guest written by Kimberly Joki of Grammarly.

That writing is a necessary professional and life skill is universally accepted.  Interdisciplinary approaches to teaching writing are key to giving our students the necessary experience to grow into confident writers. However, despite increased writing-education efforts, many students are entering into and graduating from university with weak writing skills or are anxious and unsure of their writing abilities.

guest written by Wim Coleman of Chiron Books.

In my previous post, I wrote about introducing storytelling techniques (especially dramatic ones) as an aid to teaching literature. In my fourth and final post as a guest here, I’ll to share some ideas for using storytelling in the classroom to teach history.

I’ve got a powerful personal memory along these lines from my senior year in high school. (It was in 1971-2, so you can do the math and figure out how old I am!) I had a brilliant and innovative American History teacher, whose assignments were, to put it mildly, dramatic. For example, he had one class break up into two groups and act out the American Civil War, using the entire high school campus as a stage.

But to me, his most memorable assignment was a less flamboyant one. My group was assigned to write and perform a play portraying the ideological conflict between the African-American Civil Rights leaders Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois. A former slave, Washington advocated a “go slow” strategy to achieving racial equality; a historian and sociologist, Du Bois’s advocated a much more aggressive approach. The play was framed as a debate between the two.

Our group divided up tasks, ranging from research to typing. The actual writing and directing fell to me. It was a formative experience. I’ve been around theater since before I can remember, but it was the first time I’d really written a play. I’ve gone on to write more plays than I can count, many of them published and/or performed, and some of them award-winners. So really, this assignment was the beginning of a quasi-career. Also, exploring the polarity of thought between Washington and Du Bois helped form my own political worldview, especially concerning approaches to social activism.

Over the decades, I’ve kept a yellowed, mimeographed copy of this play, which lies in front of me right now. It’s no masterpiece, but it’s not bad for a high school student, and it brings back memories of one of the most stimulating intellectual experiences of my youth. It’s no small testament to the strength of classroom storytelling that an assignment like this can still resonate in one’s mind after 40 years!

Now we’ll get down to specifics. Let’s say that you’re teaching a unit on the American Civil War. Students quickly (and understandably) get bored learning by rote the names of generals and the dates of battles. Besides, such inert facts don’t give any sense of the issues, philosophies, agonies, and passions involved in that cataclysmic conflict. Dramatic storytelling can be a key to deeper understanding. I’ll toss out just four possible basic situations:

• War breaks out in April 1861. Soon afterward in Philadelphia, a congregation of Quakers (The Religious Society of Friends) struggles with matters of conscience. On one hand, Quakers have long devoted themselves to the abolition of slavery and have actively participated in the Underground Railroad; on the other hand, Quakers have always been pacifistic. What should Quakers do now that the country is waging a war to end slavery—adhere to pacifism and resist conscription, or compromise their beliefs and join and support the Union Army? Write and perform a scene in which members of the congregation debate these choices.
• While the war was raging, the publisher and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison condemned the U.S. Constitution as “a Covenant with Death, an Agreement with Hell” because it allowed the continuance of slavery. Meanwhile, the former slave and journalist Frederick Douglass contended that the Constitution offered the surest means for abolishing slavery. Write and perform a scene in which Garrison and Douglass meet in a public place. Garrison is there to burn a copy of the Constitution; Douglass is there to pass out copies of it hot off his own printing press. They debate their positions to the crowd while engaged in these activities.
• In Union-occupied South Carolina, an African-American family hears news of President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863. The family now finds itself free. Write and perform a scene in which grandparents, parents, and children discuss dreams, dilemmas, possibilities, and choices. Have them consider both the Emancipation’s promises and limitations. While they are now “freedmen” encouraged to join the fight against slavery, the Emancipation does not yet end slavery altogether.

This is just a sampling of scenarios. Needless to say, the possibilities for the Civil War are practically unlimited. Also needless to say, it is easy to dream up endless assignments for any episode, period, or era in all of human history. Here I’ve suggested scenes that range from the intimately personal (the slave family) to the political and philosophical (Garrison and Douglass). I think it’s good to seek out such a range for greater resonance.

But I should caution that the instructions above aren’t really sufficient. They’re just a starting-point. Without a lot of clarity, this assignment won’t fully deliver the goods. My high school teacher, for example, was extremely specific about setting, story, and themes. He also took care that my group was prepared with a great deal of background information, making research part of the assignment.

I like ending this series of posts with one about history. It hints at how storytelling in the classroom encourages critical thinking, a vital but elusive goal in whatever subject you might be teaching. And it hints at the power of having students step into someone else’s shoes, relating even experiences of long ago and far away to one’s own contemporary, everyday life. Storytelling makes teaching and learning up-close, personal, and real.

About the author: Wim Coleman is a playwright whose works have won national awards and have been presented in New York and Los Angeles, and he is an award-winning poet. He has also been a teacher, and has degrees in Theater, Literature, and Education. He usually writes in collaboration with his wife, Pat Perrin. Together, they have well over 100 publications. They publish independently for young people through ChironBooks. Wim and Pat lived in various parts of the United States before spending thirteen years in San Miguel de Allende, where they created and administered the San Miguel PEN Scholarship Program for at-risk students. They also adopted their daughter, Monse, there. All three of them now live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  You can learn more about Wim and his work at his website.

Last week I wrote a post that talked about my thoughts both before participating in #edchat for the first time and then immediately afterwards.  I know that two #edchats does not an expert make, but I just had to write down a few more quick thoughts after this week’s #edchat, just in case there are more newbies out there who want to get involved.

My #edchat education this week began even before the hour long conversation officially started.  Tom Whitby tweeted out the topic for the day a little bit beforehand and immediately, I was curious.  How do these topics get selected?  So I tweeted out a question and was soon answered.

As it turns out, people vote on them each and every week.  Steven W. Anderson of Web 2.0 Classroom creates polls that are released each Sunday.  Those polls stay open until Tuesday morning, and then the winning topic is selected for that day’s discussion and announced by the moderators.

Another great tid-bit that I found out is that Jerry Blumengarten, the Cybraryman (and one of our moderators for today), maintains a website filled with all kinds of useful information on the full-contact sport that is #edchat.  If you’re thinking about getting involved, I highly recommend that you check it out.

But my education didn’t end when I logged off at 1 pm, eyes weary from all that speed-reading.  Just before I stumbled away from my computer to go get myself a sandwich, I received a tweet from ISTE Connects that said they had mentioned me in their “#edchat story.”  I was curious, so I put my break on hold for a few minutes and clicked the link.

I was taken to a site called Storify that allows users to save specific snippets of Twitter conversations.  It’s readily apparent that the service is still in beta mode, but the potential of such a program is equally evident.  While there are certain dedicated #edchatters who try to write summaries of each individual conversation, this site can create full transcripts (with active links) instantly.  Very cool.

The final lesson, however, is one that I know I will need to work on for quite some time before I have it mastered.  Aside from all the great ideas and the motivation that you’ll get from participating in #edchat, you’ll also meet some amazing people.  Staying in contact with them is key.  I met a couple this week that I would love to chat with more.

Unfortunately, I know that I also met a couple last week – and they’ve already been lost in the shuffle!  The internet is a big place; it’s very easy to forget about one person as you find out about the next.  Be careful not to make that a habit, though.  Find some way of keeping in contact with the people you meet in #edchat – they’re definitely worth it!

As I write this, I am preparing to participate in my first ever #edchat on Twitter.  Is it normal to be nervous about online conversations?  I jumped into the fray at ISTE11 without much difficulty at all, and those were real, live people!  What’s the difference, really?

Perhaps it’s that the #edchat hashtag always yields a bazillion and one search results, even when it’s not technically going on (Tuesdays at noon and 7 pm EST).  I can’t imagine how much crazier things will get when I’m trying to participate live.

In preparation, I sent out a tweet asking if I should just listen for a while (something referred to as “lurking” in the online forum community) or just wade right on in.  Shawn Douglas of WritEdiTeach advised me to, “Break out the hip waders and go for it! Twitter chats can be a bit rambunctious.”  So that’s the plan, then.

It’s almost time to begin.  I’ll put this blog post on hold for the next hour.  Everything below the number signs is coming from a slightly older (and presumably slightly wiser) version of me.

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I think the only way to sum up an experience like that is: “Wow.”  There is so much enthusiasm and so many great ideas being thrown around every minute during #edchat that you can’t possibly keep up with all of them – at least not as an inexperienced newbie such as myself!

Still, it’s an absolutely worthwhile endeavor if you care about education.  You get to rub “e-elbows” with some of the most committed educators out there, and the flurry of links and great snippets of conversation should be enough to propel you back into your classroom with an incredible amount of force.

There’s also a couple ways that you can help stabilize yourself amidst the chaos.  Berni Wall, for example, has a blog that seeks to summarize each individual #edchat conversation (or point you towards blogs that do) that should definitely be added to your RSS feed even if you can’t participate in the conversations or you don’t ever Twitter.  Reading up might give you a better inclination of what to expect.

In the end, though, the best advice was to just strap on the hip-waders and get messy.  Participate in conversations.  Share ideas.  Meet new people to follow and pay attention to.  Just plug in and try to get as much out of it as you can.  I know I did, and I know it’s something that I’ll be doing every week from now on.

I also hear there’s something called #collegechat.  Got to check that out as well…

guest written by Mark Molloy of My Town Tutors

guest written by Kimberly Joki of Grammarly

When it comes to web tools for teaching writing, many educators are wary of writing editors and automatic checks that don’t so much “teach” as “tell.”  How does a student learn to write if a program does all the editing and revising for him? This article is meant to explain how Grammarly, the world’s most accurate automatic grammar check, and its family of services utilize a learning approach based on Bloom’s Taxonomy to help students perfect their writing themselves.

Before we begin, it’s important to be somewhat familiar with the services and features that Grammarly.com provides.  The primary service is a subscription-based writing and grammar check, the Grammarly Editor, that reviews texts for over 150 grammar, punctuation, usage, spelling, and citation errors.  There are also two free services: Grammarly Answers, a Q&A forum for the discussion of English grammar and writing, as well as Grammarly Handbook, an online reference tool that explains elements of grammar and writing using practical examples.  All of these services, when used together, create a great environment for learning and perfecting writing, but how do they actually use Bloom’s Taxonomy to accomplish this?

Knowledge and Comprehension

Both of these categories of the taxonomy are used throughout the Grammarly experience.  After students run a review in the Grammarly Editor, notes for revision are listed for their review.  As students read through the notes, they are guided back through their texts to correct errors or make edits.  Each note highlights an error or makes a suggestion that is named and briefly explained.  This forces students to recall information from class and facilitates knowing.  Additionally, the short and long explanations that accompany each note require students to understand the concept before being able to identify it in the highlighted sentence and make the correction.

Above: An example of a long explanation for “Wordiness caused by determiners and modifiers.” Note the options for a short explanation and to ‘Ask the community.’

Additionally, when students participate at Grammarly Answers, which is integrated into the Editor, they can ask and answer questions related to their writing.  At Answers, the dialogue that they can have about their writing promotes both knowledge and comprehension, particularly because they have a great opportunity to explain what they know and have learned to others.

Above: Grammarly Answers integration into the Editor.

Finally, the Grammarly Handbook aims to provide explanations of different writing elements to encourage recall of classroom lessons as well as to improve understanding so that knowledge can be practically applied.

Application

Application of new understandings of grammar and writing elements generally occurs right in the Editor as students review the correction notes, learn, and correct their writing.  They may, however, also find opportunities to use their understanding of a particular writing concept on the Answers forum.

Analysis

When using Grammarly, particularly Answers because it is a public forum, students will need to be able to distinguish between facts and opinion.  Also, the Grammarly Editor makes a number of suggestions regarding style and diction, which do not necessarily require a change to the student’s text.  In these situations, students will need to learn to asses how certain edits will impact and change the meaning of their writing.

Synthesis

During the writing process, and while using Grammarly, students will need use information from all sources — classroom, Grammarly’s services, and others — to complete and improve their writing composition.  Students can create (and re-create) their work right in the Grammarly Editor, then save the Editor’s notes as a PDF.

Evaluation

As students continue through the cyclical process of writing, they will have to judge and select those suggestions and improvements that are most helpful for their composition. Because the Editor does not simply make corrections for the students, they will be continually forced to evaluate the relevance of a given suggestion to their writing.  Likewise, students using Answers will need to choose, from a various contributions, which advice or information from the forum is most accurate.

Additional Thoughts

Looking at Grammarly’s services through the lens of Bloom’s Taxonomy helps to see how this can be a helpful tool for the improvement of student writing.  However, there are additional benefits to using this web tool alongside traditional classwork.

First, it takes a lot of anxiety out of editing.  Students, particularly those who are only becoming comfortable with writing, are not completely responsible for identifying potential errors and fixing them.  The guided approach of the Editor, along with the ability to get feedback from others via Answers, make the proofreading and editing process more relaxed.

Second, the ability to check and review some writing issues before entering into peer-editing or writing conferences with a teacher or professor can give students more confidence to address the problems that they have as well as to suggest corrections or enhancements to other’s writing during conferencing.

Third, with regular reports from the Grammarly Editor, students can begin to see patterns in their writing.  Knowing these patterns helps students see where they have had progress and where they can continue to improve.

Finally, teachers can similarly benefit from the feedback from the Grammarly Editor.  Each time a text is reviewed in the Editor, a list of errors and suggestions for that writing is generated.  This report can be printed and reviewed by the teacher as a way to confirm comprehension and application of in-class lessons.  This information can inform coursework.  For example, if an educator were to see that many students had frequent errors with modifiers, he could develop a lesson to address this lack of knowledge, then test for comprehension by using the Grammarly Editor or by posting a relevant text on Grammarly Answers and having students explain the error or correct it.

Conclusion

Grammarly.com has great services for helping students and teachers perfect student writing  In addition to being a useful writing tool, the service is convenient.  All of the Grammarly tools are completely based online, which means users can easily set up an account, can access the service from any place with an internet connection, and have no updates to download.  Finally, Grammarly is easy to try out.  All new individual accounts receive a 7-day free trial and new bulk or institutional licenses may also be eligible.

Registration

For individual registration, visit www.grammarly.com.  For registration of a bulk or institutional license, please visit Grammarly@edu or write to Gregory Carpets at greg.carpets@grammarly.com.

When we are young, our lives are defined by the summer.  We look forward to it almost deliriously.  In fact, I think the only time we weren’t counting down the days until summer vacation was when we were counting down the days to some shorter (but closer) vacation.  Three months of idleness is enough to make anyone with a full-time job more than a little jealous.

They say that summer used to be a time when students stayed home to help out on with the harvest.  This was, of course, in the days before a measly 2% of Americans called themselves farmers.  Our society has shifted from agrarian and rural to knowledge-based and urban.  Today, only 17% of people live in what can be considered truly “rural” parts of America.

Assuming that summer once had a purpose, what is its purpose now?  Are we simply so used to this rotation that we don’t dare change it?  More than likely.  Globalization has made the nine-to-five office job all but irrelevant these days, yet people still find themselves falling into familiar work patterns.  Change is hard for us to accept, apparently.

Now, let the record show that we at TestSoup are not advocating for the end of summer vacation.  Long live summer vacation!

But long live education, as well.

Today’s American students have a tough time keeping up when it comes to math and science.  We’ve already tried throwing money at the problem.  Spending per pupil in America on public education has increased from $2,500 in 1960 to $10,000 today (in inflation-adjusted dollars).  Clearly, the key to churning out well-equipped students is not to be found in expensive tech or other budget-busting fads.

Real education happens when students are actively engaged in the lesson.  This can be the result of any one — or a combination — of several factors: Quality teachers, a naturally inquisitive mind, supportive family members or friends, or even a desire to get an “A.”

That’s the first part of the equation.  The second part is the work.  An engaged student is a great and powerful thing, but if you don’t take steps to keep him or her that way then you won’t get very far.  That’s why the summer is such an important time for students.  Three months is a long enough time to forget the vast majority of what you learned during the past nine — or enough time to forge it into a solid foundation for next year.

America used to make its living with our hands and our backs.  During this time it made sense for students to neglect their studies in favor of the harvest.  But now we make our living with our minds.  Should the fact that we have no fields to plow mean that we are allowed to do nothing for three months?

Take the summer for what it is: a chance to unwind and recharge your batteries.  But also as a time to set yourself up for success next year.  Read books.  Sign up to take classes that you are interested in but had no time for during the school year.  Parents (if you have little children), send your kids to a camp that’s more than just playing outside.  And teachers, please use the time to improve your skills as well.  Our students’ futures are in your hands.

Test-taking preparation and the right attitude can give any student a better chance of succeeding in their classes. Here are 10 tips for you to follow that will enhance your scholastic performance:

1. Preparing for tests in college should begin after the first day of classes. This should include completing daily homework assignments (even assignments that will not be handed in), and reviewing study materials on a regular basis, (e.g. notes and handouts are extremely important).

2. Time management is essential. Make sure that you budget your time to comfortably cover all of the material.

3. Go the extra mile and meet with teachers during office hours to get to know them on a personal basis. Go to review sessions and pay attention to certain hints that the instructor may give about the test.

4. Ask the instructor to specify the areas that will be emphasized on the test. Make sure that you ask them about the format as well, (e.g. multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, short answer or essays)

5. Make sure you give yourself enough time before the class starts to ask any final questions to the teacher that you are still not 100% sure about.

6. Go over all material from practice tests, pervious homework assignments, sample problems, review material, the textbook, and class notes.

7. Eat before an exam. Having food in your stomach will give you energy and help you focus. An energy bar or a piece of fruit is an excellent source of nutrition.

8. Don’t ever try to pull an all-nighter. Get at least six hours of sleep before the test.

9. Make a review sheet from all of the main ideas and information that were in your notes or handouts. This makes your materials much more organized and easier to retain the key concepts.

10. Try to show up at least 10 minutes before the test will start. Mentally get “in the zone” and be confident that you are fully prepared for the exam. Bring #2 pencils, pens, calculators or anything that you will need for the test. A few deep breaths never hurt either!

Nick Scutari