You carefully modeled complex sentences. You even organized this great activity where you cut large strips of text with subordinating conjunctions and independent clauses. You asked a student to color in 4-inch periods and commas during homeroom. Using their bodies, students created complex sentences with these paper objects and even explained how the subordinating conjunction shows the relationship between the clauses. Then, and then, you quickly moved students to their narrative drafts to look for places where complex sentences could signal shifts in time (After Sarah opened her present, she had a thought) and show the effect of character interactions (Because Julie was annoyed with her brother’s incessant talking, she left the room). You were so pleased that students understood how a simple syntax lesson could transform a paragraph.
And as students developed their stories, you found opportune moments to do similar mini-lessons with dialogue, characterization, and, the hardest of them all, endings. And as students wrote, you sat alongside them to listen to their stories and offer feedback. And as students wrote, they partnered for peer feedback on how these narrative techniques showed their characters, captured the action, signaled shifts.
As students submitted their “final” stories (because, let’s face it, there’s always something to add, remove, rework), you asked them to color-code some of the narrative techniques to 1) celebrate their competency but also to 2) check to be sure that what they think is a complex sentence or simile or asyndeton is, in fact, so. You created a great checklist for students to check their content and read for flow. Finally, you scheduled class time for the stories to be published to the class blog for everyone to enjoy.
The publications were strong, but when you began to evaluate the features of stories according to the standards you modeled, taught, and reinforced, you began to notice some inconsistencies or inaccuracies that distracted you from the ideas and meaning in the story. You noticed some writers attempting new techniques but missing some of the finer points of application.
- After that, the girls got along better. The writer highlighted this blue to show me she thinks it is a complex sentence. This is not a complex sentence because it is missing the subordinate clause, but the student does have an introductory prepositional phrase and is using a comma. The write can either keep it as an introductory prepositional phrase or make it a subordinate clause. Their choice.
- He ran like he was really scared. The writer highlighted this green to show it was a simile. He is using “like,” but he is not really comparing two objects to illuminate similarities or differences or to evoke a mental image. What comparison would capture the action?
- What were the characters even doing during that conversation? Where were they in the house?
You have to decide what you want to review as a class for the next writing project and what to address with individual writers to clarify and invite revision in the current writing piece. After reading dozens of stories, you notice there is no consistent misunderstanding or gap in your students’ craft, so you will invite revisions on a case-by-case basis.
Now, you have to decide the “best” way to communicate the feedback to the writer. You’ve already conducted writing conferences prior to publication to focus on storytelling, but, still, we are talking about revisions, not proofreading. Syntax and diction require reworking a sentence. Here are your options: you can write comments on the Google doc; you can print the document and write comments there; you can write comments on the checklist, or you can use the clinical online grading system. Which method will document your assessment; communicate to stakeholders (writers, parents, admin) the students’ progress; and maintain a record of the process for subsequent assignments to show growth?
It’s not the friendliest format, but you decide to use the school’s grading system to document comments so that all stakeholders can see the writer’s progress. You figure the paper checklist and printed essay will be lost in a backpack (or tossed in the garbage) and the Google Doc comments will be resolved in an isolated document. The school’s system will hold all of your comments for the entire year in one place as evidence of the objectives, feedback, revision, and evaluation (maybe one day the system will also be able to link to the artifact/evidence).
After writing all your notes in the “grading system,” you decide to send an email to your students and parents inviting them to consider your feedback and make revisions, but how will you manage and reassess one writer’s syntax, another writer’s simile, another writer’s dialogue, and — well, this is why so many teachers do not accept revisions after the “final” paper has been submitted.
At this point, you are regretting not using Google Docs for the feedback because you can track changes in the revision history or invite students to respond to your comments (not resolve them). And then you remember the paper strips of subordinating conjunctions and think old school: sticky notes.
So you include in the email (and announce in class) that after writers read the teacher feedback (and the compliment cards received from peers), they should review a concept (e.g., review notes, meet with the teacher, review concept videos, consult a peer tutor) and revise their story. Then, they should write on a sticky note what, specifically, they revised and give the sticky note to the teacher (you).
The sticky note exchange is evidence that the student knows which narrative standard is in need of revision and that he took steps to understand and demonstrate understanding.
When two students show up the next day with sticky notes and a speech prepared about what they revised, you actually feel like they are giving you presents. To one you simply say thank you before she can run away. To the other that stands before you awkwardly after handing you the sticky, you ask How do you think those changes impacted the story? This moment is about the writer doing a writerly thing: taking feedback from her editor/copyeditor and resubmitting the proof for “approval.” It’s beautiful. A few students witness this exchange and say Hey, what’s that for? You smile as you overhear one writer explaining to another It’s my revision sticky. You should check SIS for your comments and make revisions.
After a couple of days, you have collected a dozen sticky notes, so you sit down to the class blog where all the stories are published and login to the online grading screen. You reread. You reassess. You notice the characters have come alive with additional physical descriptions. You write in the grade book comments: 10/5, The character has come alive with your revisions to include character appearance: “her black maze of curly hair.” And you notice that even though one student insists he watched your video on complex sentences before making edits, he is still not quite getting the syntax, so you make a note on the calendar to conduct a mini-lesson on introductory prepositional phrases.
Revisions and assessment done for now. You read the most revised “Uncovering Pandora’s Box,” a story one writer wrote about her classmate’s memory of his grandfather’s funeral in India, and you appreciate a good story.
To learn about the biographical narrative project, check out my chapter in The Best Lesson Series: Writing: 15 Master Teachers Share What Works