Keeping the Webs Off - "Making Summer Count"

As a teacher of AP students, I have become intimately familiar with the annual struggle that is summer assignments. How much do I assign? How much do I respect the students' need for a break? How do I keep them learning while they wait to return in September (ok, this one might be a bit optimistically stated)?

The truth is that this choice is difficult. So, where do you draw the line?

First, we need to consider if the line is even necessary. Do students need activities to do over the summer? The purpose of such activities is to stop the gap that develops over the course of the summer. Keeping the academic side of the brain active is important, especially when students are going to be asked to college-level work upon their return. A recent study cited in an article from Utah's The Salt Lake Tribune shows that students lose an average of one month of learning over the summer. For students on an alternating day schedule, that is one-half of a marking period. For students on an everyday 7-period day, that is three-quarters of a marking period. For students on an everyday block schedule, that is an entire marking period. And some of my colleagues wonder why students don't take the final quarter seriously.

So, keeping students active academically in the summertime is important. How do we honor their lives as people, too? we provide them the choice of how to exercise their academic muscles. I am going to detail my summer assignment for AP English Language and Composition below. I am sharing this assignment to show how I respect students' time over the summer and still get them to practice good academic habits.

Requirement 1: A Writer's Notebook

Students are asked to keep a notebook about their lives over the summer. They are asked to place one entry per week of the summer in the journal in any form they wish. They can write about what they are doing in any form from poetry to prose. These entries are used later in the first quarter to talk about different modes of writing.

Requirement 2: Rhetorical Note Cards

I provide students with a list of rhetorical terms and logical fallacies. Over the course of the summer, students are asked to define each term on a flashcard. Then, they must provide an example of each term from something they've read. This leads me to the final requirement.

Requirement 3: Reading

Student must read one age- and ability-appropriate fiction and nonfiction piece over the summer. I use part of the final weeks of the year (you know, the post-state-testing lull) to introduce incoming AP students to rhetorical analysis. Students must analyze both texts rhetorically and write a brief essay explaining the big differences in analysis of fictional and nonfictional texts. I provide the students with some options of fiction and nonfiction texts, but ultimately they decide what they read and then get approval for their choices. In this way, I can join them in their discovery of new texts through the recommendations they make.

All in all, students do the following over the summer:

1. Write one paper

2. Keep a journal with a minimum of nine entries

3. Read two books: one fiction, one nonfiction

4. Create some note cards

Thus far, that is the best I have devised in terms of respecting my students' lives over the summer while still getting them to practice their academic skills. What I would like to see happen is something like this summer assignment with one-on-one academic counseling for ALL students. According to the article from The Salt Lake Tribune, students from lower socioeconomic brackets "don’t catch up during the summer, and they lose more ground the next summer. Over time, that loss is cumulative, and it’s really hurting [them]."

Imagine if teachers were given eleven months of pay instead of ten. The extra month would account for an every other week open academic "camp" for students whose families cannot afford to send them. AP students, those with the most academic ability, are being given an advantage that would really help lower-income students; however, they would need guidance and an accountability system to ensure that they show up. After all, schools are failing lower-income students everyday, why should they believe that a summer program would actually help them?

These are just some ideas about how to address the summer gap. I am going to get my hands on a copy of that report from The Salt Lake Tribune and see what they have to say. In the mean time, here is the electronic copy.

What ways do you stimulate student learning over the summer? Do you believe there should even be summer assignments? Would you support summer assignments with direct instruction for all students?

McCombs, J. Sloan, C. H. Augustine, H. L. Schwartz, S. J. Bodilly, B. McInnis, D. S. Lichter and A. Brown Cross. Making summer count: How summer programs can boost children's learning. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2011. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG1120. Also available in print form.

AP Annual Conference 2010 - Part 1

This past week-end, a murder of AP teachers descended upon the Marriott Wardman Park and Omni Shoreham Hotels in Washington, D.C. to pick over each other’s brains. These teachers were gleaning all they could from the 2010 AP Annual Conference. I attended, representing my school as an AP English Language teacher. By virtue of my focus, many of my observations will be couched in terms of that course’s sessions; however, there were many other events going on, too. I will do my best to give a fair reporting of what went on. Perhaps others who attended could reply to this posting and put forth their views on the conference.

My conference experience began on Thursday. I attended the Pre-conference session for AP English Language: Experienced. The presenter was very informative and helped everyone really dig into what a synthesis essay does and how to better prepare students for it. I’d never really considered using novels as a jumping-off point for a synthesis essay. The process was very easy.

First, you have to read the novel (I’m sure this is not surprising). Then, do the whole literary-theme talk with your students. Consider The Great Gatsby. One of its most prominent themes is the decay of the American Dream (love those cheery modernists). What you would do is select a passage from the novel, find some other short pieces that embody that theme, and develop a prompt on the theme.

Example:

“Many Americans work their entire lives to make their dreams into reality. Using the passage on page such-and-such to page what-not, develop an essay in which you assess to what extent American society still promotes the successful pursuit of dreams. Use the supplementary documents to support your argument.”

Perhaps you include Lou Gehrig’s “luckiest man” speech. The man lauds aspiration and hard work in a very humble and refreshing way; however, he is being cruelly robbed of his dream by the very mechanism that helped him attain it. The comparisons draw themselves.

The actual conference started on Friday. On the first day, I attended three sessions (which were hard to select based on the incredible selection): a session on the results of the AP Language Exam, a phenomenal session on teaching satire, and a session on teaching irony in a vertical team (Pre-AP through AP Literature and Composition).

The session on the test was helpful in recognizing the places where students are still struggling. In particular, the presenters mentioned that students need help on:

1. Archaic Prose

2. Argument

3. Writing Exam Answers vs. Writing Exam Essays

The archaic prose piece is about comprehension and analysis; specifically, if students cannot comprehend the text, they probably cannot analyze it. There was a suggestion made about using the 2006 Free Response Question from William Hazlitt’s “On the Want of Money” to help students understand what they might come up against. One of the presenters stated that a three-column chart (Headings of “Rhetorical Moves,” “Effect,” and “Exigence” (or how the move and effect tie into the overall purpose), helps his students develop a method for approaching archaic text.

In the realm of argument, the presenters suggested a focus on anticipating the “naysayer” and integrating deep examples. One presenter even said that he frequently tells his students that one deep example is more effective than three shallow ones. When anticipating the “naysayer,” writers are simply thinking about what someone else could say to the argument they are writing. The idea is that thinking this way will help students to determine if they have fully and deeply explained their ideas.

When answering the synthesis and the argument question, students need to write an essay; in other words, they must construct a strong, fully-formed composition that fully illustrates a point. The presenters mentioned that many students try to do this for the rhetorical analysis, too, but that it is not necessary. Now, that doesn’t mean throw essay writing conventions to the wind, but it does mean that students need to focus more on explaining the rhetorical moves a writer makes, the effects they have, and the overall purpose of the way the piece is written (that chart again). The emphasis for the rhetorical analysis is heavily weighted on analysis and less so on written style of the essay.

That was the pre-conference workshop and the review of the exam results. I am going to distill my notes from the other sessions and post those separately. In the meantime, feel free to post your reactions to this information or ways that you tackle writing and rhetoric in your classrooms.

And a final question I have been wrestling with from before the conference: Should rhetoric and writing be the focus in the classroom of regular grade-level courses? We don’t have these ideas in the Virginia standards, but I don’t see the point in withholding information students will be asked about in freshman composition. What do you think?