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Another Great Rubric
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18 thoughts on “Another Great Rubric”
When Ben says something is badass, it’s badass.
Okay, I just checked it out, Ben is right. This rubric is the shit.
Jen’s is awesome too, by the way, but it’s nice already having it in the traditional rubric format
That said, and thank you Chris, with Annemarie counting how many times we use the term so that we don’t wear it out, I would add that I am going with jen’s because of its simplicity. I will, however, use David’s when I want to focus on rigor and the metacognition piece and get that discussion going with my kids. It is wonderful for that. I will tag it under three categories – Assessment/Rubrics, Rigor and Metacognition – to make it easy for us to find. We hit the jackpot on rubrics this week. Just in time!
badass cannot be worn out.
Is that because it’s badass?
I think this rubric is great as people are saying above, for the metacognitive aspect. I would like to use this every couple of weeks to get the kids to reflect on their progress on the interpersonal level. I would prefer to use Jen’s or Robert’s version to mark their daily progress towards the interpersonal standard, but to make them aware of the process, I think this one is great.
I agree David, that the one is for metacognition and self reflection and the other for grading. That’s pretty much it. I will do the same.
This self reflection instrument and the other rigor posters are going to be very useful for those of us who this year are starting to see the rigor word popping up at inservices. I am ready. The badge walks in and mentions rigor. I point to the poster and mention how we do almost daily reflection at the end of class (when we can after the quiz), using the posters, and how we also do a written version of it based on David Sceggel’s brilliant document (“another great rubric”) recently posted here at:
https://benslavic.com/blog/2012/08/22/another-great-rubric/
Yes, that is a badass rubric (if a rubric can possibly be badass…)
I like how you worked off the “participation rubric” that has been floating around our TPRS ether the last few years (credit Donna Tatum-Johns??) and simplified it for our students, instead of them circling only a 1 or 2 or 3 etc, they circle the number and the explanation of their participation. I will definitely utilize this doc this year David… thanks!
OMG – this *IS* badass!!! 🙂 Especially since I just noticed that it is EXACTLY (sans “avoid English” and “actors synchronize”) according to the “RULES”…….which I noticed because I am in my room today setting it up and just hung up the rules that I had printed off last year —
have they changed?????
I love you all!!! It is so much easier sitting at this desk, in this room this year knowing that you’ve all “got my back”! hahaha (and I, yours!)
Kids = 8 days!!! (I know I can, I know I can, I know I can….)
Yeah mb Rules #4 and #8 are new.
I like #4 bc it’s what we did in Breckenridge with the “over the head” motion – the old fist thing and all the other clarification gestures didn’t work bc the kids could hide it behind the kid in front of them.
I like #8 bc you know how they sometimes come in and plop a big ole book bag down on their desk which then is a cell phone shield? Last year we had to realize when and if that was happening and then when we told them to pls. remove their book bag there would be immediate opposition, sometimes defiance, at least with the kinds of kids I serve. So now I just laser to rule #8 and bam, no confrontation.
After all we have talked about, you guys might find it amusing to know that I am going to try to go 100% in French this year. I have to. It’s the logical outcome of all the discussion of trying to get to 98% over the past few years here.
I am capable, if given even a sliver of an opportunity, of turning the 2% window for L1 into a 20% run of English in the first month and then maybe crawl back later in the fall to 90% use of TL, but nowhere near the desired 98%.
So this is going to be REALLY WEIRD as I try this tomorrow – first day for kids. WISH ME LUCK! It doesn’t help when your initials are B.S. and you love to overexplain stuff. But I have watched myself on video enough, painful though it was, to know that those kids don’t even listen to me when I am in English. They’ve heard it all and man do I overexplain, as in “This year we are going to blah blah blah.”
No, I’m starting out fully in L2 and if I mess it up I will come crawling back here tomorrow nite or later in the week and have to admit what an L2 loser I am. Yes, I am saying that for me this year using any L1 at all is going to go against everything I want to do this year. So how’s that for some crazy stuff. I JUST CAN’T DO ENGLISH ANYMORE. I JUST CAN’T. YEAR 36 STARTING. TIME TO GROW UP. I’ll keep you posted.
What about those lengthy explanations that are necessary to explain how I grade and policy and all that? I’m going to write that stuff on the document camera in English. I am going to allow myself to write messages to them in L1 but not speak those housekeeping messages. And just for the first few weeks and then it’s full on L2. Note that I don’t have any level 1’s this year. If I did I wouldn’t be aiming so high. I have all 2’s and an inherited traditional 3/4 combination.
Here is what I will let the kids read tomorrow on the doc camera, which I post here as a follow up to the lengthy discussion here over the past three weeks on how to deal with cell phones, etc. –
“Three and Done”
The following things interfere with learning in our classroom:
1. Excessive bathroom trips
2. Use of English
3. Unexcused tardies
4. Unexcused absences
5. Visiting with a neighbor during class
6. Cell phones
7. Buds/earphones in ears
Therefore, when a student has three or more of any of the above things documented by the teacher in the ALHS grade book, a referral will be written.
How will I keep track? In each class my Moltissimo Super Star (MSS) will take notes (without anyone even knowing it) of who does what on such and such a date and make a note of it when I glance at her/him to do so, which I will then transfer to the conference atom in IC during planning. Ex. – Johnny has cell phone out and is using it. Two possible actions can result, neither of which result in a confrontation: 1. Johnny puts phone away in which case I nod at MSS who slyly logs event in composition MSS book that is kept in the classroom and used for all classes. 2. Johhny refuses to put phone away in which case we have defiance which allows me to go immediately to security, which in our school is always right outside the door or down the hallway. You can hail security like you can hail a cab.
I’ve never tried any of this before, but I have to. The above plan is simple. Note the wording carefully –
…when a student has three or more of any of the above things documented….
So it could be 10 bathroom trips, 6 uses of English, and, certainly with #6 and #4, 3 and done. So that when I am able to get my MSS, who casually picks up the book for recording the offenses when entering the room, to enter an offense (nobody except me and MSS even knows that this is being done to make my job of record keeping a LOT easier), it should all go smoothly.
Here we go into 100% L2 and a new discipline system that is the fruit of our August discussions (thank you for starting them, skip!). I feel like this is my first year of teaching!
By the way, anyone new to the group may see our discussion as a bit on the random side. It is, but by design. It’s just a big conversation. We have learned to throw stuff out there, it may get a reply in the form of a comment, it may not, but it is kind of a “throw-enough-ideas-on-the-wall-and-some-of-them-may-stick” kind of philosophy. Our conversations are based on trust that we don’t have to be perfect and that this is the space for us to share what is going on in our classrooms. We often get solid insights and perspectives from other group members and we grow that way into better teaching, instead of having to try to do so alone, which never works. So neither of my bright ideas above may stick – I fully expect them both to crash and burn, were I to be honest – but just being able to write them out here gives them form in my mind and it is the very randomness of what we share here in which we often find the pearls that lead to best practices and surging confidence and joy in teaching in us, a rarity these days. So welcome, and you will see that there is a core group here of about 10 teachers whom you can really count on for deep daily insights. The rest of us need to send in bios, hint hint….
Hey Ben – sounds good, and good luck! BUT remember: “Don’t be an asshole!”
That post REALLY had an impact on me -and I think is a great idea.
(Yes, you read the time right – it’s 3am….I start in two days….I guess I am getting anxious and can’t sleep!)
Just be careful with the MSS. I know that it is a great plan, in theory, but in reality you are setting up a child to spy and narc on his classmates, and then, in collusion with an authority figure, hid that information from his/her peers. The potential for disaster here is great. I’m not sure how you are going to get a student to do it. And if you look at it, at heart, it’s not very Ben. I have no advice for how to avoid trouble with this one. I’m horrible at accounting. I don’t teach where you teach. I love the poster ….let us know how this goes!
with love,
Laurie
Good point here, Laurie. I tried doing something like this last year and the students that I talked to about doing it didn’t want to.
Snitches get stitches, I guess
I’m going to try it. If you look at it, it’s about a system that has us doing the equivalent of flying a 747 without being able to use our native language and being ultra cheerful while trying to keep our eyes on the controls of the aircraft (the method) when our passengers are rude and unruly.
I have been laying my heart out for 35 years now and it has often been stomped on by a few kids in each class who don’t get me and never will, anymore than a lot of my colleagues get me, save some in this group, like jen and John and chill and a few others.
My goal is to reach in my teaching a sublime Pure Land which I know is possible to reach and I will not allow anyone to stop me in those efforts for any reasons.
I have been writing intensely about this kind of teaching as a possibility here and on the list for the past twelve years. I don’t really give a rip about TPRS except inasmuch as it is a way for me to reach this Pure Land of teaching, where I can finally be happy and fulfilled professionally.
And yet, after these twelve years of intense writing and working I haven’t been able to keep that occasional rude kid from getting up and sauntering out into the hallway for ten minutes under the guise of a bathroom break, from picking up a cell phone and using it, or from casually skipping the class I have put so much effort into teaching.
I just spent 12 years thinking and putting myself out there in conferences and writing books and living this stuff at the expense of my personal life because of the potential here for a chance to become real, to make an unheard of shift to real teaching.
l’ll do it my way and report back here in a week or so to see if you are right. I will do it in such a way that nobody finds out. I think I can do that. I won’t even nod at the kid when I need the note taken, maybe a tap on the desk of the MSS.
Or maybe I’ll just keep the notebook myself. Should I do that? Is that what you are suggesting and I just went off on a big defensive rant bc you think I should just take the notes myself in the book? Is that it? Hurry, you only have about three hours before my first class of 35 juniors who move to level 2 with me today.
I really don’t like being a white male sometimes. It’s not that easy.
I think you should keep the notebook Ben, it will probably save you more time and grief in the long run, since you’ll no doubt have to check whether or not the MSS correctly logged each offense and how they wrote it, etc.
Also, *IF* you have to pull that notebook out sometime in the future for a parent/Admin meeting, it would be best to have those notes in YOUR handwriting – just a thought.
Yeah I did not implement this idea today. Laurie saved me again, just in the nick of time. I have learned that when I get ideas at the last minute it is best not to try them out right away. They need to cook a little. Thanks.