Musical Jingles as a Social Studies Presentation Tool

One of the things I like about the Teacher's Curriculum Institute (TCI) materials is that it suggests brain-based learning activities that are developmentally appropriate. One of my favorites is the Colonial Fair: students promote their colony to prospective immigrants. Students in teams of 4 (ish) design a poster that includes labelled visuals of at least 4 of their colony's best features and includes a slogan, they write a sales pitch, and they write a jingle which they have to sing during the fair. Although students hate that it is low-tech ("There weren't any computers in 1700! You know what an ear of corn looks like; you don't need to look it up on Google Images to be able to draw it!"), I love that they are using so many modalities to manipulate the information.

During the Colonial Fair, the groups split into two teams: one stays, the other strays (one team presents, while the other team visits the other booths), and then they switch. Visitors have a rating sheet with them so they can rate each colony for how enticing it is: 5) Leaving Today!, 4) Saving Money for the Trip, 3) Choice Between Paris and Here-- Can't Decide!, 2) Going to the Beach Instead, or 1) Staying Home and Reading a Good Book (thanks to Lee Piscionari for the rating sheet!).

Once everyone has visited the booths, they answer this question in writing: Based on your experience at the Colonial Fair, which colony would you want to move to and why (provide at least 3 reasons)? I do a quick share-out as one last review opportunity.

Fun, right? And a great brain-based multi-modality learning activity!

One of the hardest parts for students in past years has been the jingle. They just didn't really get what a jingle would include or how to write one. I was thinking about this when I stumbled upon Mr. Betts' Class historical song parodies. The original one I stumbled upon was 'What Does John Locke Say?' (based on "What Does the Fox Say?"), but then I noticed titles that related to the work we were doing with the colonies: "Moving to the Colonies (Miley Cyrus/ 13 Colonies Parody)" and "Pennsylvania: The Quaker's Delight (The Lion King Parody)". Aha! This would be a great way to introduce the jingle concept!

The results were magnificent! Here are some favorites:

Pennsylvania [To the tune of "Call Me Maybe"]

I moved to Pennsylvania
I have more pay and more rights
Now I can say what I feel
I truly love my life
We're treated fairly now
and with religious freedom
where you are equal as well
I was searching for this
So come and join us
Live free
be accepted
the forests
and hills call you
so come and join us here maybe
Hey I just met you
And this is crazy
but live here with me
we can be wealthy
It's hard to think of life not like this
so live here with me
we all have freedom
we don't support war
and love equality
we farm and lumber
or we build ships
unless we're merchants
or trade with tradesman

(and it goes on for 6 more verses!)

Virginia [To the tune of "Rude"] 
Hey, it's Virginia, we are the first
successful English Settlement
Our religion is Anglican and we pray
in the Church of England
Our winters are cold but they're not that bad
Our summers are ho-o-ot
We're self-governing with elected assembly
     (House of Burgesses)
Our economy is farming, plantations, and small independent farms
but there's more
    (to talk about)
Our settlement thrives on the sale of tobacco because there's
a lot of land and there's more to plant
Come on and move to Virginia!

New York [To the tune of "Lazy Song"]
Today I just landed in New York colony
I just want to earn some money
I bet you didn't know we were named after the Duke of York
Cause he gave us a lot of land for this colony
We have religious freedom and that's a good thing
We gotta ton of jobs for you and the fam
Too bad for the settlement of New Amsterdam
Oh yes I said it! I said it, I said it cause I can
New York is the best colony over here
(whistle) 

Hahahaha! I love it! I think I will dip into more Mr. Betts' Class parodies as we move onto other topics. It definitely got the students engaged and thinking about how to communicate the essentials of their information in a new way. I wonder what they'll come up with for The Constitution?

Teaching Argument Through Primary Source Evidence

A couple of weeks ago, a literacy consultant, Stevi Quate, came to our school to work with the middle and high school teachers. Our Director of Curriculum and Professional Development invited her, knowing that the English departments at both levels were implementing the CCSS, as had the Math departments, and that Social Studies and Science were soon to follow. Literacy is a big push for all those subjects in the CCSS, and Stevi would be a great jump-start into improving our practice.

Stevi sat down with my co-teacher and me one morning to help us think through improving argument skills in eighth grade Social Studies: Early American History. One of our big units of the year is The Road to Revolution, during which students take on the role of a historical Patriot or Loyalist, and debate, during a series of Town Hall meetings, the issue of rebellion. Over the past few years, the results have been something like this: "Um, so I think we should rebel because, you know, the Stamp Act was really unfair." "Yeah, me too. The Stamp Act and the Quartering Act." (Etc.) Uninspired, mindless repetition of textbook content.

Stevi introduced us to the work of George Hillocks, Jr., and his text Teaching Argument Writing, Grades 6-12 (Heinemann, 2011). In the sample first chapter, Hillocks demonstrates his methodology for teaching students how to notice evidence, explain the "rule" (he also calls it "warrant"), and draw conclusions. He uses crime mysteries-- narrative plus illustration-- as his hook to teach the skills. He asks the question: "Is Queenie (the victim's wife) telling the truth?" Then he walks students through the deductive reasoning process.

Chart adapted from Hillocks, 2011.

We just finished two big writing units: Literary Essay (use evidence to support an idea) and Investigative Journalism (find out evidence to help you explain an idea). We also did some work with "The Historian's Process": using primary and secondary sources to draw conclusions about historical events. This Hillocks method seemed like a very natural next step to develop arguments and do even better work with primary source documents. As you know, I am a great believer in adopting/adapting good ideas.

My co-teacher and I decided that the crime mystery in Hillocks' chapter would not be a good fit for our community. Besides, I like practicing skills on things that are actually part of the curriculum; it's a two-for-one kind of a thing. So we decided to use the primary and secondary source materials from our next Social Studies chapter, Life in the Colonies (US Through Industrialism, TCI, 2011) as the texts to use for learning deductive reasoning skills.

The textbook activity directions say: "Acting as investigative journalists, you and your partner will investigate life in the American colonies. You will travel to eight places to examine primary and secondary sources and uncover the truth about what life was really like in the colonies." Each "place" has a visual and a written document, and a "headline" (fictionally) published in the English press about what life was like in the colonies.

To introduce the students to Hillocks' method, I will show them a 3-minute clip from the BBC show Sherlock, in which Sherlock Holmes, "consulting detective", explains to his new room mate, Dr. John Watson, how he knew so much about him when they first met. In his explanation, Sherlock names the detail he noticed (for example, Watson's haircut and stance), explains why it is important (suggests time in the military), and draws a conclusion (combined with his tan line, it could only mean he was serving overseas: in Afghanistan or Iraq). This engaging clip, combined with their recent work as "investigative journalists" and "historians", will lead us into the day's work.

Using the Gradual Release of Responsibility method (basically, workshop minilessons), I constructed a slideshow so that I could model the technique, have students try it out with my guidance, and eventually release them to do the work on their own. With each source and using the form above, students have to find evidence, the rule (why the evidence is important), and draw a conclusion about how accurate the (fake) English headline is. Students will need 3-5 pieces of evidence before they can confidently "prove" that the headline is either true or false. I will go through at least one visual and one written source to model/practice. Here is a sample visual slide:

Image by Janet Pohl adapted from TCI, 2011 and G. Hillocks, Jr.

The important part of this process, and what has been missing from my previous instruction, is the "rule" (or "warrant"). Students were giving evidence without explaining why it was important or how it proved anything. In their literary essays, we did some work on this using sentence starters like "This illustrates...", "This shows...", "This is important because...", "This connects to .... because...", and "Consequently...". If students can transfer some of that language and thinking into their Social Studies debate skills, their debates will be much better. So will their constructed answers on tests, and on future essays.

The next part of this process will be to teach them how to prove their point with logic, and, even more difficult, how to pick apart someone else's argument. But that's for another blog.

Investigative Journalism: an Integrated (?) Unit

"Let's do an integrated unit together," my math/science colleague suggested when he returned from the NSTA conference in Boston last spring.

"Uhh, OK. On what?" I tentatively replied, thinking about my Early US History Social Studies curriculum. Where's the science in that? What could he do in science related to my SS units?

"I could teach the science content and you could teach the writing part of a project!" he replied. He was very excited, fired up from a workshop that encouraged writing in the disciplines-- probably Common Core related.

Immediately, my chock-a-block ELA curriculum flashed in front of me. There was no wiggle room to add an integrated project. And besides, what did that mean anyway: I would teach the writing? What would it be? Who would grade it? I already have more writing to grade than time needed! And why couldn't he teach the writing in the discipline? Isn't that the direction that Common Core is nudging us?

"Well, maybe we could do something around Week Without Walls," I countered. This was the only wiggle room in either curriculum-- an undefined something related to our eighth grade trip to Thailand. Over the past years, the WWW project has taken many forms (sometimes so formless it was non existent), with a tenuous link to the SS curriculum via a "Global Citizenship" benchmark. 

"I was thinking I would move the Environmental Science unit to the beginning of the year. That could be our WWW content, environmental issues." I liked the idea of an environmental focus for the trip; we do a lot of activities related to the natural environment while in Thailand. We agreed we would discuss it further when school started up again in the fall.

image of elephant conservatory by Janet Pohl (author)

But it was not exactly on my radar as school started in August. We were tasked with implementing the new CCSS English standards, and we were handed the Calkins et. al.'s Units of Study in Writing as a resource. As a department, we started the year with a flurry of unpacking standards, adjusting writing units, exploring new rubrics, and closely reading the densely-written Units of Study. We were about two days ahead of the students. 

Meanwhile, back in science, my colleague was happily going about his Environmental Science unit. A month or so before our trip, I finally had the head space to talk with him about his integration idea. I learned that his unit would be finished about a week before the trip. Students focused on 5 different environmental issues each: what they were, how they were caused, and some solutions. None of the research about issues was specific to Thailand. Take it away, ELA/SS!

After a weekend of wondering how this was at all integrated-- after all, I was taking on the responsibility of continuing the authentic science writing product and science took on nothing of my curriculum, I decided to look on this as an opportunity. The one unit in the new Units of Study in Writing that puzzled me the most was the Investigative Journalism unit (how is that narrative?). Since the content of this WWW piece was securely on the shoulders of science, I could focus completely on the process of writing a new genre. Surely we could use the environmental issues as a content base and build in "field research" from our trip to write in an authentic journalistic style.

image of Chedi Luang Temple by janet Pohl (author)

I looked for models in the world, and found that Time for Kids has very accessible articles about science topics which would match the kind of writing I wanted from my students. I considered what topic I would use when I was modeling lessons, and decided against an environmental issue (I didn't want to do someone's work for them). Instead, I focused on Buddhist monks in Thailand; we visit a temple and participate in a "monk chat" while in Chiang Mai, and selecting Buddhist monks as a topic allowed me to introduce background information to students before we went. The issue? It turns out that the number of monks in Thailand is rapidly decreasing because the economic boom and falling population rates have drawn men away from the traditional commitment of ordination. Oh, and did I mention "Global Citizenship"?

I spent the first day expanding their Google search skills so that they could find relevant, readable, reliable sources about how their issue related to Thailand. Then I got them taking notes in the "5 W's" structure (who, what, where, why, when, and how), which they had to summarize in a "lean" or "dramatic" journalistic style to synthesize the information and to practice the new writing style. I left them to continue researching at home, and turned the lessons over to writing up the general science information in a "background information" way, incorporating their Thailand research when they were ready. Before leaving on the trip, we worked on interview questions-- they were required to take pictures and interview at least one person about their issue while they were there. This was the "field research" part.

Once we returned, lessons centered on incorporating the interview, writing leads that hooked readers, and writing endings that left readers with something specific to do to help solve the problem. We discussed headlines and always always focused on meaning-- What is the message you want your readers to understand when they finish reading your article? Finally, we made e-zines and students made their pages for their articles. More tech lessons helped them understand layout options, citing and usage rights with images, embedding pictures and slideshows, and hyperlinking to organizations related to their issue. Several rounds of peer review took place-- remember, the world will be reading this! You want to look as smart on paper as you are!

For a giant experiment all around, the e-zines turned out well. Students worked hard to make them attractive and engaging. Of course, the articles have a variety of proficiency, as the writers themselves do. They are eighth graders, after all.

Next year, I would like the science teacher to take on the Thailand research link, and to help grade the content part of the article. That would make it a little more integrated (and fairer) in my view. Overall, though, I like the project and the writing genre, and it made the students view Thailand with more than tourist eyes. It was also a way to get more writing into the year, and in a fresh, new genre. There's a lot of good in that!

Using Checklists for Self-Reflection, Goal-Setting, and Formative Feedback

We are in the final week of our first CCSS-aligned writing unit: Literary Essays. Throughout the unit, I have been using the student checklists provided by the Units of Study in Argument, Information, and Narrative Writing (Heinemann, 2014). The only modification I made was that I took off the grade level indicator from the top of the checklist. Since we are in the first year of implementation, I did not want students to feel stupid because they were not yet working up to the Grade 7 CCSS expectations at the beginning of eighth grade. Instead of the grade level indicators, I labeled them Semester 1 (Grade 7) and Semester 2 (Grade 8). We will use these checklists again at the end of the year with our Position Papers unit.

CC image from pixabay

I first had students assess their on-demand argument writing piece using the Grade 7 Argument Writing Checklist. They rated themselves as "Not Yet", "Starting To", or "Yes!" for each descriptor under the categories of Overall, Lead, Transitions, Endings, Organization, Elaboration, Craft, and Mechanics. I had also rated their on-demands using the checklist, but I did not share my scoring with them-- I wanted them to think honestly about what they saw they were capable of achieving and where they saw their writing had gaps. I noticed that the students were fairly accurate in their ratings, although they tended to rate themselves higher on some of the more complex areas than I did. I think this is probably because they didn't have a good sense of what the target was yet.

Once that was done, I asked them to choose 2-3 of their "Starting To" areas, and write goals for the upcoming unit. I asked them to target the "Starting To" areas because those were skills they felt they had some competence with, and those were areas that they could see immediate progress and success. Goals that are baby steps-- that lift the level of current writing-- are more motivating than trying to take a giant leap into the unknown and hoping you get there, uncertain where to even start. 

The first bend in the Literary Essay unit focused on writing a Theme Essay. Over the course of seven lessons, students analyzed short stories for theme, wrote their thinking in their reading notebooks, made a plan for the lit essay, drafted the essay, and revised for strong topic sentences, making evidence logical, adding counterclaims, and learning more about internal punctuation. During the course of the daily lessons, I conferred with students, and often used their goals as a starting point for the conference: So, how's your goal going? Can you show me the work you've been doing to improve ___? This helped the students to keep focused on the goal and to keep ownership in the learning process.

On the day the Theme Essay draft was due, students received a new checklist: the Grade 7 and 8 Argument Writing Checklist (the two checklists are side by side, so students can see where they need to go next-- like a continuum). Again, they scored their Theme Essay draft using the checklist, and used it to write some goals to carry them forward to the next half of the unit. I also asked them to do some reflection on their first set of goals by completing this sentence: I used to _____, but then I learned how to ____ by _____. Interestingly, most students chose something that was brand-new to them (e.g., adding a counterclaim, or using logic in their body paragraphs) rather than reflecting on the success of their goals. I guess these were their big new "aha!" skills.

Bend II: The Author's Craft Essay. Last week, students collected author's craft analysis entries in their reading notebooks, and created a plan for their next lit essay draft. They will write with flying fingers on Sunday, using all they learned from the theme essay section in their next draft. They will work to lift the level of this draft by keeping their goals in mind.

But now it's my turn to work with the checklist. I believe that timely, specific feedback does big work in moving students forward. I don't want to wait until their final draft and the summative rubric to give them feedback about what they are doing well and what they need to improve on. I also don't want to tell them "what to fix" in their Theme Essay. As Lucy Calkins reminds me, "Teach the writer, not the writing." My feedback needs to be useful to them as they move into the next essay (and all the rest across this year in all subjects, and beyond) rather than dwelling on the last essay. 

So this weekend I am reading Theme Essay drafts with the self-assessed Grade 7 and 8 Argument Writing Checklist in hand. I am marking with green highlighter what I see they are doing, and where I see they fall in the "Starting To", and "Yes!" ranking, for each descriptor. I am marking 3-4 descriptors as "Not Yet" or "Starting To" with pink highlighter where I think they need to do some work to lift the level to where it should be. Then I am writing next to that descriptor how to do it (if they already knew how to do it, they would have done it already!). I tried to pick descriptors that I knew I'd already taught into, so that I could send them to a chart or model as a scaffold for using the strategy. For example, if I highlighted Transitions, I would write "Use the Thinking Prompts sentence starters as transitions to link your reason, your evidence and your analysis." My feedback on the checklist will also be the starting point for conferences and small group work over the course of Bend II.

The Literary Essay unit ends in five more lessons. By the time they turn in their finalized, self-assessed (yes, once again) essay, they will have used the checklist at least three times: before the unit to set goals, mid-unit to reflect and set new goals, and at the end to reflect on their growth as writers over the course of the past four weeks. I will have given each student two pieces of written feedback (I also wrote comments on each early draft regarding their thesis and topic sentences) and several verbal conferences. Between the descriptors on the checklists and the model texts, students have had a clear target to shoot for, and feedback to guide them along the way. I am fully expecting to see significant growth in their essay writing skills in their final essay.

Investigative Journalism: an integrated Science/Social Studies/Language Arts Unit

As you know, dear reader, if you have been paying attention these last few months, we are implementing the CCSS writing standards in middle school this year. As part of the implementation, we bought the Units of Study for Argument, Informational, and Narrative Writing (Heinemann, 2014) developed by the staff at the Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project.

The grade 8 kit includes these three units: Unit 1: Investigative Journalism (Narrative), Unit 2: Literary Essay (Argument), and Unit 3: Position Papers (Informational). My teaching partner and I sat down with these units at the beginning of the year, and laid them out next to our existing units. Literary Essay-- check! A very close match. Position Papers-- We did a research-based argument essay, so we definitely see how a Position Paper would be an extension of that, so... check! Investigative Journalism-- ?? Our narrative writing unit was fantasy short stories, a really fun writing genre for eighth graders who had been writing realistic fiction short stories since third grade. We were reluctant to give it up, although Investigative Journalism did sound like an interesting unit. Hmmm... could we do both? If so, how?

Step in my Math/Science colleague. After returning from the NSTA conference last spring, he was very keen on doing an integrated Science/LA project this year. He suggested that Science could work on the content side of a project while LA could work on the writing side. Interesting suggestion... especially when he proposed doing it with the unit focusing on human impact on the environment and discovering solutions. All of a sudden, the geography theme of Human-Environment Interaction emerged from Social Studies. And how could we apply that to our Week Without Walls trip to Thailand, which we do a project with in SS anyway? I know you know where this is going...

Image of deforestation from Shutterstock via inhabitat website

So here we sit, my teaching partner and I, gazing at the Investigative Journalism unit, and with the integrated unit suggestion in my back pocket. Couldn't we have them write investigative science news articles that explained the human impact problem and the proposed solutions that they had already researched in Science, layered on an application piece of "What does this problem/solution look like in Thailand?" through more research in SS, and finally add in the field research piece of interviews, photos, and experiences while on our trip? They could write it all up using a journalistic style and publish the articles on an online science news magazine website that they would design (did I mention technology integration?). Voila!

Image of Asian elephants found on wikipedia

We are leaving out an important element of the original Investigative Journalism unit by teaching this way. The first "Bend" of the unit is about finding stories around you, living life like a journalist, noticing the everyday dramas that can turn into news stories. I understand the purpose behind this: helping kids lead a wide-awake life, keeping kids connected to the topic through choice and relevance, making it more authentic to what real journalists do. There is certainly value in that. Perhaps we can address a little part of that while we are on our trip, helping them see the connections between their experience and their news topic, helping them find the drama and personal angle to be highlighted within the story.

In any case, students will be exposed to a way to write information that is engaging, informative, and concise. Our job will be about teaching the writing skills (LA) and making a connection to another culture (SS). And we still get to do our fantasy short story writing unit (with a bit of revision to make sure we are lifting the level to meet the CCSS narrative writing standards)! Win, win!