You’ll start to think I’m obsessed with our new jGR way of grading. That’s because I am. Here’s more:
I am getting closer and closer to figuring this stuff out. What a long and fascinating journey. A Yellow Brick Road. A Long and Winding Road. That leads me home.
What we have to do is insist on responses! Our mistake – a big one – is to think that we are armed and ready as long as we have:
- Slow
- Staying in Bounds
- Checking for understanding by asking millions of yes/no questions
But the third of those three things (which are the Big Three necessary for the comprehensible input to happen well, in my opinion), needs a little more explanation. The third one. The culprit. What does that mean, the culprit?
It means that we need to check for understanding COMPLETELY. What does that mean? It means what Blaine has said all along – get a good choral response. Ahah! That is where we fall down.
Admit it. You don’t get a strong choral “YES!” or “NO!” from your classes on every question. Come on. Say it, “You’re right, Ben, I don’t get a good choral response on my questions!”
Good, you said it, and I totally admit it too. But let us go deeper into this. Why don’t we get a good choral response on our questions? I know the answer.
We don’t get a good choral response on our y/n questions bc we lack spine. We are afraid to make a group of surly sourfaces answer us loudly and with enthusiasm. Ok, at least that is why I suck at it.
But one day last week I had just had it with the weak responses. I just wasn’t going to let them get away with being cardboard cutouts of students. Too much, way too much, at stake.
So I went over the Clarice’s rigor poster and talked about what it feels like inside and outside (I really focused on that one) to really be acquiring the language. I told them that this is what the national standards require me to do, to see in them with my eyes if they understand or not.
I told them again about the jGR and how WHAT THEY DO in class in OBSERVABLE TERMS and in terms of NEGOTIATING MEANING with me (I didn’ t use those terms) would determine a full 50% of their grades. In short, I gave them “the lecture”.
After pointing to and using all discussing all the posters, all of this in English, I told them that I was now going to return to the story and ask a bunch of easy y/n questions and I EXCEPTED TO HEAR THEM RESPOND TO ME IN THE WAY I REQUIRED.
It worked. I was so happy. These are children and unless we tell them what want from them in terms of behaviors, they won’t know what to do.
So, get good choral responses to your y/n questions. Get the courage up. Don’t just accept answers from a few kids. This is huge, guys. Huge.
