TIMECODE SOT NOTES / TEXT ON SCREEN
02:02 TEXT:
Common Core: ELA
Post-Class Analysis
Teaching “Evidence & Arguments”

TEXT:
Part 3: After the Class
Teachers T.J. Hanify and Lance Balla Review How the Standards Were Met
02:05 LANCE BALLA: Well, TJ, tell me, um, do you feel like you met the objectives you were planning for today? TEXT:
Lance Balla
K-12 ELA Curriculum Developer
Bellevue School District, WA
TJ HANIFY: I'm really happy with how the whole sequence of events worked. I think that the, the kids were engaged and contributed all the way through. It was nice to see when small groups took place everyone was high energy and engaged. TEXT:
T.J. Hanify
9th & 10th Grade ELA Teacher
International School, Bellevue, WA

TEXT:
Small Groups
TJ HANIFY: When there was large-scale discussion you saw that students weren't just sort of passively sitting by but really tracking what the other people had to say. And the actual reading task that they had I think it was challenging but they lived up to it. TEXT:
Socratic Seminar

TEXT:
Close Reading
TJ HANIFY: I was happy with the work that they produced when they made their presentations
TEXT:
Presentations
02:35 LANCE BALLA: Let’s talk specifically first about the close reading. So, they began and they worked with a difficult text on their own. TEXT:
Close Reading
LANCE BALLA: When they first came to class on that first day, um, what kinds of annotations did you see? What kinds of comments did, indicated you as a teacher that students were really beginning to dig into this text?

TJ HANIFY: Well using the thinking notes the kind of reactions I expected to see were a lot of just sort of tracking their own reactions. Especially in a way where they could quickly recall sections that they had a strong reaction to later.

03:04 STUDENT SOUND UP:
“It says like you have a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. And unjust laws would be like the segregation like not being able to not be able to sit in the front of the bus. And like he had a lot of examples but then he said he would be an advocate for not breaking moral laws.
TEXT:
Close Reading
TJ HANIFY: So they did a good job of identifying parts that they thought were important or central to the ideas. And they had some great ideas about the text elements that they responded to well. And so quite often it might be that, you know, the conclusion was especially strong or I love the way that he turned this phrase.
TJ HANIFY: And th-, without necessarily knowing a lot of formal terminology they were able to isolate some text elements that were particularly effective.
03:48 LANCE BALLA: … one of the things that I was struck by w-, w-, was the fact that your students could provide feedback to on another.
LANCE BALLA: They didn’t just say great, they were complimentary but they would say something very specific about what could have made it better.

04:00 STUDENT SOUND UP:
Ok, so it was a very nice presentation. I learned a lot. But I also feel like it might have been good at the beginning to like go over exactly like what ethos, logos and pathos were because I know like I wasn’t really clear on it either.
TEXT:
Feedback
TJ HANIFY: It's very important to have your expectations clear as far as what you want out of an audience member, in particular, feedback. So I gave them the specific requirements. This is the kind of positive feedback that I want to give.
TJ HANIFY: This is the kind of constructive feedback that I expect you to do. And, and give them actual samples. This is the sort of thing I would want you, to hear you say.
04:34 STUDENT AUDIENCE SOUND UP:
I was just wondering what is the actual tone like of the first one? I get that it’s blunt but is he like, how is it encouraging?
TEXT:
Feedback
STUDENT PRESENTER SOUND UP:
Like in paragraph 3 is when starts to, he shifts from being more respectful to the clergymen to directly telling them what they’re doing wrong and sort of calling them out, I guess.
TJ HANIFY: I think it's also important to give any audience a task at hand so that they stay involved in the activity, that they're not just being polite and quiet while other people present, but that are e-, engaged in each presentation and considering how would I make this better if this was my team up there?
05:10 LANCE BALLA: So, in planning this you were really looking at those Common Core State Standards around collaborative speaking and listening. You were also looking at writing standards and you were also looking at presentation standards. So, tell me a little bit about how did you begin to put all the pieces together? TEXT:
Common Core:
Speaking and Listening

TJ HANIFY: You can't just say, I'm going to take a reading standard and a writing standard and then just try to mash them together. It's important to really think about how one feeds and builds on another.
05:32 LANCE BALLA: … continuing our talk about the speaking and listening standards, I noticed in the second lesson specifically you employed Socratic Seminar, …. TEXT:
Socratic Seminar

LANCE BALLA: Talk a little bit about why that particular strategy, what the goal, what were the goals and objectives, how would those like to the standards in particular?
TJ HANIFY: Well Common Core Standards expects there to be a lot of different kinds of discussion strategies taking place. And that can be small group, peer-to-peer, whole class discussion, informal but also formal. And so that's an opportunity where you can really tap into those standards that talk about expectations for students. TEXT:
Common Core Standards
Discussion Strategies:

Small Group
Peer-to-Peer
Whole Class Discussion
Informal
Formal

TJ HANIFY: That they'll arrive prepared and ready for a discussion. In this case, having some specific questions designed as an entry ticket.

06:06 STUDENT SOUND UP:
I asked a question if we are able to abolish legal injustice will it necessarily result in social injustice?
TEXT:
Socratic Seminar
STUDENT SOUND UP:
There’s a difference between people doing what’s right and people forced to be doing what’s right. So, I mean like maybe they’ll go through the motions but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll change.

TJ HANIFY: Nobody sat down in that circle until they showed me that they had their work prepared.

06:30 LANCE BALLA: So after the Socratic Seminar, you had students begin to work on a blog, their argumentative writing, specifically those standards. Why use a blog format? What do you gain out of that that’s, you don’t gain by just having them write, um, a paragraph and, and handing that in? TEXT:
Argumentative Writing
TJ HANIFY: One of the important things about trying to bring in these new forms of writing is not just to do it for the sake of the technology and not to say, ha ha, it’s on a web page now, so now it’s a different kind of writing. But because it’s a blog that in particular, they know peers are going to read and give feedback to, it gives them a real audience.
TJ HANIFY: An important part of learning how to be an argumentative writer is to understand that real people are going to read and respond to your text. So how do you craft your language in a way that will draw them in and make your ideas clear?
07:12 LANCE BALLA: So overall, you had a number of different components to these different lessons. What are some of the checkpoints that you used to make sure that students were meeting the objectives, demonstrating the skills that are, are articulated in the Common Core Standards?
TJ HANIFY: There’s always something that I try to look at, so from the beginning, when they walk in the door, show me tho-, the annotated text. Show me the thinking notes. Moving on from that, I’m able to circulate and hear some of their initial ideas and maybe give them some feedback and constructive help as they went to make those slides. TEXT:
Teacher Checkpoints:
Review Annotated Text
Hear Initial Ideas
Presentations

TJ HANIFY: The presentations are very important, that sort of graduating on to the next step. But even after that, I had them all write down some example feedback to make sure that, that those specific expectations for student feedback were going to be met as we moved onto the blog. TEXT:
Teacher Checkpoints:
Peer-to-Peer Feedback

07:53 TJ HANIFY: The next day, the great thing about a Socratic Seminar is that thinking is just so transparent it’s out there in the open. I’m able to circulate and see some of the notes that they’re crafting, but everything’s really out there, so I’m able to get a strong feed [sic] for the, or feel for the room. TEXT:
Teacher Checkpoints:
Peer-to-Peer Feedback
Socratic Seminar
Argumentative Writing Task
TJ HANIFY: I’m able to get a strong feel for the room so that I know that we’re really ready to move on and have that individual activity of crafting the argument and of writing take place.
08:06 LANCE BALLA: So it’s clear that the strategy is not the end, in and of itself. The strategy is to get students to those important skills.
TJ HANIFY: Absolutely.
08:14 LANCE BALLA: Was there anything e-, that you might have done differently? If you go, go, go back to the two days; anything you might have changed, anything moving forward that you’re going to do differently in the future?
TJ HANIFY: I think along the way, I gave them a lot of examples of what I wanted to see. But the one real gap was that I didn’t have an example blog, an example of the kind of online writing I wanted to see.
TJ HANIFY: I made some really clear expectations that even though they were writing online in a blog, it’s somewhat more casual, that as far as tone and also the elements of argumentative writing, they needed to be there.
08:42 TJ HANIFY: But I think it would’ve been nice if I’d been able to give them an example of, this is the sort of writing that real people do in this particular sort of form and genre. TEXT:
Next Time:
Provide Samples of Online Writing