If you haven't figured it out yet... I am 100% on board with personalized learning. In fact, I am more than on board. I am an advocate (... if I do say so myself). 

Personalization for me is what education always should have been, but never figured out. Now that we have the tools to really make amazing things happen, I am ready for a massive shift in how kids learn. How about you?

As a teacher (and now as an instructional coach) I bet I can guess the first concerns that come to mind...

• Some kids don't do well with personalization.
• The current education model makes it near impossible.
• It's a lot of work.

Here are my thoughts to those...

Some kid don't do well with personalization.
This one kind of makes me laugh. Personalization, to me, means setting up content in the very best way for every student. How can they not do well if you are providing exactly what they need?
Sometimes this concern - that students fall behind or get overlooks in a personalized format - comes from a misunderstanding of personalization itself. Often time, the first glimpse we get into personalization is with pacing. Some assume that pacing is the core tenet of personalization, when really, that is just one aspect. For some students self-pacing is a nightmare - inducing stress and frustration. In fact, when I poll my students about personalized learning, they often wish there were MORE deadlines and structure. Every year, I have students that I quickly see canNOT self-pace. These are the kids I create a calendar for or with. Personalization is about the option to self pace.
Sometimes the best option is a more traditional format. (And it really kills a renegade like me).

The current education model makes it near impossible.
Correct. This is a purely true statement.
When I implemented standards based grading a few years ago, it meant working and reworking it into a model that I could enter in the gradebook. When everyone else is finalizing grades at the end of a quarter, I am the one reminding kids that quarterly grades mean nothing. Traditional education has it's claws into our platforms, practices, and attitudes, and frankly, it hasn't let up much.
That said, I am hugely encouraged by the national movement toward more personalized learning. Colleges have learned to decipher standards based grades and deemphasized standardized tests. State governments are re-writing standards to move toward a more student-focused learning experience. The national government is funding initiatives that promote voice and choice. (And before you say something like "Well that's in your state, Cwik..." I will remind you that I work in North Dakota. Check out the results from the last presidential election and then we'll talk about progressive states).
I guess my point is this: progress takes time but in my short 10 years as an educator, I've already seen a whirlwind of positive change! 
If you are nervous about attempting personalization in your classroom, I suggest you talk with your admin before hand. You might be surprised to see how on-board they are with the idea. (I would guess - if they are like mine - they just want to know that you are communicating the process each step of the way to students, parents, and other stakeholders).

It's a lot of work.
Yup. It is.
No sugar-coating here. Personalization is an incredibly daunting task for some. (Ok... for all). The thought of being able to cater material to 30 individual kids every hour is insane. BUT... first of all. personalization should never result in 30 versions of the same task, and secondly, the work is just a redistribution of the work you are already doing. 
I'll explain.
Setting up a personalized class is HARD. You have to have everything for the unit created and ready to go before the kids even touch the subject. For most, that seems like an incredibly huge task... because it is. I spend hours putting together units for my kids.
That said, I am not working into the wee hours of the morning putting together content. I go home at contract time most days (or, at least, I would if I didn't spend an extra thirty minutes talking to my friends).
Instead, I just use time a little differently. For instance, I DON'T spend much time outside of class providing feedback. Instead of sitting down with a stack of 30+ essays during my prep period, I am bouncing between students in class, reading their work right next to them. When a kid submits something, I sit down with them the next day and grade it right there, and explain my feedback. It's a) faster, b) more meaningful, and c) NOT SWALLOWING MY PREP PERIOD. Usually, my prep period is working on materials for the next unit. 
A personalized unit IS scary, but not impractical.

That said, I'm here to help. (Well, help AP Language and Composition teachers at least). If you don't know it already, I've created TWO yearlong curriculums for AP Language. (What?! You didn't know. Hurry up and steal all my stuff!). The first one was before the 2020 test changes. The second was suited to the new test, but didn't align to the College Board unit alignment. Can you guess where this is going?

I am reworking old content to create a College Board aligned, personalization-friendly version of the course! For each unit, I am creating vocabulary lists, resource documents, practice activities, and guides to help you try out different aspects of personalization in your classroom. 

Seriously. I am so passionate about personalization that I am willing to do all the work for you. THAT's how much faith I have in this method after trying it out one step at a time in my own classroom. 

Over the next few months, I'll be sharing activities and strategies for personalization. I also plan to post more "day in the life" style blogs where I walk through days in my class, in the hopes that it will help illustrate some of the things I talk about in the course design. 

But for now, let's get to the goods. Presenting... 
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This content is designed to complete Unit 1 on the College Board alignment.
Pick the unit apart if you just want some new activities or use it in full force! More importantly, keep coming back starting in August to see more posts about what it looks like in my class. 

As always, I appreciate and respect you all so much. Keep on doing the amazing things you do for kids in this country!

I feel the need to capture this exact moment - the end of the 2021 AP Lang Reading. I am logged off of ONE (our scoring tool) and my little chunk of essays is in the books. I never seem to remember how this feels in January when invitations go out, so here goes...

I am EXHAUSTED. 

In all reality, I did a small amount of scoring. Between nannying during the day and my inability to score very long via computer screen, I didn't make much of a dent. In the "normal times," I would have scored over 1000 essays, easily. Not so much this year (or last). But I did it - even when it felt seemingly impossible to score after a year like this one.

And I'm glad I did. I always am. (Even though, I always make the joke that some hormone exclusive to readers makes us forget how tough it is when we sign up for another year). What I value most about being a reader is that notes I take away each year: ideas, strengths, weaknesses. I keep a short list of thoughts I want to bring into a new school year. 

This year, as with last year, I am excited to share these notes with you in the hopes that you too can apply them to your own teaching. 
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1. A thesis is the difference between passing and failing.
I cannot express how important it is for the kids to include a direct, defensible thesis. As I read essays, I often found myself waiting for the thesis to come across. Often times, the essays had a defined line of reasoning with evidence carefully and even artfully integrated from the sources. However, they never came right out and said it. ("It" being their thesis).
The issue this creates is that without a thesis, they cannot score higher than a 2 on evidence and commentary. They top out at a 0-2-0. And it KILLS me every time when I can see signs of a strong writer who just overlooked that clear thesis statement. My guess - in these cases - is that they thought it was an implied thesis, when it wasn't successfully done. To be honest, implicit thesis statements are too risky.

What I Plan To Do About It:
I am going to encourage students to write a conclusion. As a time management strategy, I've made it a habit to tell them to skip the conclusion, but as I was reading, the unclear thesis sometimes came up in the conclusion. I can teach it as an "insurance plan," where a "backup" thesis in the conclusion might save them. My plan is to pair this with a reminder to re-read the prompt before writing the conclusion.

2. Do more with less.
I read a multitude of essays that were so long that I cannot imagine those students were able to complete the other two essays. Time management is such a difficult thing to teach, but so important on the exam. Recognizing this in my own practice, I am going to emphasize being concise to save time. 
I noticed a pattern in the essays where teachers were encouraging the standard 5 paragraph essay with one source in each body paragraph. I can see this as a very straightforward way to teach synthesis to kids, but three well-developed body paragraphs can be time consuming (and as I noticed, VERY repetitive). 

What I Plan To Do About It:
I am going to teach a four paragraph format (see below). This will achieve a few things: 1) Give students a functional outline and 2) Help them maximize their limited time. An added advantage to this model encourages them to find tension between sources - which is a great way to gain that sophistication point. 
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3. The sophistication point is NOT a unicorn.
This is probably the happiest take away I got from this reading. The sophistication point is not the mythical, unachievable thing we have all perceived in the past. From the pilot reading to last year's reading to this year's reading, I have seen the expectation for the sophistication point evolve in a way that is going to help students so much. 
It is not about perfection. It's about moments. Students earned the point by figuring out the broader context, by finding tension between the sources, and (occasionally) with a vivid, persuasive style. Very few students can write in a vivid style on demand, so I was happy to see a de-emphasis on this as we rewarded kids for having good ideas more. 

What I Plan To Do About It:
​I know we all preach the importance of prewriting, but I think good prewriting is a direct route to the sophistication point. If students invest time upfront they can start writing with some idea of the broader context in mind. 
In the past, I have had students practice this with the Memorials prompt from 2013. On the surface, it is a prompt about statues, but we practice talking about WHY people care about statues and memorials. 
I have been playing with the idea of "Compassionate Debates" where students have to imagine all different opinions that might surround an issue or topic. Then, they pair up and I assign them a stance. Not only is it good argumentation practice, but it also pushes them to think about alternate perspectives and consider an opinion that might not be their own. As I flesh out the idea a bit more, I'll definitely share it here!


So those are my notes. Now to go turn my brain off for a hot minute. 
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So technically, school has been out for two weeks, but this is the first moment where I have found myself in the proper headspace to reflect. Let me recap these two weeks...

May 27: Last day of school. 
May 28: Record keeping day. (Hungover. Obviously).
May 29: Slept 14 hours.
May 30: Graduation. At which one kid swore in his speech, another did a backflip, and one gem got up and peed on the field. (Graduation was on the football field).
May 31-Jun 7: A blur. I slept. I drank. I ate. I was an amorphous blob moving around my house.
June 8-10: Back to work, at a training for Marzano.

Today.

Usually I begin summer with an ambitious list of the things I want to accomplish and hit the ground running after graduation. After a year like this, however, I needed that "blob time." I can only imagine others felt the same.

But now, it's time to get back to work and let you all know what I have coming up. 

1. AP Reading Reactions: Again, I am reading AP Lang exams from home. (First time synthesis!) I will post my immediate reactions to the work as a reader, and as a teacher. I always appreciated this information as a young AP Lang teacher - to hear from the assessors what issues are being seen and what conversations are happening. Look forward to a post about this after the reading next week. 

2. Year of AP Lang REDESIGN: So I have created an entire year of AP content TWICE now. BUT I wouldn't be me if I didn't constantly upset the balance and change everything, so this summer I plan to redesign my Year of AP content (not replace, but add another set) that matches up with the College Board design and utilizes the personalized method I have been sharing about. 

3. Book Units: Next year, I won't be teaching my AP Literature class anymore. It is a bittersweet change as 1) I am so excited to be moving into a new position in which I am an instructional coach part time but 2) I was just kind of getting into my groove teaching literature again. Knowing that the course is being taken over by newbs, I am going to put together some units for them. While this is work for my Teacher Pay Teachers site, I'll be making a free version to post here as well.


So stay tuned! The goals are big, but this is my version of fun. (I know. It's sad and confusing. Ha ha). Be back soon with more.
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