I know, someone will chastise me for this, but I think it’s better than letting kids rub magnets all over the monitors.
Anyway, this is the second part of my RED X exercise. The students will visit the computer lab to type up their essays. I’ve already gone over many essays in class — those students will simply type up their essays. The other kids get a different surprise, though. I’ll walk up behind them while they’re typing and mark an X, right there on the monitor, with my trusty, red-flavored, Expo™ dry-erase marker.
Not much of a strategy, but it brings the idea of editing right into the computer lab, and hopefully will get the students to think about what they type as they type it.
Some students have already worked through 6 drafts of their essays. The game, though, is what keeps them going. And I’ve given a carrot to all students:
You will win this game. If you’re willing to work. You will beat me. If you don’t give up. You will win.
Given that this is so important to me, I’d like to offer to the kids that I’ll shave my head if they work through to the end, but I’m going bald as it is. That won’t get me anywhere. Maybe I should offer a beard shaving instead.
Filed under: Computer Lab, Previous Post, strategy
That’s so funny! I can’t imagine if a teacher of mine ever came up behind me while I was typing and marked up the screen. I really like your “Red X” idea, though (mostly because I was one of those students who was okay with “good enough” until I took an internship at a school and decided I wanted to teach.)
I’m surprised, though, that the students are–after so many days on the same project and so many drafts–not ready to strangle you. Have you had many kids getting upset about not being allowed to hand in a paper that probably would otherwise be “just fine”? (To them, at least) Has there been any real backlash? And if so, how do you handle it? You mention encouragement in this post, but surely that’s not all you’re doing.
It’s strange — the kids aren’t complaining about having to revise. Really. There are some who complain about having to start the paper, but that’s about it.
It wouldn’t be honest of me to say that every student is interested in this paper, nor would it be honest to say that every kid is working. But this assignment is about bettering yourself; about learning from personal mistakes. It’s about each student learning what difficulties he/she has in writing and learning how to correct those problems.
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I didn’t really know where this should go since its the consequence of action from a few of your Red X entries.
I took a week to think about how I would implement it in my class of sub-standard graduating seniors (16 year olds taking the Cambridge/Oxford O’levels’) and merge it with the syllabus we are teaching.
I finally found an opportunity and got them to work on a sensory writing entry and then walked around class. Once they got the hang of what I was doing I heard the same comments!
* “What’s does ‘PA’ mean?”
* “It means its a passive sentence – it obscures the meaning.”
* “Ohhh!”
and also:
* “oh. don’t mark up my paper with red again!”
* “then, somethings not right. do something about it.”
After about 2 days, I finally moved away from ‘marking your paper’ to asking if any of them would like ‘my feedback’ on their writing while they worked. After a week – they finally want my attention to see if they got their work right. And they are learning where their grammar weaknesses are.
I’ve used this kind of feedback – ing now beyond grammar writing exercises to essay writing for their literature and language arts subjs!
Thanks for the share!
That sounds great! Nice transition. It also sounds like your students moved from fearfulness to acceptance pretty well; it’s wonderful when the kids actually want your feedback and can grow from it.
Thanks for sharing!