Author: Mark Miller

Solving the problems of feedback

Mark Miller Feedback

Feedback is one of the best things we can do as teachers. However, it is also one of the most time-consuming, so it is crucial that feedback is highly efficient. David Didau states in his excellent Getting Feedback Right series: “Teachers’ feedback can certainly have a huge impact but it’s a mistake to believe that this impact is always positive.” The stakes are too high- if we get it wrong then teachers work increasingly long hours giving feedback which has little effect.

I see three particular parts of the process that we should refine in order to make feedback much more efficient:

  • The time it takes giving feedback: We need to ensure the time spent giving feedback is as short as possible while keeping the quality high.
  • Student response: We need to control the conditions under which feedback is received.
  • Impact of feedback: We need to ensure that feedback is not a ‘one-hit wonder’- it isn’t quickly forgotten about.

 Problem 1 and three solutions

We have to commit time to marking. Students work hard and deserve their work to be given due attention. There is a finite ‘time cost’ to marking that can’t be saved.  However, it feels to me that the marking load of teachers is simply unsustainable if we don’t try to streamline the process and there are ways we we can save time in the process of writing feedback itself. Here are three ideas which I find help me to do this.

Taxonomy of errors

Taxonomy2Often, when giving feedback, we tend to see the same misconceptions. If we write the same comment, plus some way for the student to improve, then we are being woefully inefficient. One approach is to create a document with all of the errors and targets. Label students’ work with T1 when a new target is generated then type this and some guidance on the sheet. When the same target comes up, write T1 again and when a new one appears write T2 etc. You end up with a target sheet such as this example of common errors in descriptive writing for use with a class. Initially, this might take longer than traditional marking but once you have created advice for, say, improving homophones, you can use it again and again.

This approach comes from Keven Bartle, whose post here explains how you could work with a  taxonomy of errors. Andy Sammons has a couple of blog posts on the subject too: DIY LEARNING: Taxonomy of Errors and Using Taxonomy of Errors for feeding forward.

Mailmerge

This is a highly efficient way of creating individual feedback for each student. It saves time on marking and you end up with an individual feedback sheet for each student.

Mail merge step by step

MM1

mm2

mm31)      Record your targets in the spreadsheet.

2)      Create a template in Word.

3)      Use the mailmerge wizard>choose ‘letters’.

4)      Click Next>’use current document’>Next.

5)      Choose ‘Browse’ to find your spreadsheet.

6)      Then click OK a lot!

7)      Insert the fields you want on each target sheet.

8)      Then click through ‘Next’ until you create your target sheets.  You can choose ‘edit individual letters’ to then adapt them and insert tasks etc.

You can read more about using mail merge in this post.

Pre-plan feedback

There is never a time when teachers are not busy. We do know in advance when certain assessments will take place and where we will be giving more detailed feedback. As we plan schemes of work or design a curriculum, we can also design things that will help us with our feedback. These can include some of the feedback activities mentioned above but there are other possibilities.

Kraken 2In the example below, I have created a model paragraph with a drop down menu. This was used during the process of essay writing. Rather than giving the feedback only at the end of the essay, this was much more formative. Bearing in mind that targets are often quite predictable in some aspects of student work, the feedback was quite simple. Obviously I needed to add some other targets and very specific feedback for others. My intervention was helpful and definitely created better essays.

Problem 2 and three solutions

Even when we give high quality feedback, we need to remember that it needs to be received by students and sometimes we can create conditions in which students don’t really think about the feedback in the way we want them too. It is important that we do everything we can to make sure students don’t have negative responses to our feedback. I often think the analogy of how teachers feel after lesson observations is a useful way of thinking about student feedback.

Gaps not chasms

“The purpose of feedback is to reduce the gap between current and desired states of knowing” [BUT] “…we are motivated by perceivable and closable knowledge gaps but turned off by knowledge chasms.” Hattie, Yates. It is a difficult balancing act but if we pitch our feedback wrongly then it will not have the desired effect.

Delay the sharing of grades

We want to ensure students concentrate on the feedback. Giving students grades at the same time will almost certainly ensure they concentrate on the grades. If they score highly, they ignore the feedback because they have done well. If they have not, they ignore the feedback for the opposite reason. Then they compare with the other students in the room. Best is to delay grades.

Be careful what you praise

Generic praise like ‘well done’ is meaningless unless rooted in exactly what has gone well. If we consider a Growth Mindset approach, praising effort is effective and praising talent is not. Even this is problematic as students may well work hard but make no progress so we even need to be careful about the kind of effort we praise. Praise can have all sorts of unintended consequences and we need to consider what they might be.

Dylan Wiliam summarises these ideas here:

(In what continues to be my most read post, I suggested a range of complex and convoluted ways that students can interact with feedback including things like ‘coded feedback’ where you write everything in code and students have to translate. Please forgive me.)

Problem 3 and three solutions

When feedback takes so long to give, we are daft if students only spend a small time on it. We need to stick with things until the student really has acted on their feedback and there is sustained improvement as a result. My old head of department used to refer to ‘pat on the head’ responses such as: “Yes miss. I will do this next time.” But they don’t- and next time they make the same mistakes. Alex Quigley has just written this cracking post on this subject which is well worth a read.

Feedback on feedback

HomophonesIf a student has completed a task in response to feedback, check it. If any misconceptions are not cleared up, they need to be addressed. Also, you can refine the quality of your feedback by looking at responses. In this instance, the student has followed my instructions in a different way than I expected. If I didn’t check this then I may think the student can use these homophones correctly because I gave them the task. If we don’t evaluate the quality and impact of our own feedback, then the time we spend is wasted.

Follow on feedback

Once I have checked pupil responses to feedback, I can give them a further activity at a suitable interval to think deeply about it. Those who made no improvement get a similar target with a dramatically different task. Those who are nearly there will be able to consolidate further and those who did well will be given a ‘next steps’ activity. Not only is this ensuring that the feedback sticks, but I already know what the students need to be working on and it takes me much less time.

Feedforward feedback

Because it is crucial students master their targets, we should come back to them again and again until they stick. They should ‘feed forward’ into the next piece of work. Targets given for improvement should not be one hit wonders. If we don’t do this then what was the point of our feedback? Learning is messy and isn’t just fixed with one simple comment.

So, if we can save time writing comments, focus on the conditions under which feedback is received and stick with the feedback for longer, our feedback is going to be much more efficient. Then we can put our feet up and knock off at 3 o’clock…

 

 

Style over substance?

Mark Miller English Teaching

PollA poll immediately after the independence debate last night suggested Alex Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland was a clear winner. A Guardian article today explains that “Salmond’s win over Darling was one of style over substance.” Just like the phrase ‘empty rhetoric’, ‘style over substance’ dismisses the sophisticated role that rhetoric can play. In my opinion, the arguments from both Salmond and Alastair Darling were broadly on par- so how did Salmond ‘win’ the debate, if not the argument?

It’s always interesting to look at real examples of rhetoric and I have written before about how the best way to look at any type of persuasive writing is not to feature spot but to identify the argument and then see how language supports that. Salmond’s victory comes from the way that his language is used to support his message- Scotland should be independent from the UK and I should be trusted to take you there. Darling does strike some blows but not enough. (Before I get stuck in I must point out that this is neither a YES or NO blog but a look at some of the language used in the debate. I wouldn’t try to read more into it than that.)

Who am I?

The referendum is about a country but for this debate and for much of the campaign it has been about two men: Alex Salmond and Alastair Darling, leader of the ‘Better Together’ campaign. Very quickly in the debate, Salmond seems to seek to establish himself as a man of the people. When commenting on currency, he uses the Scottish-ism “We pay our messages”, emphasising his Scottish credentials. He later begins to describe debts as “enormous”, before switching to the less formal “ginormous”. This does again reinforce his ‘Hey- I’m just like you’ schtick. Alastair Darling, who is not blessed with a Scottish brogue does, rather uncomfortably, say “haud on” later. In trying to evidence his own Scottish credentials, he does the opposite.

Salmond uses the old ‘walk in front of the podium’ technique a little later on.

Once again, the message being I’m one of you. It felt a bit cringeworthy to me but it shows that Salmond is crafting everything about his speech. The barrier between him and Alastair Darling is further emphasised when Darling has to lean forward to be seen by the camera. Salmond adopts a relaxed posture when listening as Darling jabs a finger at him. In all of these exchanges, Salmond is isolating Darling, categorising him as the outsider- the overbearing yet distant authority figure who represents the UK Government.

PointOf course, we all hope the debate is more than just “I’m like you so vote for me.” After all, Darling does say “this isn’t about me or him”. (Although he did say before that “If I lose and he wins…” so maybe it is!)

Who are we?

So often, persuasion comes down to ‘we’. Who are ‘we’ and how can I make sure that you and I are part of this ‘we’ together? In this debate it is very interesting as both Salmond and Darling are careful to make the ‘we’ of this debate mean Scotland. However, Darling means Scotland with the rest of the UK and Salmond means without. So how does their language reflect this? Well, this is where I think Darling is quite effective. Darling manages to structure many of his arguments so that the solution can be seen by widening things out to the whole of the UK. He uses the phrase “UK-wide” more than once and later says: “Not just from Scotland but from all over the country”. He makes problems in Scotland easily solved when you take into account the whole of the British population. This ‘expanding’ of the debate also works when he is talking about Trident, the nuclear weapons development. When Salmond talks about solving a problem in Faslane, perhaps to emphasise the familiarity with a local issue (as he also does with the Ferguson Shipbuilders), Darling makes this a problem for the whole “West of Scotland”. “We cannot afford to lose £8000 jobs” he goes on to say, expanding it even further from a region to a whole country. The core message of “Better Together” informs the argument and the way it is structured. In doing this, he also makes the ‘we’ both Scotland and the UK.

Salmond repeatedly uses the phrase “The sovereign will of the Scottish people”. Darling criticised Salmond’s “smart lines” at the opening of the debate but it is a very simple way of laying the foundations of the argument that ‘we’ should have full jurisdiction on our own affairs. Salmond definitely has more of the lines but a simple line can be incredibly powerful and linger longer than a well structured argument. Salmond even speaks in hashtags at the end: “#teamscotland”.

Who are they?

Salmond has to tread a fine line between independence as a positive thing and as a divisive thing. He needs to use language to identify the UK as other but needs to avoid the negative tone too much as this will likely deter undecided voters. The Better Together- NO- campaign can then be left to be the negative party.

One way that Salmond does this is by referring to Trident as “weapons of mass destruction”. Here he is strongly arguing against nuclear weapons of course but the phrase has a wealth of connotations, and is especially prudent for Darling, who was a member of that Labour regime. In another heavily loaded phrase, Salmond in his closing speech claims that we should “rise and be a nation again”. Once again, this phrase, taken from Flower of Scotland, helps to build a warm sense of patriotism but let’s not forget that the verse concludes “That stood against him/Proud Edward’s army/And sent him homeward/Tae think again.” Far from being simply “smart lines”, these are words as full of meaning and are weapons of destruction themselves.

Salmond always refers to the UK government as “Westminster”. If Darling wants to emphasise that we should be included in the union for our own good, Salmond wants to emphasise that the UK government is isolated and distant from Scotland, even going so far as to say “Westminster is indicted”. Metonymy, personification: Salmond uses metaphor quite effectively here, although he does stray into cliche at other points. (“one trick pony”)

Knowing this approach from Salmond, Darling has to distance himself from the UK Government and he does by saying “I don’t agree with the present government’s policy” and that the bedroom tax is not good. However, by doing this he actually just reinforces Salmond’s point that “Westminster” makes decisions we don’t agree with!

 

I would be saddened if voters made their mind up on the big issues based solely on how a speaker performed on a debate, and I am not sure if anyone in the ‘no’ campaign will switch sides based on some stylistic flourishes. However, it is a dangerous game to dismiss rhetoric as merely style over substance. Elections should be won on substance, but they are often won on style.

 

An English teacher’s library

Mark Miller English Teaching

There are so many educational books out there that it can be difficult to know where to start. For anyone looking for books to read to improve their teaching, I would suggest they start from their own subject. The following list serves as both a reflection on books that have improved my teaching of English and a recommended reading list for English teachers. My friend and colleague @srcav has undertaken the same task for Maths teachers and you can read his list here.

YouTalkingYou Talking to Me by Sam Leith

All English teachers should read this. It’s an entertaining and constantly enlightening book on rhetoric and so many of my best lessons this year have been inspired by it. The book is particularly useful in helping to teach sophisticated writing techniques. While we may never use (or even understand) hyperbaton or tmesis, it still serves as a handbook to improve students writing. Not only this, but it will help teachers move students away from the awful technique spotting that litters essays on persuasive writing.

Rhetoric is language at play; language plus. It is what persuades and cajoles, inspires and bamboozles, thrills and misdirects. It causes criminals to be convicted and then frees those criminals on appeal. It causes governments to rise and fall, best men to be ever after shunned by their friends’ brides and perfectly sensible adults to march with steady purpose towards machine guns.

ShakespeareSpringboard Shakespeare series by Ben Crystal

There is a world of difference between knowing a play and knowing how to teach Shakespeare to a class of students who often arrive with negative attitudes towards him. I could have selected Shakespeare on Toast from the same author but I found his Springboard Shakespeare series incredibly useful in offering new insights into old favourites. Designed for a theatre audience who may not know the play, the books get to the heart of what makes them special: the context, the problems, the discussion points. Often, Crystal points out details that illuminate a scene and this can then be used in the classroom. I have used the Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and there are others on King Lear and Hamlet. There is one simple idea from his books which has really stuck with me:

When looking at Shakespeare’s writing it makes sense to think of a play as being full of speeches to be spoken out loud, rather than text to be read: we speak in thoughts; we write in sentences.

There are more extensive books on Shakespeare worth studying of course, but this is a great one for teachers.

10Things10 Things Every Writer Needs to Know by Jeff Anderson

I have chosen this book in particular because of Anderson’s explanation of how to use mentor texts and the influence this had on my own teaching of writing. His approach of ‘read>analyse>emulate’ is simple but effective. This is just one of the sections of the book which can improve practice. There are many more chapters full of wisdom and it is one of those books that is often worth dipping in to for inspiration.

Models are our teachers. Using the scientific method of writing from models we can do just about anything. The trick is to zero in on what works in a piece of writing and to find what we can use in our own compositions. When we stumble across writing that strikes us, we pause, reading it slowly and closely, analysing and soaking in what strong writers do.

WordsBringing Words to Life by Isobel Beck, Margaret McKeown and Linda Kucan

Beck, McKeown and Kucan build a strong argument for why we need to teach vocabulary and explore how we should do this. The follow up, ‘Creating Robust Vocabulary’, is also a must read. The most important idea in this book is that without a clear and structured approach, students with poor vocabularies will find themselves further and further behind and that simply providing a thesaurus or word banks is not enough. I would also recommend Teaching Word Meanings by Steven Stahl on this topic.

The problem is that many students in need of vocabulary do not engage in wide reading, especially of the kind of books that contain unfamiliar vocabulary, and these students are less able to derive meaningful information from the context.

TeachNowTeach Now: English by Alex Quigley

This is a book I wish had been around when I first started teaching. Granted, I wasn’t really reading educational books back then, but you get the point. While Alex’s book deals with more than just subject pedagogy, the sections on teaching English are the ones which resonate. His section on ‘Using language to explain, question and feed back’ is particularly strong.

We should remember that the essential elements of great teaching do not require flashy technology, glossy labels or teaching packs- just skilled, well-practised pedagogy.

In limiting myself to 5 choices, I have omitted some great books. Feel free to suggest your own in the comments.

The books that fall through the cracks

Mark Miller Feedback , ,

For a long time, I have said ‘look at my books’ as the clearest indicator of what goes on in my classroom. They provide a clear narrative of the lessons, the effort, the feedback.

And yet we have had a work scrutiny with a random sample this week and I have found myself hoping that certain pupils’ names are chosen. The ones who read and act on the feedback, the ones who attend regularly, the ones who underline the title! And there are a small number of books I don’t want anyone to see- the books that fell through the cracks.

Part of me wants to criticise the work scrutiny process but I think it’s better to question why I have any books that I don’t want to be ‘scrutinised’. So I’ve chosen a sample of two books from one of my classes for a closer look. The first is the book I’d most like to show off and the second is the one I hope is never looked at.

Book 1 (The one I want them to look at)

Sheet 1This student engages in feedback. Every single time that I have provided feedback they have addressed it. There is regular ‘dialogue’ with me. Comments like ‘Thanks Sir’ and ‘I’ll make sure that I do that in the next draft’ show this. I often provide feedbactivities– tasks to support their targets- and these are always approached with determination to improve.

 

TicksThis student also ticks every error to show me that she has read it. It’s an interesting habit and one it is worth trying to instill in others.

It isn’t perfect because there are still misconceptions. They could use a ruler more regularly and they appear to have used the last page of the book to practise their signature.

All in all, this book shows off the impact that good feedback has when it acted upon. The student is making progress- evident in the book and the data. If you judged me on this book, you would have to say the quality of my marking is high and the student is making excellent progress. Match it to the data and it would corroborate that.

Book 2 (The book I don’t want anyone to look at)

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the next book.

It is a book that starts on the 11th of March. It’s a replacement for the first one which was lost. (I didn’t lose it, although students’ books do go walkies sometimes). All that evidence of progress and all that feedback is missing. Yes, I have a markbook with data recorded and all of the previous targets but there is no evidence of it in the book.

Worryingly, there’s not much from me in the book- at least not in pen. They have missed the key assessments and so some pieces of work are acknowledged but not given particularly developmental feedback. There are two feedback sheets. They at least provide evidence that I’ve done something. However, looking at the sheets tells another story- the feedback didn’t really count.

First of all, they are not really engaging with the feedback at all. In the second image, the minimum is completed before scribbling all over the page.

Sheet 2Sheet 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The attendance of the second student is not high and they have missed a number of lessons for a number of reasons. A couple of feedback sheets have not been glued in so must have fallen out of the book. I’m not suggesting we should make excuses like this and avoid trying to address the issues but it does provide context.

If you judge me on this book, you could argue that this is not good enough. Is that fair? I don’t think it would be fair to say this was indicative of the average student in the class. Looking through the pile of books from the class, most are close to the first one but there are quite a number of instances where the feedback is not really engaged with, there are a few feedback sheets not stuck in, there are the times when people were absent. If you look at every single book you will see a consistency and lots of evidence of good practice. It would be fair to say that this student is not visibly making good enough progress, that they are not engaging with the feedback and that I don’t seem to have addressed this well enough.

Implications

I put a lot into my marking and if book two was chosen in a sample I’d end up having to defend myself and make all of the aforementioned excuses.  It’s hard not to feel a little defensive. (Perhaps it’s that word ‘scrutiny’) Whereas, in writing this blog, I’m asking myself why I have not picked up on this sooner. Why has it taken me nearly three months to pick up on a student who has not properly engaged in feedback in that time?

An idea for a developmental way of looking at exercise books would be to do as I have above. Select the best and ‘worst’ books from a class. Reflect on what the books show and how the issues can be addressed. This could be done as a something more formal, as part of staff or departmental training or just as an individual. Some may say that it doesn’t show the true picture- nobody is going to pick the worst book. I think it all depends on how it is framed. If people are working in a culture where they feel their development is valued and this is not simply a judgemental approach, I think they’ll embrace it fully.

Work scrutinies are important for a number of reasons and they can provide much useful information. If conducted well, they can be very helpful in developing practice but we’ll get much more out of it if we take a good look at our own books and start with the dog-eared, graffiti-covered, why-have-they-only-used-the-right-hand-pages books that have fallen through the cracks.

Further reading:

In this similarly reflective post, I looked at the impact of my feedback.

Persuasive techniques: studying not spotting

Mark Miller English Teaching ,

Persuasive writing is often broken down into lists of techniques. These lists can be memorised quite quickly without a sense of their utility. This leads in some cases to students who use a wide range of persuasive techniques but a) they don’t really persuade and b) they give an air of falseness to writing. They can name the techniques but don’t have a sense of the real impact of them. These techniques do have a place however, certainly as a bridge to more complex aspects of rhetoric, but I think how they are taught has a massive influence over how they are then used.

To explore persuasive techniques, I think it’s much more interesting to look at them in context, exploring the nuances of different techniques. Students need to spend longer exploring each one, how they work differently in a range of contexts and how they only make sense as part of a design by the writer. Then, when they move to using them in their own writing, students are better prepared. To illustrate how we might do this, I’m going to look at Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech and place it alongside Malcolm X’s ‘The bullet or the ballot’ speech. Seeing the techniques used in different contexts should help students to understand the subtleties.

Tone before techniques

As Chris Curtis discusses in his legendary sexy sprouts blogs, tone is crucial, and students need to see that any techniques they may spot have everything to do with creating a tone and building an argument. On a simple level, we can read King’s speech as hopeful and optimistic and Malcolm X’s as threatening. However, there is much much more at play than these simple short cuts. (They will be referred to as MLK and MX henceforth)

Opening lines set the tone:

“I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.” MLK

“Mr. Moderator, Brother Lomax, brothers and sisters, friends and enemies: I just can’t believe everyone in here is a friend, and I don’t want to leave anybody out.” MX

MLK’s language is grand and sets this up as a momentous occasion. Depending on your interpretation, MX goes for either self-deprecating humour or sets up the tone of division that he wants to create.

From here, both speeches go on to highlight the awfulness of the situation: MLK speaks of “the dark and desolate valley of segregation” and MX talks about how “All of us have suffered here, in this country”.

At this point, the tones diverge. MLK is clear that the solution is “Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy” whereas with MX “it points toward either the ballot or the bullet”. If students can track this crucial distinction in tone they can first of all unpick how the language does the hard work. MLK: the situation is terrible, therefore we must have true freedom and democracy. MX: the situation is terrible, therefore we must have democracy- or revolution. MLK’s evangelical tone builds and builds, sermon-like towards rallying calls. MX, having presented the ‘bullet’ alternative, calls for Lyndon B. Johnson to take action. Despite the angry and threatening tone of the speech, MX’s tone shifts at the end and he proposes a sensible, peaceful set of actions. (MX is reported to have said: “If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King.”)

With a clear understanding of the shifting tone of each speech, any language analysis becomes much more straightforward and rooted in a clear purpose. Instead of generic ‘it is used for effect’, even simple responses will be specific about the intended effect.

Rhetorical question

For some reason, this is the technique students always remember and they always use it. Often badly. (“Do you want capital punishment?”) Exploring it in depth and looking at the technique in context shows just how effective it can be. In MLK: “There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” This question is used for one simple purpose: to set up the rest of the paragraph; to list all the conditions which must be met. MLK poses a question. He then answers it in depth.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: “For Whites Only.” We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Similarly, MX uses “So, where do we go from here?” to fulfil an almost identical purpose. It is used to structure the argument.

So, where do we go from here? First, we need some friends. We need some new allies. The entire civil-rights struggle needs a new interpretation, a broader interpretation. We need to look at this civil-rights thing from another angle — from the inside as well as from the outside…

The following section from MX shows how questions can be used to structure a paragraph. Note how the last question is only effective because of the examples which precede it.

How can you thank a man for giving you what’s already yours? How then can you thank him for giving you only part of what’s already yours? You haven’t even made progress, if what’s being given to you, you should have had already. That’s not progress. And I love my Brother Lomax, the way he pointed out we’re right back where we were in 1954. We’re not even as far up as we were in 1954. We’re behind where we were in 1954. There’s more segregation now than there was in 1954. There’s more racial animosity, more racial hatred, more racial violence today in 1964, than there was in 1954. Where is the progress?

For students, not only do they help to add these uses of rhetorical questions to their toolkits but they see that a rhetorical question is not something they add in somewhere to get more marks- it forms part of a structured, deliberate piece of writing. They can see that questions play different roles at different stages.

Repetition

Much like rhetorical questions, it is very easy to spot repetition and students do, but they can often say things like “it makes it stand out”. Once again, repetition is used for different purposes depending on the intention of the writer. I would recommend first of all that students are aware of a couple of specific types of repetition: anaphora (the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses) and epistrophe (the repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses or sentences).

Anaphora is a mainstay of both speeches. We have established that MX takes a confrontational tone at times and his frequent use of “I’m not here to…” reinforces this (In fact, MX begins many sentences throughout his speech with variations on “I’m not…”).

Although I’m still a Muslim, I’m not here tonight to discuss my religion. I’m not here to try and change your religion. I’m not here to argue or discuss anything that we differ about, because it’s time for us to submerge our differences and realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem, a common problem, a problem that will make you catch hell whether you’re a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Muslim, or a nationalist.

There’s an interesting point in the speech where this shifts from “I’m not” to “they’re not”:

And this time they’re not going like they went last year. They’re not going singing ”We Shall Overcome.” They’re not going with white friends. They’re not going with placards already painted for them. They’re not going with round-trip tickets. They’re going with one way tickets. And if they don’t want that non-nonviolent army going down there, tell them to bring the filibuster to a halt.

It’s a wonderful rhetorical flourish and prepares the listener for the alternative. Because once MX has presented this picture, his final paragraph (which uses anaphora also: “let him”) is directed not really at the present audience but at Lyndon B. Johnson: “Let him go in there and denounce the Southern branch of his party.” The use of anaphora has fully supported the tone that we commented on earlier and certainly supports the bullet or ballot argument. After all the ‘not’ (bullet), it feels conciliatory for MX to use the positive-sounding “let him”(ballot).

MLK uses “I have a dream today” as punctuation, an exclamation, a rallying cry. He begins sentences with “I have a dream” to contextualise his hopes for the future. MLK doesn’t spend too much time on the nitty gritty of how this will happen but in many ways he does not need to. The speech is designed to build towards a crescendo and it is the sense of occasion, of emotion which is most important here. The anaphora shifts from “I have a dream” to “let freedom ring” and, much like MX changed the anaphora to change the tone, so does MLK. Still an abstract idea, “let freedom ring” suggests action rather than merely wishful thinking. (Interestingly, King only decided to use “I have a dream” on the spur of the moment. It was something he had used many times before and was memorised- he knew the power it had.)

Working through lists of persuasive techniques, you can provide example after example from these pieces that shows how something is used.

Forget spotting a personal pronoun, explore how ‘we’ is used for opposite purposes in “With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood” and “We died on every battlefield the white man had”.

Don’t just find emotive language, contrast the proud patriotism of “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today,” with “Uncle Sam’s hands are dripping with blood, dripping with the blood of the black man in this country.”

Forget simply metaphor-spotting, what about how King goes from “flames of withering injustice” to “a great beacon of light and hope” and “joyous daybreak”? Then see how X moves from “catching hell” to “the most explosive year”.

I wouldn’t stop teaching these ‘A FOREST’ type lists. But like any aspect of English, we need to give time to explore things in depth for a fuller understanding.

Further reading:

Sam LeithYou Talking to Me? by Sam Leith is a wonderful book which has transformed my entire approach to teaching persuasive writing.

Joe Kirby’s blog on Reclaiming Rhetoric is a useful introduction to the subject.

x=y: A threshold concept in English

Mark Miller English Teaching , , , ,

In an article for the New York Times, Robert Sapolsky writes the following:

Symbols, metaphors, analogies, parables, synecdoche, figures of speech: we understand them. We understand that a captain wants more than just hands when he orders all of them on deck. We understand that Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” isn’t really about a cockroach. If we are of a certain theological ilk, we see bread and wine intertwined with body and blood. We grasp that the right piece of cloth can represent a nation and its values, and that setting fire to such a flag is a highly charged act. We can learn that a certain combination of sounds put together by Tchaikovsky represents Napoleon getting his butt kicked just outside Moscow. And that the name “Napoleon,” in this case, represents thousands and thousands of soldiers dying cold and hungry, far from home.

This idea is fundamental to English teaching. In the texts that we study, things represent other things. Sometimes we are ushered as readers towards them quite clearly and other times they are puzzles for us to solve or flights of fancy for us to follow. James Geary, in his fascinating book I is an Other, explains metaphor in a simple equation: x=y. This equation is simple shorthand but it captures this idea in our subject that something we can focus on (x) sheds light on or represents another aspect (y). I would consider this to be a threshold concept: a ‘big idea’ that when understood will have a powerful impact on how students succeed in English. Once they ‘get it’, they are unlikely to go back. However, it can be difficult to spot when this hidden code is at work.

Sometimes metaphors are pretty obvious. One such example  is from Norman MacCaig’s lovely poem Frogs:

[frogs] make stylish triangles/  with their ballet dancer’s*/  legs.

The image is simple and works. We appreciate the physical resemblance. x (frogs’ legs) = y (ballet dancers’ legs). Elsewhere in the poem, frogs are ‘parachutists’, ‘Italian tenors’, ‘Buddha’. I love this poem in its simplicity- frogs are a bit like all of these things. However, even this has much more complexity if we explore it.

frog vennWhile a student certainly won’t be wrong if they comment on the physical similarities, they need to consider more: what are the things we can say about ballet dancers’ legs that we can also say about frogs’ legs? But it is more than this: what are the things we can say about ballet dancers that we can also say about frogs? Or, even: what are the things we can say about ballet dancers that Norman MacCaig wants us to think about nature? If students can grasp these layers of meaning then they will move beyond a straightforward interpretation of the phrase and the poem. Because then the comparison isn’t about frogs’ legs being like ballet dancers’ legs, it’s really about nature being beautiful and complex and graceful and strong. It’s about the fact that MacCaig can see in a creature and in a moment the beauty of the world.

The MacCaig example is a poet with his cards on the table and yet there are still so many layers. Robert Frost describes these layers of meaning as ‘feats of association’.

All thought is a feat of association: having what’s in front of you bring up something in your mind that you almost didn’t know you knew. Putting this and that together. That click.

The ‘feats of association’ are often subtle; they don’t hit us over the head and announce themselves. The ‘click’ isn’t always instantaneous. As John Fuller says in Who is Ozymandias, “The suspicion is generally and often rightly held that poetry is ‘about’ something other than its ostensible subject, and that there is a reason for its concealment.” Speaking of Ozymandias, my year 10 class have been studying it this week and the biggest challenge has been grasping the concept that the poem is a metaphor and that it isn’t really about a statue, it is about what the statue represents. If we don’t approach the poem as this kind of metaphorical puzzle then it really is just about a statue. There are also so many aspects of the poem which might seem arbitrary (like the rhyme) or inconsequential (like the traveller) if we don’t think in terms of  allusion and metaphor.

blackboardSo here’s where x=y comes in handy again. If students can balance the equation then they can solve it and unlock the poem. If they mention a technique for the x part then the equation needs to be balanced with the y of effect. If they comment on a theme in the poem (x) then they need to balance that with how that theme can be related to the wider world (y). This way of thinking makes them consider how anything they spot might have an intended effect rather than simply listing techniques. It also helps them to be disciplined when addressing the question, in our case about power and control. In the example in the image, we look at the effect of the alliteration. That could be explored even further, with all of those final ideas becoming a new x and wider points about power becoming a new y.

Of course, poetry is the place where we expect this trickery, but it is everywhere.  x is the dagger before Macbeth, x is Squealer in Animal Farm (x is everything in Animal Farm!), x is the shopping mall in Dawn of the Dead.

It’s a concept which can improve writing too. How often do students just write when what we want is for them to consciously craft writing? Even students who can analyse writing well don’t necessarily reverse engineer great writing themselves. By thinking about the y of their writing, then the x parts become rather straightforward. For example, if they want a particular tone in their writing then the vocabulary choices need to balance that equation.

This isn’t a neat mathematical equation and I would be loathe to reduce everything to this. Nonetheless, I think it’s an interesting way to approach a fundamental aspect of English.

*This apostrophe has bothered me.

Further reading:

Alex Quigley’s blog on Threshold Concepts is well worth a read.

GearyI is an Other is  a fascinating look at the role metaphor plays in our lives. His TED Talk on the same topic is here.

 

 

fullerWho is Ozymandias? is a book about the puzzles in poetry.

Shakespeare and the perception of incomprehensibility

Mark Miller English Teaching , ,

First FolioFor many students, Shakespeare feels beyond their capabilities and the language seems completely inaccessible. But Shakespeare’s language isn’t really the problem- the majority of words are pretty familiar. The problem is caused by the things that students have to cut through: cognitive overload and the perception of incomprehensibility. Once these are addressed, Shakespeare’s language becomes much more straightforward.

Reducing cognitive load

For me, the biggest problem with studying Shakespeare is the wealth of knowledge students need to make sense of everything. Not simply vocabulary but the poetry, unfamiliar concepts, classical allusions, strange pronunciation, jokes which we can’t understand, topical references etc. Many things need to be known in order for a student to fully understand a scene and we can’t just point them all out as we read. Students need to be able to focus on the text without having to juggle a million new concepts. If they have too much to take on, they don’t understand the text and all those old prejudices rear their head.

I would therefore always start by watching the play. In an ideal world this would be in the theatre but most likely it’ll mean a film version. In starting with the complete play, students have the overview of plot, characters, themes etc. This means that the language is more accessible because they can contextualise it. There’s an argument that this spoils the reading of the text. However, surely the knowledge that Romeo and Juliet are doomed is crucial to our understanding of everything that happens before. And let’s face it, Shakespeare tells us that anyway in the prologue!

We should also endeavour to pre-teach some concepts which will unlock key sections of the text. Suppose we were studying The Merchant of Venice. Bassanio describes Portia:

Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued
To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia:
Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth,
For the four winds blow in from every coast
Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece;
Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos’ strand,
And many Jasons come in quest of her.

Students who had previously been introduced to the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece would be able to spot the connection. Reading this extract without that knowledge would completely change the meaning of ‘golden fleece’ and ‘Jasons’. Having to stop here and explain that story takes the students out of the language long enough for them to become disconnected. Shakespeare needs to economically introduce Portia’s status as ‘prize’, establish Belmont as a special, almost mythical place and lead in to the sub-plot of the casket quest. An allusion to the Greek myth does that job beautifully but we miss it all if we don’t fully understand that myth.

This ‘pre-teaching’ can be integrated into the curriculum. For example, in year 7, our students spend time studying Theseus and The Minotaur in one scheme and then read A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which begins with Egeus taking his daughter to Theseus. Instantly, students understand the great authority Theseus wields because they can make the connection. These two examples just happen to be on Greek mythology but there are obviously other examples.

The curriculum needs to be carefully designed to offer these opportunities to prepare for Shakespeare. A poetry scheme of work could easily include Anne Hathaway by Carol Ann Duffy. A scheme on Blood Brothers could contain lessons on fate and tragedy. Rhetoric could be studied in Animal Farm before reading the trial scene in The Merchant of Venice. Vocabulary homework from the previous term could be designed around difficult words to be encountered in the play. Anything you can do to reduce the amount of new information is worthwhile.

The perception of incomprehensibility

Sometimes the biggest barrier is simply the perception that Shakespeare’s language is impossibly difficult so we have to address that. It is helpful to start with something which suggests the simplicity of Shakespeare’s language. Sonnet 130 is a great introduction, as it combines simple ideas and allows students that moment where they ‘get it’. From there, we can unpick other features of the poem without any fear of the language.

Another ‘way in’ to Shakespeare’s language is to choose a part of the play where the audience is being directly addressed, a soliloquy or chorus (more often a character serving the function of the chorus). While Shakespeare is an amazing wordsmith, we can’t forget that he is writing for the stage. Every line is there to convey something to the audience. Ben Crystal, in ‘Shakespeare on Toast’, writes: “People write in sentences, they speak in thoughts.” If students can unlock each thought then they can make sense of complex language and ideas. Take this from Act 5 Scene 5 of Macbeth, following Lady Macbeth’s death:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

In this soliloquy we get a glimpse into Macbeth’s mind. Each of his thoughts (colour coded) is relatively simple. Looking at the soliloquy like this does cut through that perception of complexity that puts students off. Then each ‘thought’ can be explored, the language analysed and the structure becomes clearer e.g. the layering of metaphors jumps out.

Sometimes there is a temptation to change the words but we should expect all students to study Shakespeare’s language. If you change Shakespeare’s language then you distort the meaning, you lose the rhythm, you lose the rich imagery and characters lose their ‘voice’. For me, it is the one non-negotiable aspect of studying Shakespeare. If you change the language then why study Shakespeare at all?

Shakespeare’s language isn’t always easy to unlock but hopefully these things help to cut through any distractions. I definitely feel that I’m still learning when it comes to teaching Shakespeare but I know that my students’ attitudes towards Shakespeare are changing. There is a real sense of achievement to succeeding in something difficult which was previously thought of in very negative terms. I also feel that the enjoyment of understanding a complex text is much better than simplifying things to make it more ‘fun’.

Further reading:

ToastShakespeare on Toast by Ben Crystal is useful and insightful. His Springboard Shakespeares  are short and packed full of ideas to support teaching.

Here is everything Chris Curtis has written on Shakespeare.

 

 

Writing endings

Mark Miller English Teaching , , ,

Students struggle with endings for a number of reasons. For many, it’s that they run out of time, and write things like ‘NOT FINISHED! SORRY SIR!’, others have no idea how to end something and a fair few have no plan whatsoever so an ending is a happy accident if it occurs. I find that some of the best writing from students can be ruined-or the impact lessened- if the ending is poor or nonexistent so in this post I’m looking at strategies to make endings much more satisfying. The ideas can be thought of in two ways: 1) strategies to allow for sophisticated, controlled endings and 2) quick wins for students struggling with endings. I’m focusing on fiction here, although it will hopefully be useful for other types of writing.

Start with the end…

Before starting to write, students should at least think about the end. Even better, they should write it. That way, everything builds towards that. Not every novel builds to a satisfying sentence or paragraph but for me the ones which do linger longer in the memory. In some cases, such as Stoner by John Williams, the ending can even elevate the whole text.

One simple way for students to think of story planning is in terms of conflict and resolution. If students have a clear idea of the resolution then they are essentially building their story towards this. This won’t always help them with specific ways to end writing but it will ensure that there is an end! I’d always recommend simplicity in narrative writing: one main story(conflict), a couple of characters, one setting and a small period of time in which everything occurs. This will help students to have focused endings too.

…end with the start

Look at how Charles Dickens does this in A Tale of Two Cities:

Opening: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

Ending: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

It is satisfying the way that the language of the ending echoes the language of the opening. There is a link with the development of best into better. Also, the balance of the sentences is repeated and anaphora is used in both. And because the last line is describing his death in positive terms, it is the best and worse of times! To what extent these connections are always noticeable in a novel, I don’t know, but it would be very clear in a short story written by a student.

For students who are the master of their craft, this is a lovely way to structure writing. It can be designed right from the start. For students who are struggling, it’s a simple way to round off their work. If they struggle with an ending you can just say ‘link it to your opening’.

Another interesting way to end might be to use the title in the ending. This can even be reverse engineered by students struggling at the end who can use something from their ending as the title, offering that satisfying resolution and a sense of control.

Simply repeating the opening sentence would work or repeating a variation of the opening sentence e.g. asking a question in the opening that is answered in the ending.

Students can illustrate some sort of change from opening to ending. For example, if they started by describing the rain pelting against windows then they can end with the sun appearing from behind the clouds.

Techniques

I don’t think this only applies to endings, but deliberately using some complex rhetorical techniques gives a satisfying, structured ending which feels controlled. I have spent whole lessons on antithesis (the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases or sentences), anaphora (the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses) and epistrophe (the repetition of a word at the end of successive clauses or sentences).

For example, after studying  epistrophe, one of my students wrote this, although they eventually reworked it as an opening:

I’d asked my mum, almost my whole childhood,”Where’s daddy gone?” and everytime, my mum would say the same things: “He’s gone away but he’s not coming back”; “He loves you but he’s not coming back.”; “He’s a bad man, and he’s not coming back.” But that was before it all started. That fateful day, when he came back.

I like the way that the epistrophe highlights the phrase ‘he’s not coming back’ before the twist at the end. This ending from another student ties together all sorts of ideas and feels deeply satisfying:

As the snow began to fall into the trenches, it became unbearable. As the rain began to plummet into the trenches, it became hate. As the sun began to shine into the trenches it became heaven.

End on a thought

The end of a piece of writing can be conceived as a final thought which can be described in a word and then expanded into a sentence. If you can get students to encapsulate the ideas of their writing in one sentence then that can become the ending sentence of their writing. Look at the end of Frankenstein:

He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.

The one sentence fully encapsulates the bleakness of that story. It is hugely satisfying for the reader too. It’s exactly the sort of sentence that students can read, play around with, construct their own. They could rewrite it, changing the tone:

He was soon whisked away by the waves and lost in shouts of joy.

It was soon hidden away by time and lost in memory and imagination.

Share and discuss examples

I use mentor mats which start with a complete mentor text and then include example openings and endings. Like anything, the more high quality examples students see, the better they will become. For instance, here is an interesting document with one list of the  ‘100 best last lines from novels‘. I’m not sure all of them work out of context, mind you, but they are useful for discussion. It doesn’t take much extra effort to draw attention to the endings of texts studied in class either. Of Mice and Men is great to discuss, ending as it does with, “Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin’ them two guys?” which is often met with ‘eh?’ in my classroom! I’d even recommend looking at the last stanzas and lines from poems to get a real sense of well-crafted endings where every word counts.

Impose length restrictions

Some students will write and write, often creating a whole novel if you let them. If you impose a limit then they have to plan things carefully and have time to craft consciously. Exam boards do this and in the WJEC English exam they have an hour to write two pieces so learning to be concise but effective is essential.

Hopefully, those ideas will help improve students’ endings – there’s nothing worse than

(SORRY NOT FINISHED!)

 

Mentor Mats

Mark Miller English Teaching

Since reading the work of Kelly Gallagher and Jeff Anderson, I have routinely used mentor texts to teach writing. As Anderson states in Mechanically Inclined, “A mentor text is any text that can teach a writer about any aspect of a writer’s craft, from sentence structure to quotation marks to show don’t tell.” (See my post on working with mentor texts here.)

To support the use of mentor texts, I am introducing ‘Mentor Mats’. Mentor Mats are A3, double sided alternatives to literacy mats and work as follows:

Side 1: A mentor text with 3 grammatical/structural/stylistic features highlighted.Mentor Mat 1

Side 2: Further examples of openings and endings. Mentor Mat 2

The mats offer a number of benefits:

They show examples of success. This is how we want students to write. I find it much easier to show this, than just to explain or offer checklists. Through exposure to high quality examples of writing, students will be better placed to produce examples of their own.

They show how to get started (and finished). Some students will mimic the structures of entire openings, stealing judiciously. Others will use the openings to just get a sense of the sort of thing you might write. In either case, I am confident this is going to have greater long-term impact than just telling them how to start. Hopefully, cries of ‘I don’t know how to start’ are a thing of the past!

They isolate important features. Seeing examples of language features in context helps students to see how they work and encourage them to use them.

They limit the amount of information. Literacy mats can sometimes bombard students with so much information that it is hard to know what to concentrate on. These mats focus on three main techniques, giving examples to illustrate.

They needn’t take a ridiculous amount of time to produce. My colleague spent some time creating the design but we have ensured that it is very simple to create a new mat from the template.

This is the pdf version of the first mentor mat: Travel Writing.

The text for the mats is taken from The Daily Telegraph Travel Writing Competition which you can find here:

(I was going to post the pdf of the mentor mat here but- and this pains me to write- I’ve just noticed a typo. A ‘particple’ isn’t a thing. It’ll be uploaded asap.)

As ever, feedback is welcome.

TouchPaper Problem #7

Mark Miller Teaching , , , , ,

Last week I was fortunate to attend the first TouchPaper Party. I was in group 7 and we had the following question to unpick:

TouchPaper Problem #7: What is the optimal number of times for a student to (a) read, (b) hear, or (c) say information aloud if they are to retain for 1, 3, & 6 month intervals?

After much discussion, we broke the problem in two. One group looked at what we need to do in the first place to ensure students learn new information and the other group – the one I was in- looked at how we can ensure it stays remembered.

A century of memory research tells us that students forget. Even when the teaching is good and we can say that students have learnt the material, unless we design opportunities for that information to be recalled, it is going to slowly disappear. For information to be retained at the specific intervals identified in the problem (and beyond) we need to revisit the content.

Our discussion led us to 3 main ideas: Spacing, Interleaving and Retrieval and I’ll look at each of them in turn.

Spacing

Carpenter et al (2012) explain that “… performance on final tests of learning is improved if multiple study sessions are separated—i.e., ‘spaced’ apart— in time rather than massed in immediate succession” and “Studying information across two or more sessions that are separated (i.e., spaced apart or distributed) in time often produces better learning than spending the same amount of time studying the material in a single session.”

This is all very well, but determining the optimal spacing period is difficult. In one study of 1350 individuals and their recall of facts, Cepeda et al (2008) came up with an optimal gap of 1 day for a test in 7 days, 11 days for a test in 35 days, 21 for 70 and 21 for 350 days. The optimal gap being longer depending on the test delay. The results were slightly different for tests of recognition e.g. supplying multiple choice answers. Also, the results would clearly be different if we revisited the content multiple times.

This does seem to go a little way to answering one element of our Touchpaper question and is a helpful reference point even though the optimal gap for a given set of information in a given time frame is very difficult to be precise about. There is simply no formula suggesting that x sessions at gaps of y% of the test interval is the best way to remember.

Interleaving

Suppose you have X, Y and Z to study. Typically, the study of these would be X, X, X, Y, Y, Y, Z, Z, Z. This is ‘blocking’ and is how our curriculum is traditionally laid out. Each topic is mastered before moving on. Interleaving the topics would tend to look like: X,Y, Z, X, Y, Z, X, Y, Z.

Richland, Bjork, Finley & Linn (2005) show us that interleaving is more effective in the long term than studying something in a block. Bjork calls this a ‘desirable difficulty’ because it would seem counter intuitive and is harder to get right. Indeed, students may perform less well in the short term but retain the information over the long term. Even after students have benefitted, they still often feel as if they have not.

Rohrer (2012) suggests that the greatest benefit is in terms of discrimination. For example, a maths teacher who interleaves methods will find that students are more able to choose the correct method for completing a given problem. There is some of the effect here attributed to the effects of ‘spacing’ material but the effect exists still after taking this into account.

Our TouchPaper problem is about learning one set of information but teaching involves students remembering many pieces of information. Spacing is an important concept but our curriculum isn’t often designed in such a way as to make spacing manageable. Interleaving helps us to space content (thus the effects of spacing) plus we also get these additional benefits of interleaving. We could expect to see the benefits of interleaving at the ‘6 months’ interval of the TouchPaper question and further into the future.

Retrieval

Revisiting content isn’t just as straightforward as rereading or restudy. One important finding from our research was that testing is a way of improving learning, not just measuring it. So when we are talking about spacing intervals, one thing we should be doing at these intervals is testing!

This seems to fly in the face of common sense. Ask students and teachers and they would likely agree that studying is better than testing. Students certainly have the perception that testing isn’t as good as study. Simply rereading the material can create a sense of familiarity which increases the perception that this is better and that material is learnt. For teachers, we talk about how weighing the pig does not make it fatter. It is thought of as the ending point, not the means.

However, there are benefits associated with testing, most notably in retrieval. Roediger & Karpicke (2006) write: “Although restudying the passages exposed students to the entire set of information, testing permitted practice of the skill required on future tests and hence enhanced performance after a delay. If students retain information in their long term memory, they need to be able to access it, and testing may help to develop the cues and ‘retrieval routes’ to stored information.”

They conclude: “Frequent testing leads students to space their study efforts, permits them and their instructors to assess their knowledge on an ongoing basis, and—most important for present purposes—serves as a powerful mnemonic aid for future retention.”

The original TouchPaper question addresses reading, seeing and saying but perhaps we could add in ‘retrieving’ to that list?

Having laid out these ideas, and having barely scratched the surface of the original question, I will propose some points which now need addressing:

    • Teachers are not always curriculum designers and designing a course to cater for optimal learning gaps is difficult.
    • Much of the research base referred to above is on small-scale lists of facts and does this necessarily apply to larger bodies of knowledge and the schemata that underpin our subjects?
    • Does interleaving work better for some subjects than others?
    • What form should an interim test take to maximise retrieval?
    • How do we decide on the optimal spacing gap?
    • A classroom context is different to a research context. Can these research findings be transferred into classroom practice?

On the day, we concluded with the following simple recommendations:

Distribute study of content across multiple sessions rather than a massed session.

Make spacing manageable by weaving numerous topics together throughout the year rather than blocking topics discretely.

Quiz pupils regularly on previous content as the most effective way of retaining it.

A final point. The conversations, discussions and even disagreements during the course of the TouchPaper party helped shape ideas better than any CPD I’ve been involved with. Presentations from other groups contained many insights that have inspired a lot of thinking this week. It felt great to be a part of this occasion and I look forward to reading more blogs and seeing how things develop.

Some useful reading:

Using Spacing to Enhance Diverse Forms of Learning

Spacing Effects in Learning

Why Interleaving Enhances Inductive Learning

Interleaving Helps Students Distinguish Among Similar Concepts

Active Retrieval Promotes Meaningful Learning

Taking Memory Tests Improves Long Term Retention