How did my “brilliant” plan go awry? It’s time for some analysis of my own. Not all responses have been posted, and students’ answers could improve, but there are enough misfires here to warrant some re-examination. Some students have written about the mentor sentence rather than trying to write like it some students have selected terrible mentor sentences and students who have written sentences about our literature haven’t mimicked their mentors at all. Though students’ first responses aren’t due until a bit later this week, a few conscientious folks have already turned in one or more of their monthly reports, and …the results are not good. I planned to check the spreadsheet of results near each deadline, showcase great sentences when I found them, and help students make small adjustments as needed. Look at me using my web design skills! Think of how easy it will be to check for students’ understanding! I can keep using class time for literature study! I’ve given students so many choices for what to read and study independently! How progressive am I? In class, I showed students how to find the form and the mentor text collection, shared a sample sentence study from a recent Slate analysis of Tom Petty’s first lines, and then I left students to complete the work on their own. I felt pretty brilliant as I rolled out this assignment. Then, students write about literature we’ve studied in a sentence that mimics the moves of their mentor sentence. The form asks students to record the author, title, and thesis of the analysis and then identify a sentence they would like to use in their own writing. I found some favorites and shared a collection of links to “Analysis in the Real World” on my class website: welcome to Vulture, NPR’s “Monkey See,”, ALDaily and other fun corners of the internet, kids!Īfter posting that list, I created a Google form, a place for students to share what they read and perform some self-guided sentence studies. The #mentortext Twitter thread is full of rich, fresh, contemporary analytical writing to share with students. I thought that one remedy for what ailed my writers was a steadier diet of real-world analysis. How could I help them express themselves clearly? How could I weave more writing instruction into an advanced literature course (at a new school with a new rotational schedule that I’m still figuring out) without sacrificing the curriculum hours required by the course? They are perceptive readers who share complex ideas about literature during class discussion, but their analytical writing was convoluted, tortured, and, often, nonsensical.
Survey says…I was wrong! Join me today as I learn from my mistakes and try to make a “beautiful oops.”Įarlier this semester, I noticed that my seniors seemed to struggle with on-demand literary analysis.
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