As a staff at Grizzell Middle School, we have been discussing, reading and thinking about homework in a middle school setting. At our staff meeting in November and December, we looked at a professional book called Rethinking Homework: Best Practices to Support Diverse Needs. The talk has been interesting and eye-opening.
During last Thursday's staff meeting, I focused on part of Chapter 4 in the book about feedback and homework. The information was intriguing because it emphasized that homework should have immediate and relevant feedback. As a language arts teacher, it is sometimes difficult to give timely feedback especially when it comes to writing (28 students with multiple paragraph writing takes time). Rita and I decided to work on providing that feedback on our students' Writer's Notebook homework that day.
Thursday for homework we asked students to write a character analysis from a short story we read together called "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry. As students read, they focused on the two characters, Jim and Della, and their character traits. For homework students were to write in their Writer's Notebooks about one of the characters. The directions were to write an introduction, a paragraph about one of the character's traits WITH explanation and text support, another paragraph about a second character trait WITH explanation and text support, and a conclusion.
Friday we spent the day reading and commenting on the students' writing from the night before. It was a time-consuming process as we worked our way around the room. The students read independently while we commented and conversed. We were able to provide timely feedback with suggestions for revisions and to compliment the students whose writing was well-done. Students who had problems - poor introductions or conclusions, incorrect text evidence, lack of proper explanation, etc. - were asked to revise or rewrite based on the comments and conversations.
Today, Rita and I again checked the students' notebooks providing feedback about the revisions/rewrites.
As a teacher, I felt very satisfied with knowing which students understood the task assigned to them and which students needed to continue working to get to that understanding. It takes time and patience to provide immediate feedback on homework, but we believe it was well worth it!
A few pics to show how we provided feedback on Friday:
During last Thursday's staff meeting, I focused on part of Chapter 4 in the book about feedback and homework. The information was intriguing because it emphasized that homework should have immediate and relevant feedback. As a language arts teacher, it is sometimes difficult to give timely feedback especially when it comes to writing (28 students with multiple paragraph writing takes time). Rita and I decided to work on providing that feedback on our students' Writer's Notebook homework that day.
Thursday for homework we asked students to write a character analysis from a short story we read together called "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry. As students read, they focused on the two characters, Jim and Della, and their character traits. For homework students were to write in their Writer's Notebooks about one of the characters. The directions were to write an introduction, a paragraph about one of the character's traits WITH explanation and text support, another paragraph about a second character trait WITH explanation and text support, and a conclusion.
Friday we spent the day reading and commenting on the students' writing from the night before. It was a time-consuming process as we worked our way around the room. The students read independently while we commented and conversed. We were able to provide timely feedback with suggestions for revisions and to compliment the students whose writing was well-done. Students who had problems - poor introductions or conclusions, incorrect text evidence, lack of proper explanation, etc. - were asked to revise or rewrite based on the comments and conversations.
Today, Rita and I again checked the students' notebooks providing feedback about the revisions/rewrites.
As a teacher, I felt very satisfied with knowing which students understood the task assigned to them and which students needed to continue working to get to that understanding. It takes time and patience to provide immediate feedback on homework, but we believe it was well worth it!
A few pics to show how we provided feedback on Friday: