InstaDigest: February 12-February 23

What we did, what it looked like, and how we revised those historical photograph essays

I hope you’ve had a wonderful week at school! (I really hope you’ve had a wonderful short week at school!)

In the last two week, my students have been starting a whole class novel (The Widely Unknown Myth of Apple and Dorothy) in 7th and diving deeper into Hamlet in 8th. It’s funny: as much as I am “known” for writing instruction, I still Feel Like a Real English Teacher when we are in a literature-based unit.

I also assessed those historical photograph essays and learned some things. (Of course I did!) It’s ironic because what I learned I have already written about a lot in Beyond Literary Analysis: when students are doing new, cognitively demanding tasks, they can’t focus on the quality of their writing. It’s too much. It’s mental overload.

So, when my students were doing heavy, authentic, never-before-compiled research about their photographs, lots of things they know about writing went out the window. They forgot they need transitions between ideas so that their reader knows how to mentally organize and process information. They forgot that every single idea needs to explicitly tie back to the main thing (in this case, the photograph). They forgot that they need to read their writing — OUT LOUD — so that it makes sense and sounds good.

This time, everyone revised. I made class notes a la Penny Kittle. I did some reteaching. I’m sharing that and some student samples below, too.