Students Reading Challenging Texts

 From Marshall Memo 1115

 Timothy Shanahan on Students Reading Challenging Texts

In this online article, Timothy Shanahan (University of Illinois/Chicago) responds to a teacher worried that students will be frustrated and discouraged if they’re required to read material above their current level. “I don’t want to undermine anybody’s motivation or love of reading,” says Shanahan, and he acknowledges that reading difficult texts can be frustrating and sometimes leads to off-task behavior and discipline problems, especially if students are trying to do so without support. But easy, boring texts can also lead students to act out, especially if they sense that their teacher has a negative mindset about “low readers.” 

“Let’s face it, motivation is complicated,” says Shanahan. “Difficulty can lead both to withdrawal and intensification of effort.” Students can feel incompetent struggling with a difficult text or get a sense of efficacy mastering it. They can feel inept or be driven by a desire to please a teacher, learn new information, and connect with peers. Simply adjusting the instructional level of a text to a child’s “just right” level doesn’t solve the problem of motivation – and risks the stigma of being assigned to a low reading group. Most important, leveling won’t accelerate students’ reading level and give them the feeling that they’re catching up.

“Instead of avoiding challenge,” says Shanahan, “I think it better to introduce it intentionally, placing students in books that they cannot already read well” – and then provide scaffolding and emotional support that encourage persistence and build skill, fluency, and background knowledge. Three important elements:

• Choose texts that connect with students’ interests and are worth reading.

• Give students a sense of the progress they’re making, emphasizing a growth mindset.

• Don’t overdo it; not every text has to be above level, especially independent reading.

“Won’t Challenging Texts Discourage Young Readers?” by Timothy Shanahan in Shanahan on Literacy, November 29, 2025; Shanahan can be reached at shanahan@uic.edu. 

AI - VOICE for students

 

from Marshall Memo 

Orchestrating Authentic Student Writing in the Age of AI

“Assigning traditional essays is unethical in the age of AI,” say Scott Carlson and Matthew Brophy in The Chronicle of Higher Education. That’s because the use of AI tools to write essays with little or no student effort has become a “subversive epidemic,” with the true victims being “honest, hard-working students who are now disadvantaged in compromised classrooms,” say Carlson and Brophy, “This inequity is compounded when only well-resourced or tech-savvy students can fully exploit these tools.” 

It’s still essential that students learn to write, they believe: “The ability to clearly communicate ideas is not only an effective way to convey arguments and persuade people, but it also indicates that one has processed and absorbed the ideas shared – one of the reasons writing has long been a key part of the curriculum.” So must all student essays now be written in class under the watchful eye of teachers? That’s impractical, say Carlson and Brophy, but so is trying to catch cheaters with AI-detection tools, which are notoriously unreliable. Instead, they suggest the VOICE framework (which Brophy is using in his classes at High Point University) to ensure authentic student writing in the age of AI:

• Verification of process – Use tools like Google Docs and Draftback to monitor students’ writing as it unfolds – “each thoughtful pause, revision, and rephrasing part of the paper’s cultivation,” they say. “This not only deters undetectable cheating but also affirms writing as iterative and evolving.” 

• Ownership through reflection – Have students give brief oral presentations to explain in their own voice their writing decisions and idea development. 

• Iterative stages – Students work through progressive phases – low-stakes reading-analysis papers, proposals, drafts, and revisions – which scaffold learning and make last-minute outsourcing to ChatGPT less likely. Students are graded on their process as well as the final product.

• Collaborative engagement – Peers review drafts, which makes writing social and accountable. “When students explain their ideas to each other,” say Carlson and Brophy, “they clarify those ideas for themselves. This also adds to motivation by looping peers into their process and helps lighten the burden on the professor. Further, it cultivates a classroom community based on trust and sharing of ideas.” 

• Emphasis on ideas over mechanics – “Instructors must confront the startling truth that never again will college graduates need to write a polished essay entirely on their own,” say the authors. “They will always have AI as their co-author. In the age of AI, the value of writing lies less in grammar and polish than in grappling with comprehension, synthesis, and original insight.” 

“Stop Assigning Traditional Essays” by Scott Carlson and Matthew Brophy in The Edge: The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 16, 2025; Brophy is at mbrophy@highpoint.edu. 

Excerpts or whole novels - Tim Shanahan

 link to his article

How to Get High-School Students Reading More Closely

 How to Get High-School Students Reading More Closely

from Marshall Memo 1111 (Nov 3, 2025)

In this Cult of Pedagogy article, Jennifer Gonzalez says that with so much text reading
in schools, “sometimes, in some classes, with some students, it can get pretty boring. Pretty
dry.” She interviewed high-school English teachers Brian Sztabnik and Susan Barber, who
have an online presence (Much Ado About Teaching) and recently published a book of
strategies for getting students more engaged with texts. Here are three of their ideas:

• Reconstructing poems – A poem is cut up (into lines, phrases, or individual words)
and students put the poem back together, annotate their version, and compare it with the
original. “It’s forcing students to do a close reading of the poem,” says Barber. “If I would
have passed out this poem and said, I want you to do a close reading, their eyes would be
glazed over.” Putting the pieces together gets them slowing down and thinking about lines,
phrases, words, punctuation, and meaning.

• Inferential timeline – Each student is assigned a few pages from a section of the novel
being read by the class and writes on an index card or sticky note the most important thing that
happened on those pages, with a quote that illustrates it. “This is all about decision-making and
cutting out the extraneous details and just focusing on what’s really important,” says Sztabnik.
“Often it’s either character development or increasing conflict or maybe a symbol finally
emerges.” Students post their cards on a timeline on a wall.
Students then stand up, choose another student’s card, and add a new card under it with
an explanation of why they believe that moment was significant in the grand scheme of the
novel. Finally, students do a gallery walk of the whole timeline, taking notes on the inferences
their classmates made.

• Text rendering – The class reads a passage and each student chooses the sentence or
line they think is most important, then the most important phrase within that sentence, then the
most important word in that phrase. Students defend their choices to the full class, then small
groups work together to draw general conclusions about the passage. Barber says she came up
with this idea because students were often vague about where they got an idea from a text (It’s
just there, they’d say). Text rendering gets them reading much more closely and zeroing in on
specific language and meaning.

“3 Fresh Strategies That Get Students Engaged with Texts” by Jennifer Gonzalez, Brian
Sztabnik, and Susan Barber in Cult of Pedagogy, October 26, 2025; Gonazlez can be reached
at gonzjenn@cultofpedagogy.com . Sztabnik and Barber’s book is 100% Engagement.

Know the signs of AI writing

 

Know the signs of AI writing

from this website

There are telltale signs of AI writing. If you’re new to teaching or unfamiliar with AI, just knowing these can help grow your AI Spidey Sense. Here are some to look for:

• The Em Dash – AI, ChatGPT especially, loves to use the em dash (—). And it usually uses it incorrectly, substituting it for a comma. Students, however, almost never use an em dash, especially below 11th grade. (For lovers of the em dash, like myself, this royally sucks.)
• Parallel Structure – AI frequently leans on triplets or balanced phrasing (e.g., “She was strong, she was brave, she was determined”). Students usually don’t polish structure that deliberately.
• Empty language – AI was designed to fill a word count. It’s very good at using vague, meaningless, or unnecessary words, often culminating in a bland and empty essay.
• Overly tidy paragraphs: Each one often follows the same rhythm (topic sentence + evidence + conclusion) with no natural tangents, quirks, or false starts.
• Smooth but generic transitions: AI loves words like moreover, furthermore, consequently, in conclusion. Real students are more likely to mix “so,” “but,” or skip transitions entirely.
• Vague sophistication: AI favors slightly elevated but non-specific words (significant, crucial, deeply, inherently, resonates, underscores). Students tend to swing between too casual or too forced.
• Clichéd analogies: AI might drop clichés like “a double-edged sword,” “a beacon of hope,” “paints a vivid picture.”
• Balanced but bland tone: One nice thing about grading AI-generated work in upper level ELA classes is that it isn’t that good or interesting.
• Symmetrical answers (usually in 3s): If the writing prompt a 3-part question, the response will almost always have three neat sections, each similarly sized. AI loves 3s: three main ideas, three body paragraphs, or even just the number three.
• Perfect grammar: This may be dependent on your students’ grade level, but if a sixth grader writes a 4-page essay without a single error, I might be impressed…or suspicious.
• Impersonal responses: AI writing usually removes 1st person POV from student writing. If you required a personal response, AI writing might come off as a level or two removed from this.

How well does "Jigsaw Learning" work?

From Marshall Memo 1099

 Jigsaw Learning – How Well Does It Work?

In this Review of Educational Research article, Eva Vives (Ghent University) and six

co-authors report on their meta-analysis of jigsaw, a cooperative learning strategy developed in

the 1970s by Elliot Aronson and colleagues at the University of Texas (details at the Jigsaw

Classroom website ). Here is the most common jigsaw sequence:

- The class is divided into groups.

- Curriculum content is split into the same number of segments as students per group.

- For example, with a lesson on Eleanor Roosevelt and 5-student groups: her childhood,

family life, life after FDR’s polio, as First Lady, and her career after FDR’s death.

- In each group, students are assigned different segments and silently study material on it.

- The class reshuffles into “expert groups” for the segments, and each discusses its

portion and rehearses how it will be presented back in their home groups.

- The original groups reconvene and each “expert” presents their segment in sequence.

- The teacher circulates to monitor and intervene as needed.

- If all students do their job, each group puts together the jigsaw of the whole lesson.

- All students are assessed on their knowledge of the lesson’s content.

Advocates of jigsaw learning believe it has these key attributes: students are more

actively involved than in a standard teacher-centered class; every student takes responsibility

for curriculum content; students teach each other; students work together to reach the learning

goal; and students get practice on collaboration and social-emotional skills.

How effective is jigsaw learning? Vives and her colleagues did a comprehensive review

of 40 years of research and found mixed results depending on the curriculum area and how

well it was implemented. Their conclusions:

• “The introduction of social interdependence in the classroom,” say the researchers, “can

have positive effects on both academic and psychological outcomes.” Students from

elementary grades through college liked jigsaw as a classroom process.

• The most positive academic results were in language arts and social sciences classes,

somewhat less positive in STEM and vocational classes. Academic gains from jigsaw lessons

were more long-lasting than from standard instruction. A key factor in stickiness seemed to be

the “desirable difficulty” involved in the expert phase – the challenge for students being

responsible for studying their content, understanding it, and presenting to peers.

• Some studies found that jigsaw resulted in a high cognitive load on students as they

studied their portion and presented it to peers. Interestingly, the cognitive load was higher in

jigsaw lessons than in a conventionally taught classroom, even though each student was

responsible for only a fraction of the lesson content. Learning depended on groupmates’ skill at

learning and presenting the material.

• Jigsaw lessons had positive psychosocial effects, including students’ motivation and

feeling of competence. Jigsaw’s impact was mixed on boosting student self-esteem and

reducing prejudice. Oddly, there has been little research on how well jigsaw lessons developed

cooperation skills.

“The jigsaw method,” say Vives et al., “confronts students with both a cultural and a

cognitive challenge that requires students to learn how to function in such a pedagogical

environment, in addition to learning their course materials. Such learning may take time.”

That’s why jigsaw is challenging for teachers. Many schools don’t have a culture of

cooperation, and students may not have the social skills to work cooperatively, aren’t used to

being dependent on one another, and may lack the cognitive skills to take responsibility for a

piece of the curriculum and teach it to classmates. Jigsaw lessons were most effective, the

researchers found, when teachers took the time to explicitly teach the cooperative and

cognitive skills involved in the process.

Vives and colleagues believe jigsaw learning may be especially important as digital tools

become more prominent. “Digital technologies,” they say, “offer unprecedented opportunities

for collaborative learning and real-time support for class management (e.g., forming student

groups, monitoring the engagement of learning, deciding when and how to intervene in their

learning activities…). However, as sophisticated as they can be, the digital tools in support of

collaborative learning methods can only be effective if the methods themselves are well

understood and guided by a detailed knowledge of the cognitive and socio-cognitive processes

they activate… We have never needed this knowledge so much.”

“Learning with Jigsaw: A Systematic Review Gathering All the Pieces of the Puzzle More

Than 40 Years Later” by Eva Vives, Céline Poletti, Anaïs Robert, Fabrizio Butera, Pascal

Huguet, ProFAN Consortium, and Isabelle Régner in Review of Educational Research, June

2025 (Vol. 95, #3, pp. 339-384); Vives can be reached at eva.vives13@gmail.com .

Harry Wong - First Days of School

 According to Harry Wong, the first days of school are crucial for setting the tone for the entire year and establishing a successful learning environment. 

1. Teach and Rehearse Procedures

Goal: Build routines through modeling and repetition.

• Activity 1: Procedure Stations

  • Set up “stations” around the room (e.g., turning in work, asking for help, group work norms). Students rotate in small groups, reading a posted scenario and practicing the expected procedure.

• Activity 2: “What Would You Do?” Scenarios

  • Project or hand out short “what if” scenarios (e.g., “You forgot your homework. Now what?”). In pairs, students decide the best response based on your procedures, then share with the class.

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2. Establish Expectations and Consistency

Goal: Clarify classroom norms and make them stick.

• Activity 1: Co-Creating Norms

  • Ask students to brainstorm what a respectful, productive classroom looks like. Then share your own non-negotiables. Combine them into a class agreement you revisit often.

• Activity 2: “The Why Behind the Rule” Discussion

  • Instead of just listing rules, present each one with a short explanation or real-world example (e.g., “Why no phones during discussion?”). Invite student input and reasoning.

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3. Build Relationships

Goal: Create trust and emotional safety.

• Activity 1: “One-Pager” Student Profiles

  • Students create a simple page with their name, interests, goals, and a fun fact. Display them (with permission) or refer to them as you learn names and build rapport.

• Activity 2: “2-Minute Connections”

  • Spend 2 minutes with each student (over a few days) asking informal questions or following up on something they shared. This builds personal connection without requiring a whole class period.

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4. Create a Positive Classroom Environment

Goal: Establish a space that signals purpose and belonging.

• Activity 1: Student Voice Wall

  • Reserve part of your wall or whiteboard for rotating student quotes, jokes, recommendations, or goals. It gives them ownership and keeps the space dynamic.

• Activity 2: Classroom Tour with Purpose

  • Walk students through the room as if it's a living system: where things are stored, how group work is set up, how to access resources, etc. Ask questions to engage them in the layout’s logic.

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5. Start Teaching Right Away

Goal: Establish that learning begins on Day One.

• Activity 1: “Mystery Text” Engagement

  • Begin with a short, intriguing text (poem, paragraph, image, or artifact). Ask students to annotate or respond. This signals that your class is about thinking and curiosity.

• Activity 2: Low-Stakes Writing

  • Prompt: “What makes a great classroom?” or “What’s something you’re proud of learning?” Collect and read for tone and voice—not grammar—so you can begin to learn their skills.

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6. Communicate That You Are Organized and Prepared

Goal: Show students that this is a high-functioning space.

• Activity 1: Syllabus Walkthrough with Purpose

  • Rather than reading your syllabus aloud, frame it as “Here’s how this class works best for you.” Emphasize supports, grading clarity, and why you designed it this way.

• Activity 2: Bell-Ringer Routine Launch

• Start a consistent beginning-of-class routine (e.g., “Do Now” or “Lit Lifter”). Train students how it works and why it matters. Use the same format daily from the start.\