Starting the IWA

trompe l'oeil painting by William Michael Harnett

This week, I'll discuss my strategies for helping students to understand and begin developing their IWAs.  Today's post is about unpacking the stimulus materials.

The IWA, in my opinion, is much harder for students to write than the IRR.  Where the IRR is basically a literature review, the IWA is an argument.  In addition, while students can write an IRR about just about any topic, the IWA has to fit within the theme of the stimulus materials. 

I always take a week to go over the stimulus and begin question development with my students.  I don't recommend spending too much time on this since the IWA requires a lot of research in order to write properly. 

I assign one or two articles to read per night.  For each stimulus item, each student must come up with two related ideas.  For example, one of the stimulus materials this year is about sidewalk art.  One related idea could be trompe l'oeil art.  I don't require my students to come up with actual themes for their papers at this point.  The idea is just to begin the brainstorming process.  I recommend to my students that they have a pen and paper handy as they read so that they can make notes about anything that they find interesting.  The next day, students discuss the stimulus items and the related ideas.  They attempt to take some of the related ideas that they've come up with and develop them further. 

Once they've read and discussed all of the stimulus items, I have my students discuss the overall theme of the stimulus.  At this point, I break them up into smaller groups so that they can continue the process of developing IWA topics that fit into the theme of the stimulus materials AND use one of the stimulus items in a meaningful way. 

Choosing Your News

One of the ongoing challenges of AP Seminar - or just life in general - is finding news that's credible and current.  Nothing undermines an argument, or is more embarrassing, than quoting an illegitimate source. With the proliferation of news on the Internet, though, it's becoming harder and harder to find trustworthy sources.

There's a now infamous story about how the Chinese newspaper, People's Daily, quoted a satirical piece published in The Onion.  The Onion had jokingly proclaimed Kim Jong Un as the "sexiest man alive" in a parody of People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" issues.  People's Daily apparently mistook the parody for a serious feature.  Oops.

We spend a lot of time in my class discussing strategies for avoiding the same fate.  Here are links to two of the videos that I use to introduce the topic to my students.

Both are from TedEd and both are great for starting a discussion about trustworthy sources.

How to Choose Your News

How False News Spreads

I also really like this chart for assessing the credibility of a source.

During my AP Seminar training, we were introduced to the R.A.V.E.N. method for assessing credibility, but I find that my students have more success with the chart above.  Ultimately, though, use whichever method works best for you and your students.  

Why We Need Courses Like AP Seminar

Over the past year and a half that I've been teaching AP Seminar, I've met with lots of other AP Seminar teachers to discuss our trials and tribulations.  One of the things that's surprised me is how often I meet teachers who are negative about the course.

       "It's the newest educational fad - it'll come and go."

       "It's so pointless.  What are the students learning in this class anyway?"

       "I just teach to the rubric so that my students can get a high score."

Students can also get pretty harsh.  When I first started teaching AP Seminar, I came across this article, which was published in the Stuyvesant Spectator.  The student who wrote it argues many good points.  In the article, the student poses the following question:

...why is a program that seeks to promote college readiness among high school students praised for being innovative? Isn’t promoting college readiness something the high school education system should already be doing? This is the ironic reality of our current high school education system—a reality in which launching an initiative to prepare students for college is seen as a ground-breaking move.

While these are good points, I feel they deserve a little more scrutiny.  

The first is that a high school education should be about promoting "college readiness" skills.  I guess this depends on how you define college readiness.  If you believe that college readiness means that you should be able to walk into any college classroom and get a good grade, then you're probably already well-served by your high school curriculum.  Every AP class is a class that teaches students how to succeed in a college classroom.  The sad part is that too few students take these courses, but that's a discussion for another day.

 I would argue that, at its best, AP Capstone promotes a life-long passion for learning, for analysis and for questioning. I've been teaching AP courses (AP Chemistry & AP Seminar)  for nearly twenty  years and the sad truth is that too many of my "college ready" students are prosaic thinkers.  They're disciplined and have strong study skills and they will have no problem doing well in college, but they rarely question anything their teachers or textbooks say.  They have trouble linking what they learn in the classroom to real-world applications.  They're very good at doing what is expected of them and don't seem interested in doing much more. 

Ultimately, though, the people who change the world are the ones who, despite years of being taught college readiness, are still able to think differently about the world around them.  They are the ones who question why things are done a certain way when they could be done better.  

I believe that AP Seminar & AP Research are a step in this direction.  While both teach quantifiable skills, they are open-ended enough to allow students' imaginations to soar and to show them that few things in life are more gratifying than mastering a new topic or a new skill.  

Hemingway Editor

Here's a neat online tool for students to use when editing their writing:

                                        Hemingway Editor

Ernest Hemingway is known for his deceptively simple writing style.  He shunned flowery vocabulary and long, wordy sentences.  The power of his writing stems from its unapologetic bluntness.

Students, unfortunately, often favor ornate language and long, rambling sentences because they believe that they make their writing seem smarter and more literary.  The Hemingway Editor can help!

Students cut and paste their writing sample into the Hemingway Editor and it  automatically assesses their writing.  The app highlights phrases that are hard to read and those that are very hard to read.  It highlights passive voice and adverbs.

It's not perfect, by any means.  When I assessed a paragraph of my own writing, I had to pick and choose which suggestions I would actually incorporate into my writing sample.  For example, the Hemingway Editor highlighted two adverbs and suggested that I remove them.  Removing them would have slightly changed the meaning of my sentences, though, so I ignored the Editor and kept them.

However, it is a great tool for getting students to take another look at their writing.  It sparks great debates during peer reviews and gives me another way to hand over control to my students while also providing some guidance.

Group Presentation Rubric

By the time I give my students the rubric for their group presentation, we've gone over almost everything that's on it.  The only thing left is to put it all together.  The group presentation is where the students bring their entire argument into focus by putting all of their lenses and perspectives together.

Here's the copy that I hand out to my students:  PT1 GROUP PRESENTATION RUBRIC.  It's broken down into the specific skills that are included in each row.

How to Get a Great Group Presentation Score

After my students have watched the Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates videos that I use to introduce presentations, one of the things that I tell them is that a great presentation is never an accident.  It's always the result of reflection and practice.

1.  OUTLINE YOUR TALK AND TRY IT OUT

Once students have an outline, they can start to practice their presentations.  I encourage them to try them out at home, preferably in front of someone willing to provide useful feedback.  

This practice is the only way to figure out what works and what doesn't.  Don't be afraid to tinker with the presentation at this point to ensure that it works fluidly. 

2.  PRACTICE WITH YOUR GROUP

Once students feel comfortable with their parts of the presentation, they should definitely practice with their groups.  This is the only way to ensure that transitions between speakers are smooth - there's nothing more awkward than a group of presenters looking at one another nervously to determine who speaks next.  This goes a long way toward scoring well on the Collaboration row of the rubric.

Effective Presentations, Part II

I'm sharing a copy of the slides that I use to discuss effective presentations.  I publish this presentation to Google Classroom so that my students can refer back to it throughout the year.

EFFECTIVE PRESENTATIONS POWERPOINT

In the interest of not overwhelming my students with too many facts at once, I break this presentation up over the course of two days.  The first part concludes with the Amy Cuddy TedTalk.  In my last post, I discussed the Steve Jobs/Bill Gates Activity.

Here's an outline of the transcript that goes along with the presentation.

EFFECTIVE PRESENTATIONS OUTLINE

After teaching this lesson, I saw a HUGE improvement in the quality of the presentations and slides that my students have been putting together this year.