Recently I wrote in my book that I want to cancel the idea of ‘best’ work and have the idea of ‘great’ work.
The distinction is not just semantic. Best implies something that is only attainable by some, and something that requires repeated practice and refining (and limiting) to achieve. Great, on the other hand, implies something that is better than an average effort: it is something that does not accept the first idea, but rather aims to apply prior learning or skills.
Learning is about inspiring, and about responding to students who talk about boredom and purpose. Sometimes there needs to be an element of routine and moving through content. However, students (wherever possible) need to be able to improve their skills as well as improve their content.
That term intended to inspire students to achieve their best. This best suggests that a normal effort is not good enough.
A normal effort from a usual student in this context is this:
Errors barely checked, if at all. Work is created as it is considered.
Inferences often only in the denotational sphere.
Connotations found are often tangible rather than abstract.
Ideas simply add or agree with each other, rather than offering contrast
Sentences begin mainly with nouns or determiners
Sentences are built largely by adding clauses rather than attaching details via phases
Modifiers are used rather then precise verbs
Modifiers used do not place terms in a true relation to each other e. G. Really and fake
Analysis often repeats itself
Paragraphs after barely used, or just created adhoc.
There are few connections between paragraphs
For students to produce the best work, they must address a myriad of requirements that may be too much for them. Even just by the ideas of working memory, there mind cannot focus on nor then seven plus or minus two things at once. From that, an idea might not itself be sufficiently chunked.
The ideas of formality are often taught to the extent of seeing formality as a sense of posh or professional language. Formality serves to fix the reader and writer in positions that remain unchanged. Often this leads to distance and to a sense if the impersonal. It can, as a result, lend significance and give something of the impression of an unchanging position. In contrast informality leads to the possibility of movement between the reader and text, the chance for connotations to be discovered and accepted. Or not.
Going back to my original point on my use of feedback and rubrics on my board… I find myself increasingly drawn to this word improvement.
Therefore, i want to use:
