Marzano lessons one and two. (Sorry, this is a long one.)

Recently my sophomore English students have been practicing inferences. We talked about the differences between inferring and guessing, and we practiced looking at texts and inferring ideas among the words provided. For my first lesson using a Marzano strategy, I thought I would combine our topic with his ideas on cooperative learning (chapter seven). In this chapter, Marzano quoted the ideas of David Johnson and Roger Johnson on the five defining elements of cooperative learning:
1. Positive interdependence—sink or swim together
2. Face-to-face promotive interaction—helping each other learn
3. Individual and group accountability—each member contributes to the group
4. Interpersonal and small group skills—communication, trust, leadership, decision making, conflict resolution
5. Group processing—reflecting on how well the team functions
I started the lesson by reviewing the definition of inference and by practicing inferences as a whole group. I put a few different pictures on the overhead and asked the class to tell me about the pictures. They came up with great inferences about the relationships of characters within the pictures, the moods, the time periods, the social/ economic statuses… and the list went on. Once I figured they all knew the idea, I started to employ the cooperative learning. The assignment was to work with a group to come up with a story to fit a picture I would give them. This time I let them choose their groups because we like to rotate how groups are picked. They got into groups of three with one paper for the entire group (element of cooperative learning step one). One student came up to me to randomly pick their assigned picture from a bowl. Another student was in charge of writing the outline for the story they would create together. The last student actually wrote the story based on the comments of group members (steps two, three, and four). Lastly, students were given the opportunity to comment on the effectiveness of the group by writing their opinions and turning them into me (step five.) The kids enjoyed the group work and stayed on top of the assignment. I think the key to successful cooperative learning is working with manageable group sizes, having clear objectives, and setting a time limit.
In my second lesson plan using the Marzano strategy, I looked at what I was teaching in my junior English class. During this year, we have been looking at a variety of American authors, and we end the year with students working in groups (yay, more cooperative learning) to present a well planned fifteen minute presentation about the author of their choice. The students don’t turn in any research, bibliography, or notes. The entire presentation is graded while they are presenting. Since this grading process could be very subjective, I follow a rubric carefully and give detailed feedback so the students know exactly why they got the grades they did. Marzano discusses appropriate feedback in chapter eight. According to the chapter, feedback should be criterion-referenced, specific, timely, and corrective in nature. As the juniors where presenting, I was taking notes and in the following areas: length of time, creative biography of the author, texts examined, literary time period of author’s life, historical time period of author’s life, visual aids, and other aspects of creativity in the presentation. Before any of the presentations started, I reviewed each of the areas with the students and gave them each a copy of how I would be grading the presentation. This method of grading is criterion-referenced as it is based on the information they have learned about the particular author. It is specific because all the parts of the grade (this assignment was worth 200 points) have been broken down into sections, so students can see the strengths and weaknesses of the presentation. It is a timely method of grading because I can grade their work while they present and have the results back in the same period. It is also corrective in nature because of the specific feedback. Of course there are some students who do not take the assignment seriously, but most work hard to create an informative, entertaining, and memorable project. The students stress a bit about their own presentations, but they generally meet the expectations, and they enjoy the presentations of their classmates. To make this project more successful I think it is important to give the students ample time (outside of class time) to work on their ideas. I also give students many examples of past presentations to help them catch the vision of how much I expect of them. After working so long on the presentation, students really appreciate the specific and timely feedback I can offer through this method of grading.