The Thought Piece (TP) can be used with any work of literature. It is an informal writing assignment that asks students to reflect on the work they read and annotated, and then write about those thoughts coupled with the text itself. It is through this informal writing process that students can learn about what they read and how their minds are processing what they read. TPs should be formative assessments, grouped together for later reflection on metacognitive strategies and processes along with content learning. They should not be used for a grade, although perhaps a rubric could be used to evaluate the assignment. I first heard about this type of assignment as I was combing through materials for the AP® Literature course. For more information, look at the College Board site: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/. I have expanded this assignment to include some rules that help students with their writing-to-learn skills.
The Rules
- Read the text.
- Use Cornell Notes or another method to annotate the text. The text should be referenced by paragraph, stanza, page number, or Act/Scene/Line. Quotations, in full or in part, are recommended highly. Then, you should indicate whether that part of the text generated a question, commentary, or other type of reaction.
- Look at your notes. Do you see thoughts that have things in common? Do you see thoughts that build on one another? Do you see any trends? What are they? Use the summary area of your notes pages to point out those trends to yourself.
- Get ready to write! Using your notes, just start writing out your thoughts about the work you read.
- When you write your piece, use complete sentences and try to use expanded sentences as much as possible. Try starting out a sentence, then add because, but, or so. Although this is informal, you should not create fragments or run-ons. One point of this assignment is to learn how to create complete thoughts.
- You do not need a thesis statement for this informal writing assignment, but you might want to celebrate if you write into one.
- Read your piece after you have finished writing it and then edit it for grammar and style.
Six Facets of Understanding (UbD) and AP® Lit Big Ideas and Essential Knowledge
According to Wiggins and McTighe, the six facets of understanding include “the capacity to explain, interpret, apply, shift perspective, empathize, and self-assess” (UbD_WhitePaper0312.pdf, 2012). These can be aligned to Bloom and DoK, but I like UbD because it seems simpler to me. Frankly, I guess I’m getting a little tired of this being so complicated, but that is something I will get over. That said, let’s look at how this assignment could be applied to the Big Ideas and Essential Knowledge of AP® Literature and the six facets of understanding, which will require a bit of alignment. The spreadsheet below is a work-in-progress.
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQk5Gfw1FubLG2cPp8b2WbPW7eDQX_Ig0c17PuTEWODPk-qnmuLX9yx94ucgwJQ2Xc-_G5iVVy_HmKn/pubhtml” query=”gid=1007463483&range=A1:C38&single=true&widget=true&headers=false” width=”100%” height=”300″ /]One reason curriculum development and alignment is so important is that during the process the teacher realizes adjustments should be made to suit one’s teaching style and one’s students.
For example, while reviewing the Big Ideas/Essential Knowledge, I noticed there isn’t much there to apply the higher levels of understanding to (empathize and self-assess). If the purpose of studying literature is to better understand the human condition and to understand our role within the human community (that’s my idea, anyway), then shouldn’t we provide more opportunities within the course to do just that? Some of the line items to which I applied “empathize” are actually a stretch and I would need to expand on the statement to actually make that classification work. That is something I will need to work on while I continue to tweak my syllabus.
Speaking of syllabi, I would love it if someone would be willing to look at the massive mess I have right now. One reason I am doing this post is because this will be part of an example assignment I need to include in the syllabus that I submit to the College Board.
Reference
UbD_WhitePaper0312.pdf. (2012). ASCD. https://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/siteASCD/publications/UbD_WhitePaper0312.pdf