The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
Education:How To
I'll never forget the "C" I got on my first English paper in college. I was walking across the quad in the warm eucalyptus-scented California air when I confidently pulled my paper from my bag to look at the comments. The day suddenly slid into grayscale as I saw my grade.
After a lifetime of "A" and "Great job" written at the bottom of every paper, fresh from winning the English award at my high school awards night, I was totally unprepared for the many, many scrawled notes about the problems in my paper.
I walked into class the next day in a daze, and listened to my professor as he went into a terrifying but effective rant. Apparently I wasn't the only freshmen to confidently turn in a paper that wasn't nearly complex enough.
His speech has stuck with me.
"Your rough draft," he said at one point. "Is a chair."
He scrawled an incredibly messy chair on the whiteboard for emphasis.
"And you have to take that chair," he sputtered. "And build a boat!"
We students glanced at each other, a little overwhelmed.
A boat?
Today I want to talk about the chair and the boat, and some of the process that happens in between. Because let's face it, most kids (high school me included) really struggle to understand the work that happens between ROUGH drafts and final drafts. And it's perhaps the most crucial part of the writing process.
The strategy we're going to dive into now, self-editing stations, can really help scaffold editing for your students, saving them from falling into the usual traps, allowing you to intervene on behalf of key writing improvements you're trying to help them make BEFORE they turn in their work, and ultimately, saving your commenting time for only the most important personalized suggestions.
Go Further:
Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast.
Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook.
Come hang out on Instagram.
Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the ‘gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!
177: Highly Recommended: Starfish
176: Reasons to Feel Hopeful about AI at School
175: Actionable ABAR Steps in ELA, with Liz Kleinrock
174: A New ELA Go-To? 15 Ways to use La Literatura de Cordel
173: Enjoy Teaching Rhetorical Analysis (with these Strategies)
172: Celebrating Black Authors, Artists, & Activists in ELA
171: 6 Wonderful Ways you can use Graphic Novels
170: How to Host a Graphic Novel Book Tasting
169: Turning Classics into Graphic Novels, with Gareth Hinds
168: Why I'm not Worried about the New AI Tools
167: Fight Erasure. Feature Contemporary Indigenous Voices in Class.
166: How to Add an Audiobook Listening Station to your ELA Classroom
165: Classroom Management Strategies you can Actually Enjoy
164: 5 Public Speaking Projects for Secondary ELA
163: Case Study: A Meaningful 21st Century Research Project
162: Active Teaching: 10 Out-of-their-Seats Activities
161: The Ultimate Guide to First Chapter Friday
160: The College Essay: What Students (and Teachers) Need to Know
159: 3 Creative Ways to Teach Varied Sentence Structure
158: How to Create a Successful International Classroom Partnership
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
LifeBlood
Navigating Life After 40
Science of Reading: The Podcast
How To!
The Minimal Mom