Shelley Wright

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Blogging is the New Persuasive Essay

July 5, 2012 | 8:00 AM | By

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By Shelley Wright

As an English teacher, I’ve had numerous conversations with college professors who lament the writing skills of their first year students. But not all writing. Most students are capable of solid expository writing. It’s their skill with persuasive writing that’s the problem. Specifically, they’re weak at writing a thesis statement that can be argued.

I spend three years teaching my high school students how to write a persuasive essay. For many students, it takes that long. (And I’m lucky to have them that long in my school.)

Part of the problem is that our current school systems — and not just in Canada — aren’t great at producing independent thinkers. Without this ability, it’s hard to create a great thesis statement, anticipate the arguments against it, and then compose your own argument in light of what you understand about the pros and cons of an issue.

I love writing essays. There’s something satisfying about rendering the chaos of thoughts into an elegant form. But I love blogging more. It feels like playing.

 

So for three years, I write for them, and with them. We talk about opening paragraphs, and they learn how to write them with their thesis statement either as the first or last sentence. (The latter requires more skill.) They learn to use transition words, embed quotations to support their argument, consider the advantages of active vs. passive voice, vary their sentences, and many other skills, all in the hope of creating a strong argument.

The truth is lately I’ve come to question the point of much of this. Does the average person, once they leave school, spend a lot of time composing academic essays? Is this the best way for our students to show their learning?  In some places, the academic 5 paragraph essay is hailed as the Holy Grail of non-fiction writing achievement. Yet even if a student can become a great persuasive essay writer, they’re still only semi-literate, at least according to the definition of 21st Century Literacies.

A DIFFERENT BEAST

While traditional essay writing may not help alleviate this situation, I think blogging can. Here’s the problem; Blogging is an entirely different beast. And one of the things I’ve learned about my students is that they don’t necessarily transfer a skill they’ve learned in one area to another without Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, blogging, Shelley Wright

Shifting the Classroom, One Step at a Time

January 11, 2012 | 9:26 AM | By

Flickr: Duchamp

By Shelley Wright

Teachers who are interested in shifting their classrooms often don’t know where to start. It can be overwhelming, frightening, and even discouraging, especially when no one else around you seems to think the system is broken.

The question I’ve been asked often throughout the past year is “Where should a teacher begin?”  I’ve reflected on  this a fair amount, and I think small strategic steps are the key.

1. START WITH ONE UNIT

Start with creating one inquiry unit in one subject. You can jump in and change everything at once like I did, but that’s slightly crazy. Instead, if you design one unit in one subject, at the end of each day, or week, you can analyze what worked and what didn’t. While teaching doesn’t always leave a lot of time for luxuries like reflection, it really is the key to figuring out inquiry learning, and as the teacher, it’s one of your most important roles.

Remember that inquiry learning is an emotional process.

Sometimes you may not understand why certain things aren’t working. Ask your students. I’m often surprised by how much they know and how adept they are at articulating what they need.

Two of the best resources I’ve found for creating an inquiry classroom are Carol Kuhlthau’s work and Alberta Learning’s Guide to Inquiry Learning.

If you don’t know how to create an inquiry classroom, ask me. I’m happy to help. You can begin by posting comments here. If you need resources, I can probably point you to some. Over the past Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, inquiry learning, Shelley Wright, Technology in Schools

The Flip: Why I Love It, How I Use It

July 28, 2011 | 3:00 PM | By

Flickr: Mike Baird

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I love the flip. I do. And I realize by saying this I’m making a controversial statement. I believe if used judiciously, in the right context, the flip can free up valuable class time and provide the background knowledge that is fundamental for students to then go forward and wrestle with higher order thinking.

The flip that I’m talking about is the flipped classroom or reverse instruction.  It’s called the flip because, essentially, it reverses traditional teaching. Instead of lectures occurring in the classroom and assignments being done at home, the opposite occurs. Lectures are viewed at home by students, via videos or podcasts, and class time is devoted to assignments or projects based on this knowledge. It’s different from traditional homework because students know that we won’t spend the next class period going over the content they’ve engaged with at home. Instead, we’ll use it as a springboard into deeper discussion and activities. Brilliant.

As much as I like the flip, I don’t believe that it’s the savior of education (or the epitome of evil) as some would suggest. The point of the flip is to capture more of the time when teacher and students are together for deeper learning — to create more opportunities to apply knowledge and skills to challenging in-class assignments. Bottom line: it’s not always the right instructional choice, it’s only one tool in our educational repertoire. But it can be a powerful one.

Bottom line: It’s not always the right instructional choice, it’s only one tool in our educational repertoire. But it can be a powerful one.

Some believe that the flip is somehow designed to replace teachers.  I think that’s only possible if you think the most important, or sole, job that I perform in my classroom is content dispenser. I don’t believe that at all.

As a teacher, my job is to facilitate my students’ acquisition of skills and understanding.  I do that using different kinds of content. I also challenge them, encourage them, believe in them,  love them, and offer correction when necessary.  The most important thing I do in my classroom is show students how to dig deep, solve problems, and reflect carefully on the constant stream of information that inundates us all. At the same time, I’m modelling important learning skills that they’ll need for the rest of their lives. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Learning Methods, Flipped classroom, Shelley Wright

What Does a Great School Year Look Like? Ask the Students

July 14, 2011 | 1:08 PM | By

Shelley Wright

Shelley Wright's class constructed a complete Holocaust Museum as part of a school project.

This past school year, Shelley Wright, a high school educator in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, made a number of big changes in her teaching practice. The class went paperless and used a Wiki, she incorporated project-based learning and collaboration into her lessons, she experimented with “vessays.” All along the way, she documented everything on her blog Wright’s Room — not just operational information, but how those changes affected her view of learning and her relationship with her students.

It took a lot of courage on Wright’s part to just jump in with these new practices. Since her blog already reflects her own opinions about the changes, I wondered what her students and the students’ parents felt about them. I asked Wright to send out a query, and here’s what we learned.

“I couldn’t rely on the teacher anymore, I had to rely on myself and my classmates; which is a lot harder than you think.”

First, here are some responses from students about the class’s built-from-the-ground-up Holocaust Exhibit, the epitome of project-based learning.

  • “It was a great experience for me to learn different kinds of work. For example, painting, sewing, sound system, and working with different peers each day. I think that I could learn as much from a textbook but it for sure wouldn’t be a fun and enjoyable way of learning. Before this, I thought that learning and school was that you sat in a desk for the day and wrote paperwork and math equations and different types of exams. I see now that school subjects can be taught in a more unique, fun, and enjoyable way for the students. It will help the students think positive about school and they will want to come and learn.”

  • Shelley Wright

    Students work on the Holocaust exhibit.

    “We were given the opportunity to go into any aspect of the holocaust. We weren’t told to study certain things and had limits on what we wanted to learn. People just went into what interested them most. I wouldn’t have been able to learn as much as I did if we were only using textbooks. Sure, they put the important ‘stuff’ in there everybody needs to know, but with the Internet, anybody can put things on it. So you can research anything and somebody will have something about it. Like, who would have thought that not only the Jews had stars. I definitely see learning differently after that project, because during the entire project I was kinda my own teacher. I wanted to know about something, I researched it and I was able to teach others what I learned and vice-versa. Usually I learn things only for the test and then after that, it’s out of my mind two days later. But for this, what I learned doesn’t get out of my head, because it’s all things that interested me and I actually wanted to learn.”

“Usually I learn things only for the test and it’s out of my mind two days later. But for this, what I learned doesn’t get out of my head, because it’s all things that interested me and I actually wanted to learn.”
  • “Suddenly the information wasn’t just information – they were real stories – this project has made a lasting impression for me. Before [this project], learning consisted of novel studies — reading a book and answering comprehensive questions. During this project we read novel(s), then got into groups and researched what we were interested in learning more about (compiling our information onto a shared Google Doc) and finally as a class we came up with a way to present everything we’d learned. It was a great experience and opportunity.” Continue reading →
FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, passion-based learning, project-based-learning, Shelley Wright, Wikis