language arts Archives - David Rickert

Magnificent Works Cited Pages

November 5, 2019 By David Rickert 1 Comment

“We’ve never done a Works Cited Page before.”

I get this all the time from my students. Of course, it’s not true. I can check with the freshman English teacher next door, who can confirm that, yes, a Works Cited page is something they did indeed manage to fit in last year. And if not completely sure when students start to do Works Cited pages, but it’s a safe bet that they’ve been doing them for a few years at least.

Call me an optimist, but I think the reason they say they haven’t done one is that they actually may not remember doing one. We don’t ask them to do it all that often, and while it’s an important part of academic writing, it may not seem like part of the paper to them. Furthermore, it’s not something they do outside of class in their daily lives. There isn’t a Works Cited game for the XBox. No one is a successful YouTuber because all they talk about is Works Cited pages. It’s just not part of their everyday discourse.

However, it is important to do one, and more importantly to understand why one is important. Our students live in a sharing culture where it is difficult to know where ideas originated from, and who says it best is valued more than who says it first.

So here are some tips for teaching the Works Cited page.

Do the Works Cited page first

Most of us do the Works Cited page after the paper is completed. However, a good tip is to do it right after the students have found their sources and before they start writing their paper. This is advantageous for a couple of reasons:

It emphasizes the need for one and decreases the likelihood that students will hand in a paper without one.
It allows you to check their sources to make sure they actually exist and that the hyperlinks lead to sources that have credible information.
Works Cited pages are a pain to grade, and it’s a lot easier to grade them as a separate piece instead of part of the whole paper when you have to manage a whole lot more when grading.

This doesn’t mean that students can’t add more sources as they write their paper. It just means they have a head start on it. And if they do add sources, they are likely to add them correctly.

Be Forgiving of Mistakes

I did a year’s worth of graduate-level English classes a few years ago and did a fair number of Works Cited pages as a result. I never got one completely right and lost points as a result. This was eye-opening for me. The Works Cited page is all about following directions, and yet I could never nail it. Be forgiving of students who make minor errors. Some people aren’t very detail-oriented.

They Don’t Know It All

It’s important that students understand that kids aren’t considered experts in much, and that’s why they need to do research and find information from people that do know something. Make sure students understand what a Works Cited page is for. Not only does it indicate where you got your information, it also reinforces that you backed up your information with expert research.

No Works Cited?

I don’t accept papers without Works Cited pages. I don’t give them a zero, but I refuse to grade a paper that doesn’t have one. (Eventually, this would turn into a zero.) If you ask them to hand in their Works Cited page first, that will decrease the number of papers missing it.

A Handy Visual Guide

I created this handy visual guide to help students create a Works Cited page. We live in a visual culture, and this has helped students understand how a proper Works Cited Page is constructed without just handing them examples. I’ve covered all of the formatting mistakes that my students make. I’ve also included teaching tips and the visual guide as a poster you can print and hang in your room for a daily visual reference. And if you’d like one for the APA Reference Page, I have one for that too. You also might be interested in my other visual guides – head to my store to check them out.

I know you’re the kind of teacher that makes their classroom a fun, engaging learning environment. I have a series of lessons done as comics that address various ELA topics like grammar, poetry, editing, and Shakespeare, all of which will make your students glad they came to class that day. All the fun is there for you, and your kids will love studying any of these topics because they’ll get a new comic every day! Please check out my resources and let the learning begin!

Building Better Thesis Statements

November 4, 2019 By David Rickert Leave a Comment

A lot of students write their papers like this – they have a general idea of where they want to go, but no clear direction about how to get there. This is why a good thesis statement is important – it’s a road map for where your thoughts are headed as a reader. Not only does a good thesis statement give your reader direction, but it also clarifies your thoughts as a writer.

Imagine going on a car trip to somewhere far away from home. You have a general idea of where to go – let’s say you’re headed east, for instance. And with enough driving around you might find yourself there eventually. But you certainly wasted a lot of time by not knowing exactly where you were headed. And you certainly can’t tell anyone else the route you took just by wandering around.

And the tricky thing about thesis statements is they aren’t like multiplication tables that you can completely master. Students get better at thesis statements every year as their writing and thinking become more sophisticated. You won’t ever truly master a thesis statement because, like writing, it’s a lifelong process that you can continue to perfect.

So how do we get good thesis statements from our students?

First off, students need to know the four things that thesis statements do.

A thesis statement tells what the essay will be about.
A thesis statement is one declarative sentence. It cannot be a question.
A thesis statement must present a specific position on an argument with more than one side.
A thesis statement’s argument matches the content of the rest of the paper.

A good way to help students understand the function of a good thesis statement is to show them examples of some that don’t work. Let’s say a student wants to write a paper on homelessness. Here’s their first thesis:

What are some reasons why homelessness exists?

This isn’t a sentence; it’s a question. It also doesn’t present a position. This will end up being an informative essay, not a persuasive one. This one isn’t much better:

What are some reasons why homelessness exists? In this essay I will tell you three reasons why.

The thesis isn’t a question, and we do have an explanation of what the paper will do, but this will still be an informative essay, and it also isn’t specific. So here’s the next attempt:

Homelessness is a serious problem in many cities.

On the surface, this seems like a position. But is anyone actually for homelessness? Therefore, this isn’t a thesis that has more than one side. Last try:

The best way to solve the problem of homelessness is through programs like rapid rehousing.

Now the student has an arguable claim, and a specific one at that. Others may disagree that this is the best way to end homelessness; there are other solutions that approach the problem differently.

A Thesis Statement Activity

One way to introduce the concept of thesis statements is to pick a simple topic that students will have no problem supporting with evidence without doing any research. My go-to question is: what is the best place to get ice cream around here? Frequently students will just start naming places without giving evidence. At this point, I ask them to support what they say with facts. Not “Graeter’s is better than Dairy Queen because it tastes better” which is an opinion. I’m looking for things like “you can walk to Graeter’s” or “Dairy Queen is less expensive” (sometimes we get into another topic altogether, such as whether or not Whit’s Frozen Custard counts as ice cream.)

One they’ve gathered facts that support their opinion, they can write a thesis statement. They’ll come up with something like this:

Graeter’s is the best place to get ice cream because of the number of flavors, the location, and the reasonable price.

This is a great opportunity to teach students the importance of parallel structure. Notice that we have parallel structure in the thesis above: the list of three reasons all follow the same pattern. But students are likely to do something like this:

Graeter’s is the best place to get ice cream because of the number of flavors, it is easy to get to, and you don’t spend a lot of money there.

(Want a great comic lessons on parallel structure? Check out my Parallel Structure Comic.)

Many teachers in the upper grades may not be fond of the thesis format above because it is obviously a five-paragraph essay. However, for the lower grades and struggling writers the five-paragraph essay is an effective way for emerging writers to understand how composition is structured.

Be Their Coach

If you’re like me, you have a decent number of papers under your belt and probably got pretty good at writing thesis statements even if you haven’t written one recently. I have no problems helping my students craft their thesis statements for clarity and accuracy. I want them to be able to do it on their own, but this is an area where students benefit from watching you do some “smithing” (as a former teacher called it.)

I like to call them up to my podium (and you absolutely need one of these) and show them my thought process for getting a thesis statement that has some serious rocket fuel. Eventually, I’ll want them to do it on their own, but this quick one-on-one time is valuable.

A Visual Guide to Thesis Statements

To help my students with their thesis statements, I created a Visual Guide to Thesis Statements with Teaching Ideas. I find my students remember things a lot better with visuals, and this helps them understand this difficult concept. Students can put this visual guide in their writer’s notebooks or in their binders for easy reference. I also included a poster of the same image that you can print off and hang in your classroom.

Click here to check out A Visual Guide to Thesis Statements With Teaching Ideas. And while you’re at it, you might like my other visual guides, like the one for Works Cited Pages. Or if you teach APA, my visual guide to the Reference Page.

How To Improve Student Writing Scores on the State Test

March 24, 2019 By David Rickert Leave a Comment

Like it or not, state tests for common core and other state standards are here to stay. And unfortunately, some of our instruction will be diverted to helping our students do well on them.

One area that is particularly troublesome for language arts teachers is that the writing portion is scored by a computer. How is it possible to take something as complex as grading an essay and reduce it to work that can be done by a machine? It’s very frustrating to have the countless hours that we spend grading reduced to something that can be done by a program.

How does the computer score the state tests? We don’t exactly know. However, there are a few things that we know the computer is looking for, and ways to help make those things visible.

So here are four things students MUST do in order to score well on the test and how you can help students prepare.

Proofread.

Many students are used to typing on a computer or device that automatically identifies, and in some cases corrects, errors. Those students who take the test on a computer or device need to be aware that there is no such feature on the test. And those who are writing by hand need to be looking for the errors that they made in the mad dash to finish an essay. Unlike a human grader, the computer may not recognize a misspelled word as what it is. However, it will definitely catch run-ons and fragments.

How to teach it: Emphasize that students need to allocate time to proofread their work. Emphasize it as a skill with every assignment. For example, if you give time for students to write a paragraph as an exit slip, instruct them to use the last minute or two before the bell rings to check over their work. We want proofreading to become something that students automatically do.

As the school year progresses, keep track of the errors that students are most likely to make as you see them in writing. I also have a bundle that addresses the most common errors students are likely to make in writing in fun comics and activities.

Have a thesis at the end of the introduction.

Yes, it’s formulaic and yes, there are other places you can put it. However, this is the best place to put your thesis if someone (or in this case something) is looking for it. Also, a thesis shouldn’t be a question like: “Should museums charge admission?” or a statement like: “Read below to find out whether or not museum admission should be free.” A thesis statement must clearly state a position on an issue which will then be supported with evidence.

How to teach it: Thesis statements are part of regular instruction already, but emphasize what it should look like and where to put it. You can also have students practice thesis statements without writing an entire paper. Have them read an article or two and craft a thesis statement that they would use in a paper on this topic. Collect them on the way out and you’ll have a good idea in a couple of minutes how well they can write one.

Adding citations.

Students should be quoting from the passages. However, because there is more than one passage, they need to identify which passage their quotes come from. According to samples from past tests, it seems like you can either identify the passage by the author (“Robert Smith says …”) or by the passage (“In Passage 1 it says …”). Direct quotes are good – the computer will recognize that quotes are being used – but you shouldn’t quote too much. However, identifying the passage is critical as well.

How to teach it: First off, make sure students aren’t just writing an opinion piece that doesn’t use facts at all, which I suspect is a reason many students don’t score well.

Make sure you are giving students more than one passage to use as sources for assignments. For example, a lot of teachers use articles of the week regularly. Instead of giving students one article, give them two ask them to pull facts from both. When you discuss the article, have them identify the passage as they give their facts.

Address counterarguments.

The writing prompts for the state test ask students to address counterarguments to their claims. For years I taught 5 paragraph essays in which students stated three reasons to support an opinion, but weren’t asked to address the other side. Because of that, students might be inclined to neglect that they have to address what the other side would say. I would guess that this is the main reason that students don’t score well on the test is that they neglect this task, either because they haven’t been asked to do it, or because they don’t read the directions and know they should do it.

How to teach it: Throughout the year have students engage in persuasive tasks in which they must consider the other side and argue against that opinion. For example, we read two articles about Iowa schools that teach gun safety as part of physical education – one for and one against. Students had to take a side, but they also had to choose a point from the other side to dispute. You can also ask questions like: “What might the other side say? And why might they feel that way?” during class discussions in order to get students thinking about other points of view.

A Handy State Test Writing Visual!

I created this handout as a visual for students as they prepare for the test. It has all of the tips I addressed above as well as some other general suggestions. If you’d like a free copy of this handout, click below. You’ll also be added to my email list and get other great ELA tips delivered right to your inbox.

It’s easy to think that if we are doing test prep we aren’t teaching anything else. But in fact the skills that students need to do well on the writing section – writing thesis statements, using facts and citing them appropratiely- are skills that students need to have no matter what they write. True, we have to outwit the computer that grades these essay a little bit. But we only need to modify our instruction a little bit to sharpen these skills for the task. And in the end that’s what good instruction is all about – knowing how to respond appropriately to whatever task you’re given.

Here are some other blog posts on writing you might enjoy:

Writing Rubrics That Give You Back Your Weekends

Building Better Topic Sentences

Mini Timed Writings: Getting Students to Write More Without More Grading

A Workshop Approach to Essay Planning

Learning should be fun! Check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store for fun resources like the ones you see below.

Othello: Comics and Activities to Use While Reading the Play

March 10, 2019 By David Rickert Leave a Comment

Othello is a great play to teach in high school. Iago is a great villain. Desdemona is a perfect innocent victim, someone who doesn’t deserve the treatment she received from a jealous significant other. They can relate to the play because they have all missed out on a leadership position that was given to someone they felt wasn’t as qualified as they are (especially if you teach it to seniors. Many of them were denied entry to a college that accepted someone else they know.) They get that revenge if taken too far can be a destructive emotion.

My students like Othello even if they struggle with the language. For many of them, Shakespeare is something you should do in school, and they like the challenge. However, one area I always struggled with was how to introduce each act so that they had enough information to understand what was going on, yet not so much that reading the play became unnecessary. Also, I am always looking for something to make Shakespeare more accessible. So I made the following set of comics.

The comic image above is from Othello: Comic Summaries and Activities. The comics provide an overview of what happens in each act in a fun and humorous way that is inspired by a misspent youth reading MAD magazine, comics, and other irreverent publications.

They are a fun alternative to handing out summaries of the acts. For one thing, they don’t give too much away. Second, I have hidden Easter eggs throughout the panels of metaphors and images from each act (for instance, you’ll notice a black ram and white ewe in the middle panel.)

In addition, I have included a bunch of fun activities to do while reading the play that get students interacting with monologues, digging deep into the text, and examining the motivations of various characters. There’s even a puzzle page!

Of course, since this is the students’ first exposure to Shakespeare, you’ll need to introduce the bard and do a warm-up activity or two. I have a set of Shakespeare Bell Ringers that introduce students to the language of the bard. Plus, if you go to my store you’ll find a bunch of other Shakespeare resources. And if you want a FREE comic that introduces Shakespeare and provides a little more background and an activity with a sonnet, click below and you’ll get it!
If you’d like even more fun things you can do with Shakespeare, you can find them in my Shakespeare activities bundle, which includes the Shakespeare biography, a lesson on iambic pentameter, and a lesson on Sonnet 18.

Learning should be fun! Check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store for fun resources like the ones you see below.

Macbeth: Comic Activities to Use While Reading the Play

March 9, 2019 By David Rickert Leave a Comment

I don’t think there’s a more fun Shakespeare play to teach than Macbeth. It moves quickly (it’s one of Shakespeare’s shorter plays) and has it all: bloodshed, valor, all wrapped up in a play about what happens when the temptation to get what you want present itself. And it has witches! I also like that no matter how many times I read it, there’s always something new to discover. For instance, I just learned about the controversy about who the third murderer of Banquo might be. Lots of interesting theories there.

My students like Macbeth even if they struggle with the language. They rise to the challenge. For many of them Shakespeare is something you should do in school, so they don’t put up too much of a fuss. However, one area I always struggled with was how to introduce each act so that they had enough information to understand what was going on, yet not so much that reading the play became unnecessary. Also, I am always looking for something to make Shakespeare more accessible. So I made the following set of comics.

The comic image above is from Macbeth: Comic Summaries and Activities. The comics provide an overview of what happens in each act in a fun and humorous way that is inspired by a misspent youth reading MAD magazine, comics, and other irreverent publications.

The back side of these cartoons have activities centered around the work that will get kids interacting with the text in informative and creative ways. For example, there’s an activity that explores allusions with Robert Frost’s “Out, Out-.”

Of course, since this is the students’ first exposure to Shakespeare, you’ll need to introduce the bard and do a warm-up activity or two. I have a set of Shakespeare Bell Ringers that introduce students to the language of the bard. Or if you’d like the Macbeth comics and the Bell Ringers bundled with a bunch of other stuff, check out my Macbeth and Shakespeare Bundle for a whole bunch of goodies. Also, if you want a FREE comic that introduces Shakespeare and provides a little more background and an activity with a sonnet, click below and you’ll get it!
If you’d like even more fun things you can do with Shakespeare, you can find them in my Shakespeare activities bundle, which includes the Shakespeare biography, a lesson on iambic pentameter, and a lesson on Sonnet 18.

Learning should be fun! Check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store for fun resources like the ones you see below.