them, so a student could quiz themselves and then use the scroll-over feature to check their answers.

A way to help those procrastinators

Having just read Richard Byrne's post on task management tools for students, I am struck by the potential of one of the tools he describes.

All you do is fill in this simple form, and toggle from the list of due date options (the ELA teacher in me does grate a bit at the grammar of "This needs done," but I'll get over it).  You can choose a time frame - today, 2 days from now, in a week, two weeks, etc.

Once you hit send, the recipient will get reminders until they respond that the task is completed.

While I wouldn't use this with all students - it would be tedious at best, and annoying and enabling at its worst - it could be quite useful for a few chronic procrastinators, or for the occasional parent who really needs to keep on top of what the child is doing towards a particular task.

Fakebook - a nice way to do character analysis

On my team last year, the social studies teacher had students creating imaginary Facebook pages to demonstrate their understanding of historic figures.  The students planned them out on a template, then created paper versions of the imagined online profiles.  The results were good, but the irony of creating a paper simulacrum of a digital identity really stood out.  I imagined using a similar tool in my class, wherein students would track a character's development through a profile page - for A Midsummer Night's Dream, I could imagine Oberon's profile:  for relationship status, he's put "it's complicated;"  his current status could easily be "is invisible and watching two humans argue."  He would friend almost any female that crossed his path, be alternately attached to and then unfriended by Titania, etc.

What held me back was the paper aspect.

Along comes Fakebook - a very easy to use mock up of a Facebook profile page.  Students click on fields and fill in the details - creating a product with no concerns about formatting, layout, design - it's all there.  Students can save their work, print it, or even embed them into a class page or blog, should they choose and - with some planning - a teacher can quickly review them online or collect paper copies for assessment purposes.

This sort of tool is a great one for teachers just getting their feet wet with online assignments - and it's just one of the many tools available from Classtools.net - I urge everyone to give it a look!

Google Docs for Drafting and Editing

This past year, I transitioned from traditional pen-and-paper peer editing to an online format using Google Docs. This was made possible by having each student set up a Google Docs account at the start of the year, when we sent home a permission form to the parents of each child on my team.  We received 100% support: each form came back, and all kids signed up.

When it came time to write our first paper, I spent a class period going over how to use Google Docs instead of the traditional Word.  One of the key points I figured out was that I needed a clear system by which students would name their files, and a protocol for sharing them with me.  For naming, I chose a combination of descriptors that I would use all year:  Period, Assignment, First initial and last name - for example, if Milan Kundera were in my period G class, and he created a draft of his essay for Under the Persimmon Tree, his file name would be:  G UTPT Essay M Kundera.  This is critical because, as the year gets rolling, I end up with tons of documents cluttering my Google Docs home screen.  I need a quick way to sort and file them:  I create folders for each period, and then subfolders for each unit / assignment.

 Then, when assignments come in, I can quickly sort by period and assignment, and drop the papers into their proper folders, keeping my home screen cleared.

So, with naming settled, I shared my email address with the students for sharing purposes, and I was ready to roll, and assignments started coming in.

One other little trick: I use the 'star feature as a way to check off when I've reviewed someone's draft - that way, I can quickly track which assignments I still need to see.


I've found that using GD has a number of benefits over the traditional paper form of doing business.  These benefits include:

• Being able to set deadlines at more flexible times.  For example, I might have one paragraph of a draft due by Friday evening at 9 pm - by that time, students need to share it with me.
• Being more focused in feedback I give.  One problem I had with collecting drafts was I'd comment on everything.  On GD, I set myself a couple limits: I would post 2-4 comments, focusing on big areas of concern in a document, and I came up with a set list of shorthand comments that I could use, such as a generic "GUM" at the top of a paper if the student needed to work on grammar / usage / mechanics.  I've found that, by giving just a few good comments, students are better able to focus on making improvements and I spend less time marking up papers.
• I can track student progress when necessary.  For example, through looking at revision history, I can see when a student worked on a document.  This has been helpful in parent discussions, to be able to show that someone either hadn't touched a document in the two weeks prior to a due date or that someone was spending entirely too much time on their work.  Either way, it's a great starting point for a conversation with the student or the parent.
• I have immediate access to exemplars.  When work comes in, I can flag documents that stand out, copy them into new docs, and remove student names.  On research papers, I've been able to create a 'master bibliography' by merging the works cited from several top students.
• I can give live support to students who need it.  On occasion, I've seen that a student was actively working on a document while I was online - I am able to access the document and discuss the work with the student.  Often, it's a quick "How's everything going?" in the side bar, giving them a chance to ask questions if needed.

For peer editing, GD has proved a boon as well.  Editing on paper was always difficult - it had to be completed in school (unless students trusted one another with hard copies of their documents), and the quality of the editing was entirely dependent on who actually got the document.  This was a problem - after all, we all have students who really need a lot of help on their paper, do we pair them with the solid writers?  What then happens to the solid writer's paper - will she or he get any good feedback?  

Online editing is an easy fix for the time constraints.  Students can start their editing in class, and finish it at home overnight or over a weekend.   Then, to fix the issue of editing quality, I created peer editing groups.  Within each group, each student is given a specific task - for example, student A might be responsible for checking the first body paragraph for content and integrity - does it support the thesis statement?  How?  This way, each paper has several editors examine it, and students focus on specific structural elements, rather than the document as a whole.  Overall, this has worked quite well.

My next step in this process is to broaden the audience for these papers.  Last year, the writing and editing was contained within my team.  This coming year, I hope to collaborate with another 8th grade team (we all cover the same units, in roughly the same order) so that both my students and myself can gain from the perspectives of others who, while familiar with the texts we are reading, bring in a different set of classroom experiences.  This pushes the comfort zone a little - how will my students compare with another teacher's?  What strengths and weaknesses within my own skill set will be exposed?  

This is a door I'm looking forward to opening.

If you have experience using Google Docs for peer editing, or have other suggestions regarding editing collaboratively with other teams / students beyond your classroom, I would appreciate your ideas!

Use of short videos in the classroom

Thanks to Larry Firlazzo for pointing out this great video...
It ties in nicely with the theme I use all year - "How Can a Voice Be Heard" - and gives a good discussion opener for setting the tone:

I don't know how many times I tell students that word choice is vital but - no matter how many times I do - this short video makes the point much better than I could.  I envision showing it without any introduction, and then opening a discussion about why I showed it, what message it gives, and how it connects with my class theme.

Generally, I open my units with some sort of media piece - a song accompanied by a video, or a short clip to get students thinking about the major themes.  For example, when I teach Under the Persimmon Tree (which focuses on two lives affected by the war in Afghanistan), I open with the song "This is Me" by Eddie from Ohio, set to a montage of images from Afghanistan:

Students watch the video with no prior knowledge, and are given a copy of the lyrics.  We then return to the song several times through the unit, and students focus on connections between the lyrics and the characters in the book during a series of Socratic Circle discussions.  I find that I can really see how their perceptions are changing, based on how their interpretation of the same lyrics changes as the story develops.

So, it seems logical for me to open the year with a short media piece - and I would love to hear from people who have found other such connections, that really hammer home the power of words.