Brian and I a starting a series of posts called “Ask Us Anything” where we promise to be honest in our answers and hopefully as encouraging as well. If you have a question you’d like for us to answer, feel free to ask!
Can you model how you plan a unit?
— Kathy F.
Susan: I tend to follow the Grant Wiggins’ Backward Design model when planning. What are the desired outcomes of the unit? What do I need to plan and my students need to do to get there? What text will best serve this purpose? When I have answered these questions, I then move to a calendar and block out skill-based lessons for the unit. If possible, I prefer for units to align with our grading calendar with each unit lasting 4.5 weeks (around nine 88 minute classes and four 42 minute classes per term) but this doesn’t always happen. I hold these plans loosely, though, adjusting in the day to day (sometimes class to class) as needed. I also think about the course as a whole and have shared some of my thought on that in Anchors for the Course (originally published on APLitHelp #RIP).
Brian: I like to think about maximizing results. My units are often organized by genre, so my first step is to always draft a list of the works that really excite me. If there’s no passion, there’s no result. Then, I look at the skills that I want students to master. I make connections between the skills and the text, but always at the back of my mind is the question, why is this work of literature better than all the rest to teach this skill? Again, I’m trying to maximize impact. If its not an absolutely perfect no-brainer, then I keep searching. Finally, once I have the right text paired with the right skills, I think about the activities in my bag of tricks and consider which one would best teach the skill with that text. In a way, I’m always working forward instead of backward. I feel that if I do these three things right — text, skill, activity — the end result will take care of itself.
How do you recruit more students to take AP when so many drop AP to take dual credit?
— Cynthia
Susan: I work hard to make each day relevant, engaging, and worthwhile for students while at the same time asking them to challenge themselves in their reading, thinking, and writing. In addition, I also am very intentional about building community and focusing on classroom culture whether that be through our non-academic warm-up question each day, sharing my personal reading, #feetupfriday pics, paper plate awards, pancakes, and believe these things pay off just as much as my dedication to content. Because of these things, I don’t have to actively recruit since my students recruit for me when they are having casual conversations with their peers about the class. However, I recognize that teachers across the country do this as well and struggle to recruit. My school has a culture that values AP over dual enrollment with counselors and admin who encourage students to take AP, and this is a huge reason why I teach almost 40% of the senior class in AP English.
Brian: This is such a simple answer, but I make the class as fun as possible while holding students to as high a standard as possible. For me this means, working them for an entire period every single day with thoughtful and engaging lessons, while limiting how much work they do outside of class out of respect for how chaotic their lives can be senior year. Over the years, the current students in the class have been my best advocates. They tell their underclassmen friends which classes to take and which to avoid.
What keeps you up at night?
— Nina G.
Susan: Other than a good novel that I can’t put down or dreaming/planning a future vacation, not too much keeps me up at night. I love a good night’s sleep. But metaphorically, I think a lot about how teachers can best serve students while having a life of our own. I’m a firm believer that teachers should not feel guilty (#StopTeacherGuilt) for not grading, checking email, or writing lesson plans at home. The state of teachers in today’s society saddens me as I wrote about in You’re Not Alone.
Brian: School certainly doesn’t. When I leave the building, I check out mentally. I have a family and I have fun things I’m trying to pursue. That’s what occupies my time and my mind once the school day is over. Students don’t need to see teachers that are stressed and exhausted each day. They need to see people that love what they do and live interesting lives outside of school.
How do you explain the sophistication point to your students?
— Kim
Susan: I focus on Row B as the path to get to the sophistication point encouraging students to max out their analysis at the word and phrase level exploring the nuances and juxtapositions of their claims. This will position them to earn the sophistication point for Path 1. For Question 3, students can and should prepare for placing the work in a broader context which can pick up the point for Path 2. Finally, we work regularly in our writer’s notebook on writing at the sentence level. This goal of this work is for students to have a stronger command of language but sometimes pays off for Path 4 in sophistication. We don’t talk a lot about earning the sophistication point in class but do talk about about sophisticated analysis and writing.
Brian: I explain that it is hard to attain, but that doesn’t mean you should aspire to it. I also show them that it is not at all necessary to score a 5 on the exam. In essence, there are no shortcuts to sophistication, but I believe that if students focus on the speaker and understand as understand, as Helen Vendler points out, “What has provoked the speaker into utterance?”, they can approach a sophisticated understanding of a text.
How do you address the tension between preparing for an exam and the other requirements of an upper-level English course?
— Sara
Susan: I tell my students on day one: “This class is all about the exam, and this class is not at all about the exam. We will live in this dichotomy all year.” If I have not prepared students for the exam, I have not done my job; I take this very seriously. But this class is so much more than a test prep course. We will read texts that will push us in our thinking and may be fundamental in the shaping of a life. We will push ourselves to do more than we think is possible. We will work hard and learn from each other. Through all of this, we will be prepared for the exam. The first semester there is very little exam preparation, but once we’re into April, we are in exam-prep mode using these exam resources.
Brian: To quote Skip Nicholson, “My responsibility is to teach the test.” I believe that with a deep reverence for the privilege of helping students earn college credit at a fraction of the cost. But that does not mean my class is a test-prep class. I do a little bit of preparation (a few essay questions) before the turn of the calendar year but I don’t want it all to turn into white noise by the time we get close to the exam. So I delay. February is when my class takes a substantial turn toward the exam. That’s when I start Multiple-Choice Mondays and we write AP essays with much greater frequency. I wrote about this in greater detail with The Counterintuitive Way to Improve Test Scores.
What can you do if the administration just does not respect what happens in the classroom?
— Moria
Susan: I am blessed with admin who has always supported what I do in the classroom. (However, I am sure there are times that admin are not sure what to do with me as I am outspoken on the unrealistic expectations placed on teachers). Even if admin doesn’t understand all of the decisions I make in the classroom, they never doubt that I have put in the work. They see me conferring with seniors on their college essays even though this isn’t my job; they know that I write a blog which forces me to reflect on my craft; and they consider me an expert in my field. I am also at the point in my career that I am going to do right by students even if it means going against what the district says, and I think if we’re doing right by the students in front of us, we can put our head on the pillow each night knowing we did what needed to be done.
Brian: I try to do two things that have blessed me with good relations. First, I make a genuine effort to connect with every kid. This is not limited to instructional time. I do a lot to make kids feel seen, recognized, respected, and valued. This occurs in between periods, before school, after school, when I’m on duty, and even after they graduate. Also, writing for this website and being active on Facebook and Twitter have helped me understand the importance of branding. I’m always trying to come up with catchy phrases for lessons, activities, and projects (check out Poetry March Madness, a 9-11 Love Story, and The Biggest College Essay Mistakes). I want my class to be exciting and memorable. I’m marketing my class, because to me, marketing is nothing more than persuading someone to take action. When this works well, students are taking action in a genuine way — they are engaging with the material — and admin has really respected this.
What do you do in terms of revising student essays…do you have any go-to activities that yield thoughtful critique of students’ essays that they can take ownership of?
— Dan C.
Susan: I’m working on a post on revisions for next week so stay tuned. But the short answer is I am a believer in the revision process. I often have students focus on their “worst paragraph” and give specific tasks for revision for that; since this is a smaller chunk of writing, students aren’t as overwhelmed as working on a whole essay. I also provide students plenty of opportunities to self-assess their writing and have written about for Edutopia at Making Metacognition Part of Student Writing
Brian: You have to read Comments are Bad: Here’s Why.
