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I read once that Albert Einstein remarked it is a miracle curiosity survives formal education. This observation has stuck with me: a pesky stone in my shoe. Somehow, amongst all the curricular demands, standardised testing, graduation requirements, examination preparation, and everything else which pulls at me, I desperately want to instill a sense of wonder, curiosity, and excitement in my students. I desire for them to love learning, to ask questions, to be curious about what they see, read, and hear. And one of the best – and simplest – ways I have found to do this, is the use of lesson openers which excite and engage. Inspired by the concept of provocations in the Reggio Emilia Approach1, I open learning experiences in an open-ended way which provokes student exploration, discussion, creativity, and ideas. This way, when we move into the content of the lesson, students are already engaged; their curiosity is hopefully piqued, and they’re more receptive to learning. Below are five simple ways I open classes in order to provoke engagement, discussion, and curiosity. Click here to get a downloadable version to stick in your daily planner, or on your desk as a reminder when lesson planning! INSTRUCTIONS: Place an object (which links to the lesson content) in the center of the room. For added intrigue and curiosity, place it under a cloth to ‘reveal’ when students are settled. Then use the exploration of this object to springboard into the lesson of the day: through a discussion, writing exercise, word association game, etc. For example: for a writing class about using varied sentence types, the object could be a bowl of sweets, and students write about the experience of eating one for the very first time. Or, it’s an informational text lesson, using a newspaper article on how social media impacts beauty standards, the object might be a pile of make-up, and students discuss their personal associations with these products. [Nouvelle ELA has a similar lesson for analyzing symbols: get it here] IDEAS FOR GOING FURTHER: Wait a while before you explain the presence of the mystery object: perhaps even have students spend time thinking about it and making predictions for why it is there (you may want to give them one or two clues). Equally, if appropriate, have the desks arranged in groups and place different objects on different desks. For example: in an introductory lesson for a unit on ‘Identity’ place different pieces of fruit around the room, and have students move to the one that most represents them, and then encourage them to explain their choice. WHY IT IS EFFECTIVE: Any time you add a little mystery or present something unexpected in the classroom, it will pique students’ curiosity. When they are intrigued and curious, they’re primed to engage and learn. Indeed, the emotion of curiosity has long been recognized as a vital motivating factor driving learning2. INSTRUCTIONS: Write a provocative statement on the board which links to the lesson content. (e.g. If you’re studying Romeo and Juliet: It is possible to fall in love the first time you meet someone. Or reading Maya Angelou’s ‘Still I Rise’? What about: Your dignity is always within your own control.) Then place tape, or indicate an imaginary line, across the room, with one end as “Completely Agree” and the other as “Completely Disagree.” Give students a minute to consider the statement and then have them stand on the line to indicate their opinions. [You might also want to check out the Daring English Teacher's blog post on Introducing Complex Ideas to Students] IDEAS FOR GOING FURTHER: Once students have taken their places, ask a couple of students on opposite ends to speak to each other: to debate and defend their positions. Or, have students turn to the person next to them and discuss, seeing if they really are in the right places, or if they should switch (if they feel stronger than their neighbor on the line). Finally, at the end of the lesson, why not do the activity again and see if any of them have changed their positions? WHY IT IS EFFECTIVE: This not only gets students thinking critically about key themes and issues, but it is also an effective way to make their thinking visible, and to push them to take a stand. Moreover, requiring students to give reasons for why they picked where they did, helps them back up their opinions with evidence and reason. INSTRUCTIONS: Think about the content of the lesson, and then try to mimic something of the mood/setting/theme in the classroom environment. While pinterest-worthy classroom transformations are wonderful, that’s not what I am talking about here. You can set the mood in quick and easy ways, which will engage students’ senses when they walk in the door. For example: when studying Lord of the Flies, visually project a jungle screensaver on the board, with ambient sounds. This doesn’t have to be just for literature lessons: if you’re spending the lesson writing, have students enter with ambient coffee shop sounds, or stormy weather (great for writing horror stories!). Check out the website A Soft Murmur for this: go play around with their sound settings. IDEAS FOR GOING FURTHER: If possible, engage more senses: play with lighting, images, smells, touch, etc. Or – to really engage students’ imaginations – before playing the ambient noises, have them settle down, and close their eyes. Then give them a scenario to imagine as you slowly turn up the volume on the ambient sounds. For example: in a lesson on Emily Dickenson’s “The Railway Train,” start by playing the sound of a train and ask students to imagine this sound as an animal: what would it be and why? WHY IT IS EFFECTIVE: Engaging the senses is a powerful learning tool: when we create a multisensory experience in the classroom, not only does it pique students’ curiosity, but it can also make the learning more memorable. Indeed, when engaging multiple senses, we optimise the learning mechanisms in the brain, and tap into the many different ways different students learn best3. INSTRUCTIONS: It is as simple as this: play a current song or music video, show an extract from a current TV series, use a trailer for a recent movie: anything which links the content of the day’s lesson with students’ interests and lives outside of class. For example: before we studied The Great Gatsby (click for resources), I played Lorde’s Royals and asked students what the song meant to them. Before telling students anything about Lord of the Flies, we watched the trailer for The 100 and discussed what such a situation would be like. IDEAS FOR GOING FURTHER: Have students suggest the media you present: at the end of a previous class, explain the broad content of the next class (themes, main topic, etc.) and ask students to suggest appropriate songs, video clips, games, etc., which would make for engaging lesson openers. This way, they too are making connections to their learning, and you are making sure the references are highly relevant! WHY IT IS EFFECTIVE: When we incorporate students’ personal interests and entertainments in the classroom environment, their learning becomes more relevant, engaging, and multi-dimensional. The key here though is making sure it is really something which students’ are currently interested in: not just what we might assume they will be interested in! And the best way to ensure this, is to really spend time building relationships with students, finding out their interests, and knowing what’s currently popular. INSTRUCTIONS: Before class, think about the key theme, topic, or skill which you aim to explore or develop. Then, think of 3-5 key words related to this; write these on the board, or around the room. When students enter, draw their attention to these words, and instruct them to work in pairs to construct a question using the words. For example, before a lesson on Fahrenheit 451 (click for resources), you might use “knowledge” “future” “technology” and “books.” A possible question students might generate: In the future, will books become useless, as we use technology to access knowledge? And this doesn’t have to be limited to lessons on literature: in a lesson about essay writing, words such as “style” “structure” “opinion” and “voice” might generate some engaging questions. IDEAS FOR GOING FURTHER: Once students have formed a question, provide the means for discussing or answering the question: this might be through small-group discussions, through accessing online sources, or through analysis of a text. The key here is you need to be flexible and open to going where students’ questions take the lesson. Why not even ask them how the class should proceed in terms of answering their questions? WHY IT IS EFFECTIVE: Too often, by the time they reach middle/high school, curious questioning has been replaced by incessant answering: students become adept at answering questions, but often lack opportunities to inquire and question. Developing this ability to ask questions will help with developing critical thinking skills, and engaging discussion proficiency. Moreover, students will be hooked from the start of class, and invested in finding out the answers to their questions. So that's it: if you have ANY questions, please feel free to reach out: come find me on Instagram, or email me at [email protected]. Looking for other high-interest, provoking lessons to excite and engage? Check these out: Active Learning Exercises for Reading & Writing by Room 213 READING Escape Room (Activities, Trivia & Puzzle Games for High School ELA) by The Classroom Sparrow MAKER CHALLENGE - Team Building Activity by Presto Plans RESOURCES: 1Strong-Wilson, T., & Ellis, J. (2007). Children and place: Reggio Emilia's environment as third teacher. Theory into practice, 46(1), 40-47. 2Markey, A., & Loewenstein, G. (2014). Curiosity. In International handbook of emotions in education (pp. 238-255). Routledge. 3Shams, L., & Seitz, A. (2008). Benefits of multisensory learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(11), 411–417.

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Put up your hand if you love nothing more than spending your Sunday afternoon grading a pile of student papers. What? No takers? Of course not. As much as we know the importance of assessment in the learning process, we all want to spend less time doing it, right? So, in the hopes of helping you all out with that grading beast, we thought we'd compile some of our best tips. 1. USE RUBRICS TO BE MORE EFFICIENT As a first-year teacher, I spent tons of time writing meticulous notes on each student’s paper. I didn’t mark all of the grammar errors - I’d definitely learned not to waste my time on that! - but I did make tons of suggestions for improvement. Then, when I handed the papers back to students, they immediately stuffed them in their backpacks without a second glance. Sigh. You can make your comments digestible by sticking to two positive notes and one focus for improvement. (That good ol’ “compliment sandwich”!) Write these notes directly on the rubric. You’ll have to focus your commentary, which means less time writing for you and fewer notes to overwhelm your students. And, since all of your students will receive three comments, there’s no dreading tons of ‘red ink’ all over the paper! Read more about how I use rubrics to make grading more efficient. - ~Nouvelle ELA 2. USE CHECKLISTS AND HIGHLIGHTERS My greatest tools for faster grading are checklists and highlighters. First, I do not grade everything. I decide on my focus areas and then I create a checklist that has all of the comments I would usually make on that type of assignment. That way, I can just put a checkmark beside what I want to say, rather than writing or typing it all out. Then, I will choose a couple of places to highlight to show students what they did well and what they could improve upon. Another thing I've added to my grading toolkit is that I ask the students to highlight where they have met certain criteria. So, if we were working on embedding and citing quotes, they will highlight where they did it well. If I wanted them to use multiple techniques to develop an idea, they would highlight each technique in a different colour. That way, I can quickly find what I'm looking for, plus it puts more responsibility in the students' hands. You can read more about how I use highlighters for grading on this post and get more tips for grading faster on this one. ~ROOM 213 3. MAKE A BETTER PLAN: When I first started teaching, I would leave school with a bag full of papers to grade that haunted my weekends. I spent entirely too much time outside of school hours grading papers, and the grading often wasn’t efficient because it felt like such an imposition on my free time. My tip is to set up the systems in place to do as much of the marking at school as you can. When you are marking “on the clock,” it’s often far more efficient as you are in work mode. Although bringing marking home may not be something you can avoid altogether, you can make it far less by doing the following: 1. Plan out your major assessments strategically so that due dates line up with a less busy times in your schedule (if you run the drama club, for example, don’t make major assessments due when the school play is happening). 2. Make major assessments for your classes due at different times. It’s far easier to mark 25 papers than it is 90. 3. Avoid the interruptions from chatty co-workers. You are more likely to be interrupted before school or after school, so use your prep period (or part of it) to grade instead, but find a place where you can hide so no one will interrupt. 4. If you have your students read silently each day for a few minutes, consider changing that up and giving them a good chunk of time each week to do it and use that time to grade. ~Presto Plans 4. DON'T GRADE EVERYTHING! One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that not everything needs to be graded. Yes, I admit, it’s easier to motivate students if they know they are getting graded for an assignment. However, there’s no reason not to give completion grades for assignments that are practicing skills. I do not “grade” journal entries, bell ringers/exit slips, silent reading, rough drafts, or even homework assignments. For those, students get a completion grade: as long as they completed it, they earn the maximum number of points. It’s much easier to skim those assignments to make sure they are grasping the concepts. Then I have much more time to put into grading their assessments: quizzes, tests, and final drafts of essays. Students learn quickly that if they put little effort into the completion assignments, it will show in their assessment score. I make the assessments worth a lot more points, so they learn this early in the year. That helps with motivating them to put forth effort in the daily work. ~Tracee Orman 5. DON'T BE A COPY EDITOR: Whenever I grade larger writing assignments, I don’t spend excessive time copyediting my students’ work. Instead, I only focus on a few writing elements to assess. Further-more, when I grade, I keep a notebook handy. Over the several days that it takes me to comb through dozens of essays, I keep notes about common writing mistakes and weaknesses that I found. When I pass back their work, we review these in a quick reflection mini-unit. When it’s time to grade the next major writing assignment, I’ll use the elements from our writing reflection as my areas of focus. This not only helps cut down my grading time by eliminating excessive marks on student papers, but it also helps drive my instruction. ~The Daring English Teacher 6. USE PORTFOLIOS As English teachers, it is easy to get buried under endless piles of marking. One strategy I use is to have students work with a portfolio (I use folders in my classroom). They can work on several pieces of writing, edit, do peer editing, and then submit the work that they feel best represents their skills or learning. This way, I am not marking everything they are working on, and students appreciate that they have some choice in the work that I assess. ~Addie Williams 7. BUY YOURSELF A GRADING STAMP Yes! There is such a thing. I discovered this grading stamp a little over a year ago and it has saved my life in so many ways. While I personally use a rubric for the final assessment piece, the stamp is perfect when making quick edits to papers and I also use this for peer editing. Just type in "essay grading stamp" on eBay and you will see a bunch of different options come up! ~The Classroom Sparrow So there you have it. All of us have found ways to lessen our load and to make the process more efficient. Hopefully you've found something to make your grading process more manageable.

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Part way through some lesson last year, I said that my students should “let it go.” I don’t remember what “it” was, exactly, but I remember two or three students jumped up and threw their arms out and sang the line from Frozen. Then, one started making up new lyrics for the song based on my lesson. It was ridiculous and funny and it all happened so fast. See, the thing is that we connect with music, and we don’t have to be particularly musical to do it. Music gets inside our heads and makes us feel things, and some tunes and lyrics never leave us. That’s why I (a non-musical person, by the way) love using music in the secondary ELA classroom. I’ve found that in middle school and high school, music breaks up a bit of the routine and allows students to access information that they may otherwise struggle with or find boring. Music can be used strategically (or just for fun!) in the secondary ELA classroom to increase engagement and retention. Here are seven ways I use music in my English classroom. 1. Present music as an avenue of direct instruction The easiest and most obvious way to use music in secondary ELA is to find a resource that puts a new concept to music. My favorite resource for using music in direct instruction is Flocabulary. I’ve used these short hip-hop videos to review story elements, introduce public speaking, and solidify some research skills. I also LOVE sharing Schoolhouse Rock with my students. Y’all, Schoolhouse Rock was already looking dorky and dated when I was a kid, but just *lean in* to this with your students. Tell them that you KNOW it’s dorky, but that you’re going to embrace that together in your classroom. 2. Introduce Song Analysis Another way to use music as a tool for direct instruction is by presenting songs as texts to be explored, analyzed, and imitated. I use songs to teach plot, genre, and figurative language. They are a short and easily accessible text (3-5 min) that provide a lot of fodder for student discussion. I do a whole Song Analysis lesson as part of my Short Stories unit, and you can download that lesson for free HERE. On my blog, I share 15 Songs to Use in Secondary ELA and 15 (More!) Songs to Use in Secondary ELA. Be sure to check those out, since they include ideas for analyzing song lyrics. 3. Play music to encourage relaxation & focus People from surgeons to athletes have been tapping into music’s relaxing properties before tackling a stressful situation. Remember Michael Phelps’ omnipresent headphones? We can allow our students the same opportunities and play some music while they’re writing, studying, or taking a test. Along this same line, music can be used to inspire creative writing. Encourage students to develop playlists for a certain writing project they’re working on. I often share my writing playlists with students to give them some ideas – my playlist for a sappy YA romance novel is completely different from my dystopian fairy tale rewrite playlist. Students should be encouraged to choose music that moves them towards the end goal: being creative and productive and awesome! 4. Have students create songs to demonstrate learning Music also makes a great option for a final project. Students can demonstrate what they've learned by making a song about it (or rewriting lyrics to a known song). My students write Symbolism Songs after reading Lord of the Flies or The Pearl, showing their interpretation of a symbol through music. 5. Show students how to create study songs Anyone who learned “The Fifty Nifty United States” as a kid knows the power of music to help memorize information. I mean, that stuff really sticks! Students can use music to help them study hard facts or vocabulary and definitions. They don't have to be amazing musicians to find a tune to make it stick - just have them try out making a recording of an effort on their phones. There is a simple ioS app called Recorder for this, or you can get a more sophisticated piece of software like Audacity. Eventually, they'll choose what study methods work best for them, but you can at least show them this tool is available. 6. Encourage storytelling with operas & symphonies You can also use music that's already out there and available to get students writing. Operas and symphonies both provide excellent opportunities for this, since they are a vehicle for a story anyway. You could play a piece from an opera and have students imagine the story. What emotions do they hear from the characters? Who's singing? What conflicts come to mind? You could have students write or discuss the stories they come up with, or even act them out in a scene set to the music. Don't share the original plot with them -- let them explore many possible answers. This is a great way to get them to engage in some creative writing, as well as explore the storytelling devices of classical music. 7. Actually, you know… play some music Also, you could just play music. :) Whenever I want to give students a set time to finish an activity, I put on a song or a playlist. For example, if students need 3-4 minutes to cut out foldables and title the pages of an interactive notebook spread, I'll put on a song. I also used the song “Final Countdown” last year for the last minutes that students assembled their writer’s workshop portfolios. What are some creative ways that you use music in your classrooms? We'd love to hear from you in comments or on IG @secondaryenglishcoffeeshop. :) Check out these other resources for using music by Coffee Shop teachers: Grammar Activities: Musical Grammar Mistakes by Presto Plans Analyzing Music Videos (Volume 2) by Stacey Lloyd