My adventures on the Millennium Falcon with Han Solo

This isn’t going to be one of those blogs where somebody explains what ‘SOLO Taxonomy’ is. There are much better places and books for that. This is about my reflections on using SOLO in the classroom. Now, I am like most people, when something is introduced. “It’s called ‘fire’, you say?” I stare perturbed at the stick aflame with this magical red and yellow stuff: “Are you sure it isn’t the work of the Devil? ”

I have been there and got the t-shirt for a lot of new things introduced in teaching. There rarely is a month go by when something new is introduced or dragged back from the murky depth of the past. Originally, SOLO Taxonomy seemed to have been one of these things and has been mentioned as the new best thing. Thankfully, it is not.

I took me a good few weeks to get my head around the concept. Sadly, I had no Obi Wan Kenobi or Yoda to guide me in the ways of SOLO. Like most new things, they have to trickle through your brain like coffee through a percolator. It takes time. It needs to find links, connections and infuse the original thought with some new ones along the way. Finally, you have a brewed piece of thought that will be a good kick-start to any lesson. I finally attempted it and failed, and then tried it again. Here are some of the things I experimented with:

Poetry

I love poetry, but I am a bit uneasy about the idea of examining a student’s response to an unseen poem in an exam. Poetry can be a bit like art. You sometimes get it. You sometimes don’t. Sometimes you love it. Sometimes you hate it.  Usually, in art galleries there is lots of standing around looking at it and just thinking about the art and what the artist is commenting on. It is a complex thing. Sadly, we don’t seem to build this thinking and reflecting stage that art needs.  Some of the best discussions about a play have been on the way back from the theatre, or after watching a film. We, my friends, argued and disagreed for ages, but it was a whole lot of reflection that helped us to understand, or not, a text.  How can we expect a student to understand a poem in 5-10 minutes?

Therefore, I have always struggled with the idea of getting students to write about a poem they have never seen before.  Bill, you have 10 minutes to read the poem and then plan what you are going to say. What crazy stuff! Poetry needs time to be appreciated, to breathe, and to be understood and 10 minutes in not enough. Anyway, back to SOLO: 

I decided to use SOLO as a way to approach unseen poetry. I read up on stuff and I spent a week thinking about what to do. This is what I came up with.

 

STAGE 1: Pre-structural or ‘I haven’t a clue?’

I gave the students the following questions:

What impressions of old people does James Berry show us in the poem?

How does he create those impressions?

 

Any ideas, folks? A tumbleweed spun its way across the classroom and a church bell started ringing outside.

STAGE 2: Uni-structural or ‘I might have an idea’

I then gave students an A3 sheet of a small poem. It was copied four times on the sheet and that was important to the lesson. The poem ‘Seeing Granny’ by James Berry (I would provide a copy of the poem here, but I haven't got one to hand) is great for this as it is so short, yet very effective. We came up with some ideas in response to the question.

The students read the poem and came up with some initial ideas. This was written up on the board.

 

STAGE 3: Multi-structural or ‘I have got a few ideas on this topic’   

The next stage was staggered. The students were told to imagine that looking at a poem involves some x-raying, looking deeper into the text than you would normally do. I introduced the idea that you need to look at the poem on different settings and different levels of intensity.  It is probably best to demonstrate the different levels of intensity.

 

X-RAY 1 - LAYER 1: Looking at how the poem is written

 

·What do you notice about how it is written?

·What is the most effective word?

·What patterns do you notice in the words?

·What is repeated?

·How is it presented on the page?

 

 X-RAY 2 - LAYER 2: Looking at how we react towards the poem

 

·What feelings do you have when you read the poem?

·Where in the poem do your feelings change?

·Do your feelings differ at the start and end of the poem?

·What questions does the poem raise?

 

X-RAY 3 - LAYER 3: Surface Meaning 

·What is the poem about?

·Who is speaking?

·What different ideas does the voice have of the subject?

 

 

X-RAY 4 - LAYER 4: Deeper Meaning

·What is the poem teaching us?

·What is the writer try to get us to see / understand / realise?

 

Each stage was timed to about 5 minutes. Each group took the poem and highlighted a copy of the poem based on the level of x-raying. After each five minutes, the groups would feedback what they noticed.  I would mark things down on the whiteboard. None of the discussions were focused on developing and extending ideas. All discussion was based on what we found or thought.

 

Halfway through the lesson, students had four copies of the poem with four different sets of annotation for each one. Now, I decided on the above order of things because I wanted to draw out the initial things students see or notice about a poem. I feel that sometimes these are lost if we go straight to the jugular – the meaning of the poem. Everything becomes clouded and linked to the meaning. Students forget that they ‘disliked’ the opening or how the word ‘she’ is repeated all the time. I found that this way allowed students to make their own opinion about a poem before the teacher appeared and informed them of the 'correct' view. Everybody explored the poem rather than just a select few.

 

STAGE 4: Relational or ‘look how these link together’
We then talked about some of the ideas in the poem. We would talk about ideas we had noticed in the text. At this stage, some students would progress automatically to the next few stages.  However, to make this more effective, I dragged out the hexagons. I’ve tried this with two ways since and both work. One way is to have students write down ideas on separate hexagons and try to link them that way. Another way is to have an A3 sheet with a grid of hexagons and students start with one hexagon. They write an idea found during the x-raying. Then, in the next hexagon they write a different point from a different aspect or x-ray. They would continue this until the grid was finished. Both ways produced similar results in that students were able to make connections.

There were some excellent connections between the use of the pronoun 'she' to the general embarrassment of the granny kissing them. Because they are embarrassed by her, they dare not mention her name as the poem does.

 

STAGE 5: Extended abstract or  ‘the penny drops’

Finally, we returned back to the questions and then answered them either as a class on the board, or in their exercise books. Before doing that, the students evaluated which idea would be the best for answering the question.



And finally 

Now, I found using SOLO in this very effective in terms of lesson planning, and, obviously, students identifying how the learning is happening in the classroom. I have always had issues with the idea of a ‘three-part lesson’ as it doesn’t reflect an average lesson for me. A normal lesson might consist of: a puzzle or question as students come in; objectives; starter; explanation; task; plenary; feedback; task to develop and extend learning from the first task; plenary; tidy up; plenary as they leave.  Your average teacher would laugh in the face of a ‘three-part lesson’ as you cannot simplify the process of teaching in such a reductive way. I have three parts to gluing: give the glue stick out; students glue work in; collect glue sticks in. I think SOLO Taxonomy is a great tool for planning and structuring a lesson, as it helps you to plan the different stages of learning. It is like the American TV’s idea of a ‘story arc’. Each part or episode connects to the big baddie at the end of the story – the learning.

I have often used Bloom’s Taxonomy in the same way. You start with easy questions in the start and then end with the difficult question. This stacking up of the building progression has helped me in several lessons. I have found structuring a lesson around Bloom’s Taxonomy particularly useful with looking at non-fiction texts. 

A typical Bloom’s structured lesson might go something like this:

Starter: Find three facts and three opinions from an article.

Task 1: Compare those facts and opinions to three from another article. How are they different?

Task 2: Explain which article has the most effective facts and opinions.

Task 3: Create three new facts and opinions to go into the original article. However, they must change the desired effect of the original facts or opinions. For example: shock changed to sympathy.

Plenary: Create three new facts and opinions for an imaginary text. For example: a persuasive leaflet for the Society of Less Homework.   

Obviously, there would be a lot more fluff, I mean teaching, going on between these, but often I would structure tasks around good old Bloom’s Taxonomy. The level of challenge would increase as the lesson went on and I would be able to take into account ‘the zone of proximal difference’ within the lesson. Plus, it meant that I would always have an easy and engaging start to the lesson. Bloom’s Taxonomy has its flaws and it has some drawbacks, but I have found it quite helpful in organising the tasks or the learning in a lesson.  

Since using SOLO with poetry, I have applied it to ‘Of Mice and Men’ and produced some great results. The level of understanding is vastly improved through the use of SOLO. Before, I would be waiting for the penny to drop and students see a pattern or connection. This way there is a greater chance of the penny to drop and students can see how they are learning things.

Finally, the saddest thing is I sold all my Star Wars figures, including the Millennium Falcon, for 50p each. If only, in my teenage years, I had progressed to the Extended Abstract stage. I might have realised the bigger significance of these small figures and my personal favourite Han Solo.  

Thanks for reading and a bit thanks to Twitterville for directing me and introducing SOLO to me,

Xris32

 

P.S. I was going to call this blog ‘SOLO Love’, but then I realised the implications of a title like that as I imagine the 'extended abstract' thinkers will have done as well.

Much Ado About Marking and Progress

The Road Not Taken

Before I started my PGCE course, I was faced with a difficult choice: should I take a Drama PGCE or an English PGCE? If I took Drama, I would be faced with lots of extracurricular activities of shows, plays and rehearsals. Each thing is fun but a drain on my free time.  If I took the English path, I would be faced with lots of marking as I faced roughly 150 items of marking per week.  I know I am reducing  each course down to one single thing, but it was an important thing: how much of my free time would be taken up with marking? I knew teaching was tough, but I wanted to be able to manage my time. Eventually, I decided I’d take the English route, as I could manage the workload and not be held to a set time.  I could spread the marking across the week. Therefore, I could have a more flexible way of working. Pah! If only it was as simple as that. Several years on, I teach English and help organise the school play, so I get the marking and the rehearsals and plays.  

For this week’s blog I want to talk about marking and, especially, feedback. Since the new Ofsted guidelines, teachers have been in all of a flutter over the marking of books and, especially, an inspector judging teaching based on the scribbles in a book. The latest fashion accessory for the teacher is a pile of exercise books. And here, walking down the catwalk, is Martin, a Geography teacher. As you can see he has ditched the leather elbow pads and is wearing a lovely Next shirt and tie combination. The red of the tie is complemented by the red pen adorning his hand. Plus, the pile of books in his other hand brings out the colour in his eyes. 

 

We know that Ofsted might (some cases recently prove they might not) look at a student’s exercise book.  Are we in danger marking for Ofsted instead of the students? Some people use a code akin to ‘The Da Vinci Code’ to inform students of how to improve, while others, like myself, tend to write an essay in feedback, even though the student in question may have only written three lines. 

I have had a mixed past with marking and it came to a head about a year ago. In the past, my marking has always been detailed and thorough. I have been described as a ‘Trojan’ in terms of marking, which is about the only way I could possibly attain that comparison. I am a 10 stone weakling. Even Jane Austen would beat me in a fight. She would be blindfolded and fed on a Georgian diet, yet she would still beat me - easily. Anyway, I worked hard marking during the weekends. A whole pile of essays would often take me a good Sunday to annotate and collate. Yet, students made the same mistakes again and again. I got disappointed, deflated and depressed. Here was me working hard to help them improve and still Tim wouldn’t use capital letters and Jenny would always put a circle, or heart, over the letter ‘i’. The work I was putting in was not producing the goods. There would be occasional improvements, but, overall, students would make little or no progress in their written work. They understood things and I taught things reasonably well, but it wasn’t there in the writing.  That is when a year ago I decided to experiment with marking. What did I do differently? Did I use some crazy or whacky technique? Simply: no. I changed the way I marked - big time. I changed my routines and pushed myself to work out how to get students to improve their writing.

 

Feedback

Before: I would spend roughly 10 to 15 minutes on annotating and leaving a comment on a student’s work. Students would spend 2- 3 minutes reading through notes and writing down targets. 

Now:  I spend about 8 minutes marking a piece of work, but I use a set structure as suggested by Keith West in his book ‘Inspired English Teaching’. Rather than give a grade or a level, I give students a mark out of 30. The total mark is broken down as follows:

Ten marks for sentences

Three marks for punctuation

Seven marks for paragraphing

Seven marks for content

Three marks for presentation.

I would break down the marks for students on their assessment, so they can see where they got or lost the marks. Then, they identify their strongest and weakest area.  The student then does something about their weakest area, with the hope of improving things. At a later stage, I might tell them how many marks gets a level 5 or so on.

The great thing about this approach meant that my marking was reduced, but students could see clearly where they went wrong. It stopped me repeating the same thing again and again.  They could identify weaknesses clearly and they could see the relationship between the aspects assessed. Sentence structure is more important than presentation in this assessment. I could then change the marks and the things I am assessing. I was making the marking work for me and not the other way round. Sorry, guys I cannot stand the APP grids. That, for me, is working towards a set and rigid structure. APP grids seem to be designed with very little thought for the day-to-day use. I want the marking to suit me and not the marking to suit someone else’s view of assessment. And, that view seems to one created in an ivory tower with lots of buzz words and jargon floating in the air.

This approach wasn’t used for everything, but I used it once or twice a term and students found it more meaningful than the benign comments I made previously.  Reassuringly, several students have requested that I do it more often. This approach worked for some students, but even I know that too much of something is bad.

 

Bits of paper / Redo

Before: I would highlight some common errors in the class. There would be a task on one or two errors. Students would complete the task irrespective of if they had a problem with it or not.

Now:  Based on the numerical feedback, I gave students a small feedback sheet. If they had a low score with sentences, I’d give them a sentence help sheet.  They then had 25 minutes to rewrite a paragraph of the assessment, improving the aspect. The sheet would offer them tips, examples and ideas of what would get them full marks. As an extra treat, I’d get students to sit next to a friend in the class that was good at that aspect.

An example of the advice sheet:

 

Improving Writing: Punctuation                           Name:

 

To get higher marks, you need to:

·         Use all punctuation marks correctly.

·         Use a variety of punctuation at least once ( - : ; ,. ?...! “) 

·         Use some complicated punctuation accurately (:;-)

 

 

Rewrite a paragraph in your writing and try to improve the punctuation.

 

·         Read the paragraph again and check that no full stops are missing.

·         Check that commas have been use correctly. Would it make sense as a sentence on its own? Sometimes we put two sentences together with a comma, when a full stop is just as good.

·         Add a bracket, question mark or exclamation mark to your writing. You don’t need all of them. 

·         Find two sentences that are closely linked together and join them together with a semicolon, instead of a full stop.

·         A colon (:) introduces a new item.  For example- It was a day I always hated: Monday. Try to use one colon in your writing.

 

Then, I would take their exercise books in and mark just the paragraph for that aspect. I would write a number down and if there was something they weren’t doing, I’d highlight it on the help sheet.  This was simple and quick and it meant that I could check to see if progress had or hadn’t been made.

 

I don’t know if you feel this, but the nature of English means that unless you do something similar in the next piece of work, it is hard to see immediate progress. One assessment could be a reading task and then next is a writing task. It isn’t always easy to see the progression. We are testing different skills. That’s why I think it is important to work on improving then and there after the assessment has been completed.

The result of this method has meant that I have applied it to reading assessments. Furthermore, in each English classroom, in my school, there is a dedicated section to these help sheets. Therefore, if a student has a problem with ‘explanations’, then they can get a sheet to help them – independent learning, Mr Ofsted. 

Working on a paragraph

Before: Students would write endless attempts at tasks. They would write drafts and practise essays. Each essay would be annotated and graded.

Now: Students will attempt to write practise essays; however, I now get them to write more single paragraphs to demonstrate a skill.  Rather than give a grade, I will give a tick or a cross against a skill. Take, for example, students writing about Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’. I would ask them to write a paragraph commenting on one aspect of the presentation of Abigail.  Before writing, I would tell them that I am looking for evidence of discussion of these aspects:

Behaviour

Language

Audience’s reaction

Bigger Picture (context / structure)

Or, BLAB, as students love a good acronym. My marking would consist on me writing the acronym BLAB  and ticking or crossing if I see evidence of it. You can see the sweat pouring off my brow as I wrote that in every exercise book. Then, students would stick in a small help sheet related to that aspect and then rewrite the paragraph improving it.

Or, students could highlight the different strands and set themselves a target.

The marking is very simple and less arduous than marking a whole essay. It meant that I could direct progress in a more controlled and manageable way. Look, Mr Inspector, the students have made progress and this is how they have improved.   

 

And finally….

I have moaned about my PGCE  course before, but I felt that I needed a whole week’s worth of seminars and lectures on marking and feedback. It was brushed off with complete indifference. I recall an afternoon of looking at GCSE scripts. Sadly, I had to cut my teeth on marking on my own and learn about it for myself. Again, why should I have to learn the hard way for everything? The things I suggest here are part of an on-going project of mine. I mark more effectively now than I did before, but that is down to me sitting down and reflecting on my marking methods and looking for more ways to build progression into my marking.

I even write the word ‘progress’ against work in exercise books, if it shows improvement. The students can see where they have improved rather than work that is just good. A pen and a few bits of paper are all you need to build progress into their written work.

Within my school I have been praised for my marking and I have led some INSET about some of the methods I have used, but importantly it has made us look at marking in more detail. A result of this has been one person suggesting using a highlighter to mark practise exam essays. The teacher highlights where the marks come from. This brilliant, but simple, method shows students where the waffle is and where the good stuff is.  It gets them to see how they haven’t, sometimes, got any marks for their opening paragraph, or if things are repeated.

I am open to new ideas and I don’t think I have got it cracked, but for the day-to-day marking, I have reduced the workload so I can spend more time with family and doing fun stuff. But, I am more focused with praising what they did well (you got 7 out of 7 for paragraphing) and highlighting the things that need improving (4 out of ten for sentences), and, finally, helping them to improve in a differentiated way (here is sheet and improve one paragraph). 

 

 

Thanks for reading and thank to @Gwenelope for help and support,

Xris32

P.S. Check out http://huntingenglish.wordpress.com/author/huntingenglish/ for more feedback stategies, especially with a focus on verbal feedback.

Teacher’s Comment:

Well done, Chris. You have clearly worked hard on making your writing concise and clear for the reader. I like your use of humour, but I think you could be more creative with language and use a few more techniques in your writing. Overall, a good effort and I am sure you will listen to the advice given.

Target:  Try to use a simile or a metaphor to help make your writing interesting.

Or:

Sense of Humour: 6/7
Sentence Variety: 4/7
Paragraphing: 3/3
Presentation: 3/3
Structure: 2/5
Figurative Language: 2/5

Total: 20