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How to Set Up Authentic Assignments in High School English

Assignments that align with standards and hone students’ critical thinking skills can boost their engagement in learning.

During my district’s teacher-led summer professional development, my colleagues and I often discussed the benefits of authentic learning, which helps create a culture of learning. With authentic activities and assessments, ELA students work on a variety of tasks that connect to the real  world. Authentic learning is effective in virtual and in-person classes, and increases student engagement while deepening learning. 

What makes an activity meaningful or authentic? Authentic activities mirror real-world tasks. They give students an opportunity to showcase their work to others, the community, other students, or parents. Authentic assignments have several defining characteristics. When considering and planning authentic assignments, think about how to incorporate the following:

• Collaboration 
• Real audience/ assessment 
• Interdisciplinary connections 
• Polished products
• Multiple solutions/ perspectives
• Real-life relevance 

Authentic learning has many benefits in the classroom. Students individualize their assignments, hone critical thinking skills, practice autonomy, innovate and adapt, and become agents of change. 

Core Authentic Learning

Authentic learning  assignments closely align with the Common Core State Standards and 21st Century Skills . The Common Core State Standards center on preparing students to read, write, listen, and speak across all content areas. The skills and knowledge that make up the standards prepare students for the real world. Here are some examples of the standards :

• Writing. 9-10.2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
• Writing. 9-10.6: Use technology, including the internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.
• Reading Information Text. 9-10.8:  Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning.

These standards serve as the foundation of the authentic tasks. In my planning, I always look at the language of the standard to help design the authentic task. For example, the writing standard encourages a variety of ways to use technology to publish student work. Additionally, the Speaking & Listening Standards encourage students to question, share, and expand.

A common misconception is that teachers lack the time and resources to implement authentic learning, but they can easily integrate mini-lessons covering specific skills. Teachers can focus mini-lessons or small group work on these standards while also providing independent time for students to work on their authentic projects.

5 Examples of Authentic Tasks

1. Blogging/vlogging: Students capture their thoughts, ideas, and questions while showcasing their work to a wide audience. They can blog about current events, or react to themes in a unit, or explore ideas from class. Keeping a blog or vlog helps students learn how to write for an audience and practice using their voice.

2. Community newsletters: Communication is a foundational skill and part of the Common Core. Creating a newsletter is a good example. In my school, students make newsletters about what’s going on in our classrooms to send home to their families. Additionally, using a template from Canva or Google Docs, students can create newsletters about what’s happening in the local community. Sending out the newsletters to others, such the local newspaper, school community, and parents, gives meaning to student writing.

3. Student presentations: Speaking and presenting are two critical skills for students to learn, and teachers can invite other classes, administrators, or even community members to watch the presentations. With an audience, students practice their public speaking and gain confidence. My favorite students’ presentations have been when our class re-created Shark Tank and invited community members to listen, provide feedback, and comment on the projects. If time is an issue, students can record presentations on platforms like Flipgrid or upload videos to Padlet or Google Sites.

4. Student-designed assessments: The classroom is always abuzz when students create tests and quizzes for each other. The competition among peers results in increased motivation and engagement, with students competing over who can make a harder test. In the past, I’ve provided students with the Common Core State Standards they needed to assess, which culminated in deeper learning for all students.

5. Competitions and contests: The New York Times and NPR both run student contests that are free to enter. The New York Times  offers a variety of options throughout the school year, and NPR  has a student podcast challenge each year on any topic. I also check local organizations and groups for a variety of essay or poetry contests.

Remember to focus on making learning fun, applicable, and rigorous. Authentic assignments are flexible for teachers, as students can work on them independently, in small groups, as end-of-unit assessments, or as whole-unit assessments. These learning opportunities create student platforms that will engage all students . Most important, meaningful assignments foster highly effective student collaboration and critical thinking for a lifetime of learning. Authentic tasks help prepare students for the expectations of tomorrow. 

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Pedagogy - Diversifying Your Teaching Methods, Learning Activities, and Assignments

Definition of Pedagogy 

In the most general sense, pedagogy is all the ways that instructors and students work with the course content. The fundamental learning goal for students is to be able to do “something meaningful” with the course content. Meaningful learning typically results in students working in the middle to upper levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy . We sometimes find that novice instructors conflate course content with pedagogy. This often results in “teaching as talking” where the presentation of content by the instructor is confused with the learning of content by the students. Think of your course content as clay and pedagogy as the ways you ask students to make “something meaningful” from that clay. Pedagogy is the combination of teaching methods (what instructors do), learning activities (what instructors ask their students to do), and learning assessments (the assignments, projects, or tasks that measure student learning).

Key Idea for Pedagogy

Diversify your pedagogy by varying your teaching methods, learning activities, and assignments. Critically assess your pedagogy through the lens of BIPOC students’ experiences at a PWI . We visualize these two related practices as a cycle because they are iterative and ongoing. Diversifying your pedagogy likely means shedding some typical ways of teaching in your discipline, or the teaching practices you inherited. It likely means doing more active learning and less traditional lecturing. Transforming good pedagogy into equitable pedagogy means rethinking your pedagogy in light of the PWI context and considering the ways your pedagogy may help or hinder learning for BIPOC students. 

PWI Assumptions for Pedagogy

Understanding where students are on the spectrum of novice to expert learning in your discipline or course is a key challenge to implementing effective and inclusive pedagogy (National Research Council 2000). Instructors are typically so far removed from being a novice learner in their disciplines that they struggle to understand where students are on that spectrum. A key PWI assumption is that students understand how your disciplinary knowledge is organized and constructed . Students typically do not understand your discipline or the many other disciplines they are working in during their undergraduate years. Even graduate students may find it puzzling to explain the origins, methodologies, theories, logics, and assumptions of their disciplines. A second PWI assumption is that students are (or should be) academically prepared to learn your discipline . Students may be academically prepared for learning in some disciplines, but unless their high school experience was college preparatory and well supported, students (especially first-generation college students) are likely finding their way through a mysterious journey of different disciplinary conventions and modes of working and thinking (Nelson 1996).

A third PWI assumption is that instructors may confuse students’ academic underpreparation with their intelligence or capacity to learn . Academic preparation is typically a function of one’s high school experience including whether that high school was well resourced or under funded. Whether or not a student receives a quality high school education is usually a structural matter reflecting inequities in our K12 educational systems, not a reflection of an individual student’s ability to learn. A final PWI assumption is that students will learn well in the ways that the instructor learned well . Actually most instructors in higher education self-selected into disciplines that align with their interests, skills, academic preparation, and possibly family and community support. Our students have broader and different goals for seeking a college education and bring a range of skills to their coursework, which may or may not align with instructors’ expectations of how students learn. Inclusive teaching at a PWI means supporting the learning and career goals of our students.

Pedagogical Content Knowledge as a Core Concept

Kind and Chan (2019) propose that Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) is the synthesis of Content Knowledge (expertise about a subject area) and Pedagogical Knowledge (expertise about teaching methods, assessment, classroom management, and how students learn). Content Knowledge (CK) without Pedagogical Knowledge (PK) limits instructors’ ability to teach effectively or inclusively. Novice instructors that rely on traditional lectures likely have limited Pedagogical Knowledge and may also be replicating their own inherited teaching practices. While Kind and Chan (2019) are writing from the perspective of science education, their concepts apply across disciplines. Moreover, Kind and Chan (2019) support van Driel et al.’s assertion that:

high-quality PCK is not characterized by knowing as many strategies as possible to teach a certain topic plus all the misconceptions students may have about it but by knowing when to apply a certain strategy in recognition of students’ actual learning needs and understanding why a certain teaching approach may be useful in one situation (quoted in Kind and Chan 2019, 975). 

As we’ve stressed throughout this guide, the teaching context matters, and for inclusive pedagogy, special attention should be paid to the learning goals, instructor preparation, and students’ point of entry into course content. We also argue that the PWI context shapes what instructors might practice as CK, PK, and PCK. We recommend instructors become familiar with evidence-based pedagogy (or the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning , SoTL) in their fields. Moreover, we advise instructors to find and follow those instructors and scholars that specifically focus on inclusive teaching in their fields in order to develop an inclusive, flexible, and discipline-specific Pedagogical Content Knowledge.

Suggested Practices for Diversifying + Assessing Pedagogy

Although diversifying and critically assessing teaching methods, learning activities, and assignments will vary across disciplines, we offer a few key starting points. Diversifying your pedagogy is easier than critically assessing it through a PWI lens, but both steps are essential. In general, you can diversify your pedagogy by learning about active learning, peer learning, team-based learning, experiential learning, problem-based learning, and case-based learning, among others . There is extensive evidence-based pedagogical literature and practical guides readily available for these methods. And you can also find and follow scholars in your discipline that use these and other teaching methods.

Diversifying Your Pedagogy

Convert traditional lectures into interactive (or active) lectures.

For in-person or synchronous online courses, break a traditional lecture into “mini-lectures” of 10-15 minutes in length. After each mini-lecture, ask your students to process their learning using a discussion or problem prompt, a Classroom Assessment Technique (CAT), a Think-Pair-Share, or another brief learning activity. Read Lecturing from Center for Teaching , Vanderbilt University.

Structure small group discussions

Provide both a process and concrete questions or tasks to guide student learning (for example, provide a scenario with 3 focused tasks such as identify the problem, brainstorm possible solutions, and list the pros/cons for each solution). Read How to Hold a Better Class Discussion , The Chronicle of Higher Education .

Integrate active learning

Integrate active learning, especially into courses that are conceptual, theoretical, or otherwise historically challenging (for example, calculus, organic chemistry, statistics, philosophy). For gateway courses, draw upon the research of STEM and other education specialists on how active learning and peer learning improves student learning and reduces disparities. Read the Association of American Universities STEM Network Scholarship .  

Include authentic learning

Include authentic learning, learning activities and assignments that mirror how students will work after graduation. What does it mean to think and work like an engineer? How do project teams work together? How does one present research in an educational social media campaign? Since most students seeking a college education will not become academic researchers or faculty, what kinds of things will they do in the “real world?” Help students practice and hone those skills as they learn the course content. Read Edutopia’s PBL: What Does It Take for a Project to Be Authentic?

Vary assignments and provide options

Graded assignments should range from low to high stakes. Low stakes assignments allow students to learn from their mistakes and receive timely feedback on their learning. Options for assignments allow students to demonstrate their learning, rather than demonstrate their skill at a particular type of assessment (such as a multiple choice exam or an academic research paper). Read our guide, Create Assessments That Promote Learning for All Students .

Critically Assess Your Pedagogy

Critically assessing your pedagogy through the PWI lens with attention to how your pedagogy may affect the learning of BIPOC students is more challenging and highly contextual. Instructors will want to review and apply the concepts and principles discussed in the earlier sections of this guide on Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs), PWI Assumptions, and Class Climate. 

Reflect on patterns

Reflect on patterns of participation, progress in learning (grade distributions), and other course-related evidence. Look at your class sessions and assignments as experimental data. Who participated? What kinds of participation did you observe? Who didn’t participate? Why might that be? Are there a variety of ways for students to participate in the learning activities (individually, in groups, via discussion, via writing, synchronously/in-person, asynchronously/online)?

Respond to feedback on climate

Respond to feedback on climate from on-going check-ins and Critical Incident Questionnaires (CIQs) as discussed in the Climate Section (Ongoing Practices). Students will likely disengage from your requests for feedback if you do not respond to their feedback. Use this feedback to re-calibrate and re-think your pedagogy. 

Seek feedback on student learning

Seek feedback on student learning in the form of Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs), in-class polls, asynchronous forums, exam wrappers, and other methods.  Demonstrate that you care about your students’ learning by responding to this feedback as well. Here’s how students in previous semesters learned this material … I’m scheduling a problem-solving review session in the next class in response to the results of the exam …

Be diplomatic but clear when correcting mistakes and misconceptions

First-generation college students, many of whom may also identify as BIPOC, have typically achieved a great deal with few resources and significant barriers (Yosso 2005). However, they may be more likely to internalize their learning mistakes as signs that they don’t belong at the university. When correcting, be sure to normalize mistakes as part of the learning process. The correct answer is X, but I can see why you thought it was Y. Many students think it is Y because … But the correct answer is X because … Thank you for helping us understand that misconception.

Allow time for students to think and prepare for participation in a non-stressful setting

This was already suggested in the Climate Section (Race Stressors), but it is worth repeating. BIPOC students and multilingual students may need more time to prepare, not because of their intellectual abilities, but because of the effects of race stressors and other stressors increasing their cognitive load. Providing discussion or problem prompts in advance will reduce this stress and make space for learning. Additionally both student populations may experience stereotype threat, so participation in the “public” aspects of the class session may be stressful in ways that are not true for the majority white and domestic students. If you cannot provide prompts in advance, be sure to allow ample individual “think time” during a synchronous class session.

Avoid consensus models or majority rules processes

This was stated in the Climate Section (Teaching Practices to Avoid), but it’s such an entrenched PWI practice that it needs to be spotlighted and challenged. If I am a numerical “minority” and I am asked to come to consensus or agreement with a numerical “majority,” it is highly likely that my perspective will be minimized or dismissed. Or, I will have to expend a lot of energy to persuade my group of the value of my perspective, which is highly stressful. This is an unacceptable burden to put on BIPOC students and also may result in BIPOC students being placed in the position of teaching white students about a particular perspective or experience. The resulting tensions may also damage BIPOC students’ positive relationships with white students and instructors. When suitable for your content, create a learning experience that promotes seeking multiple solutions to problems, cases, or prompts. Rather than asking students to converge on one best recommendation, why not ask students to log all possible solutions (without evaluation) and then to recommend at least two solutions that include a rationale? Moreover, for course content dealing with policies, the recommended solutions could be explained in terms of their possible effects on different communities. If we value diverse perspectives, we need to structure the consideration of those perspectives into our learning activities and assignments. 

We recognize the challenges of assessing your pedagogy through the PWI lens and doing your best to assess the effects on BIPOC student learning. This is a complex undertaking. But we encourage you to invite feedback from your students as well as to seek the guidance of colleagues, including advisors and other student affairs professionals, to inform your ongoing practices of teaching inclusively at a PWI. In the next section, we complete our exploration of the Inclusive Teaching at a PWI Framework by exploring the importance of auditing, diversifying, and critically assessing course content.

Pedagogy References

Kind, Vanessa and Kennedy K.H. Chan. 2019. “Resolving the Amalgam: Connecting Pedagogical Content Knowledge, Content Knowledge and Pedagogical Knowledge.” International Journal of Science Education . 41(7): 964-978.

Howard, Jay. N.D. “How to Hold a Better Class Discussion: Advice Guide.” The Chronicle of Higher Education . https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-to-hold-a-better-class-discussion/#2 

National Research Council. 2000. “How Experts Differ from Novices.” Chap 2 in How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition . Washington D.C.: The National Academies Press. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/9853/how-people-learn-brain-mind-experience-and-school-expanded-edition

Nelson, Craig E. 1996. “Student Diversity Requires Different Approaches to College Teaching, Even in Math and Science.” The American Behavioral Scientist . 40 (2): 165-175.

Sathy, Viji and Kelly A. Hogan. N.D.  “How to Make Your Teaching More Inclusive: Advice Guide.” The Chronicle of Higher Education . https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-to-make-your-teaching-more-inclusive/?cid=gen_sign_in

Yosso, Tara J. 2005. “Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth.” Race, Ethnicity and Education . 8 (1): 69-91.

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Meaning of assignment in English

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• It was a jammy assignment - more of a holiday really.
• He took this award-winning photograph while on assignment in the Middle East .
• His two-year assignment to the Mexico office starts in September .
• She first visited Norway on assignment for the winter Olympics ten years ago.
• He fell in love with the area after being there on assignment for National Geographic in the 1950s.
• act as something
• all work and no play (makes Jack a dull boy) idiom
• be at work idiom
• be in work idiom
• housekeeping
• in the line of duty idiom
• undertaking

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

assignment | American Dictionary

Assignment | business english, examples of assignment, collocations with assignment.

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a large office in which a company's employees provide information to its customers, or sell or advertise its goods or services, by phone

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Definition of assignment noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

• Students are required to complete all homework assignments.
• You will need to complete three written assignments per semester.
• a business/special assignment
• I had set myself a tough assignment.
• on an assignment She is in Greece on an assignment for one of the Sunday newspapers.
• on assignment one of our reporters on assignment in China
• The students handed in their assignments.
• The teacher gave us an assignment on pollution.
• Why did you take on this assignment if you're so busy?
• He refused to accept the assignment.
• assignment on

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Look up any word in the dictionary offline, anytime, anywhere with the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app.

Capstone Project

Also called a capstone experience , culminating project , or  senior exhibition , among many other terms, a capstone project is a multifaceted assignment that serves as a culminating academic and intellectual experience for students, typically during their final year of high school or middle school, or at the end of an academic program or learning-pathway experience . While similar in some ways to a college thesis, capstone projects may take a wide variety of forms, but most are long-term investigative projects that culminate in a final product, presentation, or performance. For example, students may be asked to select a topic, profession, or social problem that interests them, conduct research on the subject, maintain a portfolio of findings or results, create a final product demonstrating their learning acquisition or conclusions (a paper, short film, or multimedia presentation, for example), and give an oral presentation on the project to a panel of teachers, experts, and community members who collectively evaluate its quality.

Capstone projects are generally designed to encourage students to think critically, solve challenging problems, and develop skills such as oral communication, public speaking, research skills, media literacy, teamwork, planning, self-sufficiency, or goal setting—i.e., skills that will help prepare them for college, modern careers, and adult life. In most cases, the projects are also interdisciplinary, in the sense that they require students to apply skills or investigate issues across many different subject areas or domains of knowledge. Capstone projects also tend to encourage students to connect their projects to community issues or problems, and to integrate outside-of-school learning experiences, including activities such as interviews, scientific observations, or internships.

While capstone projects can take a wide variety of forms from school to school, a few examples will help to illustrate both the concept and the general educational intentions:

• Writing, directing, and filming a public-service announcement that will be aired on public-access television
• Designing and building a product, computer program, app, or robot to address a specific need, such as assisting the disabled
• Interning at a nonprofit organization or a legislator’s office to learn more about strategies and policies intended to address social problems, such as poverty, hunger, or homelessness
• Conducting a scientific study over several months or a year to determine the ecological or environmental impact of changes to a local habitat
• Researching an industry or market, and creating a viable business plan for a proposed company that is then “pitched” to a panel of local business leaders

For related discussions, see authentic learning , portfolio ,  relevance , and 21st century skills .

As a school-reform strategy, capstone projects are often an extension of more systemic school-improvement models or certain teaching philosophies or strategies, such as 21st century skills, community-based learning , proficiency-based learning , project-based learning , or student-centered learning , to name just a few.

The following are a few representative educational goals of capstone projects:

• Increasing the academic rigor of the senior year. Historically, high school students have taken a lighter course load or left school early during their twelfth-grade year, which can contribute to learning loss or insufficient preparation for first-year college work. A more academically and intellectually challenging senior year, filled with demanding but stimulating learning experiences such as a capstone project, the reasoning goes, can reduce senior-year learning loss , keep students in school longer (or otherwise engaged in learning), and increase preparation for college and work.
• Increasing student motivation and engagement. The creative nature of capstone projects, which are typically self-selected by students and based on personal interests, can strengthen student motivation to learn, particularly during a time (twelfth grade) when academic motivation and engagement tend to wane.
• Increasing educational and career aspirations. By involving students in long-term projects that intersect with personal interests and professional aspirations, capstone projects can help students with future planning, goal setting, postsecondary decisions, and career exploration—particularly for those students who may be unfocused, uncertain, or indecisive about their post-graduation plans and aspirations.
• Improving student confidence and self-perceptions. Capstone projects typically require students to take on new responsibilities, be more self-directed, set goals, and follow through on commitments. Completing such projects can boost self-esteem, build confidence, and teach students about the value of accomplishment. Students may also become role models for younger students, which can cultivate leadership abilities and have positive cultural effects within a school.
• Demonstrating learning and proficiency. As one of many educational strategies broadly known as demonstrations of learning , capstone projects can be used to determine student proficiency (in the acquisition of knowledge and skills) or readiness (for college and work) by requiring them to demonstrate what they have learned over the course of their project

In recent years, the capstone-project concept has also entered the domain of state policy. In Rhode Island, for example, the state’s high school graduation requirements stipulate that seniors must complete two out of three assessment options, one of which can be a capstone project. Several other states require students to complete some form of senior project, while in other states such projects may be optional, and students who complete a capstone project may receive special honors or diploma recognition.

Most criticism of or debate about capstone projects is not focused on the strategy itself, or its intrinsic or potential educational value, but rather on the quality of its execution—i.e., capstone projects tend to be criticized when they are poorly designed or reflect low academic standards, or when students are allowed to complete relatively superficial projects of low educational value. In addition, if teachers and students consider capstone projects to be a formality, lower-quality products typically result. And if the projects reflect consistently low standards, quality, and educational value year after year, educators, students, parents, and community members may come to view capstone projects as a waste of time or resources.

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• The Impact of Digital Tools on Student Writing and How Writing is Taught in Schools
• Part II: How Much, and What, do Today’s Middle and High School Students Write?

Table of Contents

• Part I: Introduction
• Part III: Teachers See Digital Tools Affecting Student Writing in Myriad Ways
• Part IV: Teachers Assess Students on Specific Writing Skills
• Part V: Teaching Writing in the Digital Age

AP and NWP teachers participating in the survey report giving students written assignments ranging from research papers to short responses, journaling, and creative writing.  The type and frequency of written assignments varies considerably by the subject being taught and grade level, but on the whole these AP and NWP teachers place tremendous value on formal written assignments.

These teachers also point out that “writing” can be defined more broadly than written work assigned in an academic setting.  In focus groups, many teachers noted that in addition to the “formal” writing students do for class, they are engaged in many forms of writing outside of the classroom, much of it using digital tools and platforms such as texting and online social networking.  How to define these new types of writing and determining what impact they have on the “formal writing” students do in class remains an open question for many of these teachers.  But most agree that among  students , “writing” continues to be defined as assignments they are  required  to do for school, as opposed to textual expression they engage in on their own time.

The writing assignments AP and NWP teachers give their students

The survey quantified what types of writing exercises AP and NWP teachers assign to their middle and high school students.  As the graphic below suggests, among this group of teachers, short essays and journaling are the most commonly assigned writing tasks.  More than half of the sample (58%) report having their students write short essays, short responses, or opinion pieces at least once a week.  Four in ten (41%) have students journal on a weekly basis.

Research papers, multimedia assignments, and creative writing in the form of plays or short stories, while not assigned by many teachers on a weekly basis, are assigned at some point during the academic year by most of these AP and NWP teachers. Just over three-quarters report having students complete a research paper (77%) or a multimedia project (77%) at some point during the current academic year.  Two-thirds (66%) have students engage in creative writing, such as poetry, a play, a short story or piece of fiction, at least once a year.

In contrast, more specialized types of writing assignments such as writing out mathematical problems or proofs, writing up labs, writing computer programs, designing computer games, and writing music or lyrics are assigned rarely, if ever, by most AP and NWP teachers surveyed.

The type and frequency of written work assigned is obviously highly dependent on the subject matter being taught.  Among Math teachers, for example, 81% report having students write out mathematical problems, proofs or concepts on at least a weekly basis.  And among science teachers, 51% have students write up labs at least once a week and 56% have students write out mathematical concepts or problems.  All of these percentages are much higher than those for teachers of other subjects.

In addition, while 94% of English teachers and 83% of history/social studies teachers had their students write a research paper in the 2011-2012 academic year, that figure is 68% among science teachers and 36% among math teachers.  A similar pattern emerges for multimedia or mixed media assignments, with English (84%) and history/social studies (82%) teachers most likely and math teachers least likely (51%) to have given their students this type of assignment in the prior academic year. Science teachers (70%) fall in the middle.

How do teachers—and students—define “writing” in the digital world?

A fundamental question posed to the AP and NWP teachers in the current study is how they and their students define “writing.”  Specifically, we asked teachers which forms of writing in the digital age—academic writing assignments, texting, social network site posts, blogs, tweets, etc.— are “writing” in their eyes, and which are not?  In a 2008 Pew Internet survey of teens on this topic, the consensus among 12-17 year-olds was that there is a fundamental distinction between their digital communications with friends and family and the more formal writing they do for school or for their own purposes.  Only the latter is considered “writing” in teens’ eyes. 9  Survey and focus group findings in the current study indicate this perception has not changed, either among students or their teachers, and that there remains a fairly strong conceptual divide between “formal” and “informal” writing.  For both groups, much day-to-day digital communication falls into the latter category.

Asked in focus groups to clarify what, specifically, they consider “writing,” the majority of teachers indicated that “formal writing” and “creative writing” fit their definition of “writing.”  Slightly fewer said they would classify “blogging” as writing, and very few said they would consider texting as a form of writing. Asked how they thought students would categorize these same writing forms, the results are comparable.  Most of these teachers do not think their students consider texting writing, but rather confine their definition of “writing” to those exercises they are required to do for school.  A handful of teachers went even further, saying that some students define “writing” only as something that requires them to use complete sentences.

On how students define “writing,” AP and NWP teachers say…

Our kids, over the course of their lives, will write infinitely more than we ever will. I’m 43 years old–half of my life was lived without email, texting, social networking, etc. The fact is, that is writing. Kids have more access points today and those access points are literally at our fingertips and beeping and buzzing blipping…nudging us to write. Incredibly though, students do not see this as “writing.”

Because students still write journals in some classes, I think they still distinguish this from blogging.  I think they see journaling as writing, but not blogging quite yet.  Although, I think that is starting to change as they start blogging for classes.  I think blogging will be viewed as more official writing in the future.

While most AP and NWP teachers in the focus groups said they do not consider texting, blogging, or micro-blogging (posting on social network sites) “writing” in the traditional sense, they believe these digital formats do spur thinking and encourage communication among their students, which may lead to deeper thinking and self-expression. Several teachers characterized these shorter online posts as “pre-writing” that may get a student engaged in a topic or discourse enough to want to write a longer piece about it or explore it further.  In some teachers’ eyes, these digital forms of expression are building blocks for lengthier, more formal writing.

On newer digital forms of writing, AP and NWP teachers say…

These digital technologies give students a reason to write. Social media and texting are very engaging for them; they write reflexively. It is not classic academic writing for sure. But, they do use the written language to communicate. This requires a certain amount of composition activity. Texters must decide the most efficient set of words to include in their message in order to convey meaning. These activities are “pre-academic writing”, but nevertheless for some kids they are formative processes that can lead to more sophisticated composition skills.

Students can write and voice ideas in many different registers. It is often not “academic” writing in the sense that many teachers would consider. However, I think the kinds of real world applicability of student work in classes makes these new digital tools much more relevant for students beyond their schooling years.

I read a fascinating article that talked about the impact of micro-blogging on writing. The piece started talking about how everyone just assumed that when things like Twitter and Facebook began to become more prevalent we would see a decline in our society’s willingness to take the time to write. What the article went on to explain however, was that many people who blurt something out on these sites are also actually taking the time to digest what others are saying on the matter, collaborate or chat with the others who are talking about the same thing, and then in turn they feel more compelled to go on and take the time to compose a longer piece of writing – such as a blog post. I see a lot of truth to this idea. In essence, the micro-blog has become to some their pre-writing.

Teachers in the study say today’s students are expressing themselves more, and more often

Though most AP and NWP teachers who participated in the study do not characterize activities such as texting, tweeting, blogging or micro-blogging on social network sites as “writing” in the strictest sense, there is almost universal agreement among them that the digital ecology in which today’s teens live provides many more avenues for personal expression.  In addition, most agree that many forms of personal expression are more accessible to the average student than has been the case for past generations.  Ultimately, most of these teachers see their students expressing themselves in text (and other formats) more so than was the case when they themselves were in middle and high school.  Asked in focus groups, if students today simply write more, in sheer quantity, most participating AP and NWP teachers agree this is the case.

On whether today’s students write more than prior generations, AP and NWP teachers say…

Digital technologies provide many opportunities to practice writing through participation. Mobile technologies allow one to write, capture, edit, & publish while on the go, anytime, anywhere. Be it at a museum, walk through the old neighborhood, or on a wilderness hike. Writing is no longer limited to a designated time or location.

They enjoy writing.  When you talk to these kids, they like to write.  They don’t like to write when you tell them, ‘I want you to write this.’  But in fact they love to write, and when you look at what they’re writing, they’re talking about themselves and expressing themselves.  Maybe not well but they are speaking their minds, so they are, I think, exploring who they are and what they’re about and they’re reading what other people are writing and looking at, and exploring other people’s feelings and ideas.

The informality of the written word and how students use the language is the downside of technology, but the upside is that students are communicating in the written form much more than I ever did at their age.

The ease of accessibility brought via technology has opened the availability of writing opportunities for students today. Some devices have tempted students to write everything as if it were a text, but teacher focus on this issue can channel the text craze into more academic writing. I think like all technologies, there are good and bad points, but at least the thought processes of writing are taking place.

I think they’re writing more, more than ever, and I think they have a much more positive outlook on writing, not just because of the school…you have Facebook, you have email, you have Twitter…they’re writing constantly.

[other teacher]

92% of AP and NWP teachers surveyed describe writing assignments as “essential” to the formal learning process, and “writing effectively” tops their list of skills students need to be successful in life

The survey gauged AP and NWP teachers’ sense of the overall importance of incorporating writing into formal learning today, and asked them to rank the value of effective writing vis a vis other skills students may need to be successful in life.  The vast majority (92%) say the incorporation of writing assignments in formal learning is “essential,” with another 7% saying it is “important, but not essential.”  Only 11 teachers out of more than 2,000 describe the incorporation of writing assignments into formal learning as “only somewhat important” or “not important.”

These results are not surprising, given the large number of writing teachers in the sample and the focus on formal writing in much of the U.S. educational system.  But the high value placed on writing extends across AP and NWP teachers of all subjects.  While 99% of English teachers in the sample say that writing assignments are essential to the formal learning process, the same is true for 93% of history/social studies teachers, 86% of science teachers, and 78% of math teachers.

Asked to place a value on various skills today’s students may need in the future, “writing effectively” tops the list of essential skills, along with “judging the quality of information.” 10  Each of these skills is described as “essential” by 91% of AP and NWP teachers surveyed.  Again, while large majorities of teachers of all subjects respond this way, English teachers are slightly more likely than others to say that “writing effectively” is an “essential” skill for students’ future success.

Other skills relevant to the current digital culture also rank high as life skills, with large majorities of these teachers saying that “behaving responsibly online” (85%) and “understanding privacy issues surrounding online and digital content” (78%) are “essential” to students’ success later in life. Skills that fewer of these AP and NWP teachers view as essential for students’ success in life include “presenting themselves effectively in online social networking sites” and “working with audio, video, or graphic content.” Fewer than one in three AP and NWP teachers in the sample describes either of these skills as “essential” to their students’ futures, though pluralities do describe each of these skills “important, but not essential.”

Do AP and NWP teachers see continued value in longer writing assignments?

The tremendous value most AP and NWP teachers place on writing of all forms, and particularly “formal” writing, was reflected throughout focus group discussions.  For some AP and NWP teachers, the extent to which today’s middle and high school students engage in what many see as “informal” writing means that “formal” writing assignments are more critical than ever.  Moreover, many see tremendous value in longer writing assignments that require students to organize their thoughts and fully develop complex ideas (particularly because they often have to present ideas on standardized tests in this format).  They see longer, formal writing assignments as an important juxtaposition to the more informal and often more truncated styles of expression in which their students regularly engage.  Throughout focus groups, AP and NWP teachers expressed the belief that students must master all styles of writing in order to be successful across social domains and to communicate with different audiences.

On the value of longer writing assignments in the digital world, AP and NWP teachers say…

There is great purpose and value in teaching students to write long and formal texts. Again, there are a whole lot of ideas that simply cannot be reduced simply without serious distortion or reduction. Consequently, developing complex ideas and thinking often requires longer texts. Writing is a demonstration of thinking, after all. So the deeper and more complex the thinking, the more that is reflected in the writing. As for formal texts, academia certainly requires a greater level of formality but so does a lot of work in the political, legal, and commercial world. Formal writing is almost always a factor that can be used for exclusion. Inability to write formal texts potentially robs students of voice and power. Arguably more important is the ability to recognize and adjust to the context that is appropriate for a given purpose. So knowing when and how to write with greater formality is an essential skill.

The organization and critical thinking skills that must be employed when students write a longer, more formal piece are skills that will students to become better, more engaged citizens. The processes of brainstorming, researching, evaluating, selecting, analyzing, synthesizing, revising are all skills that help students become more critical citizens, more discerning consumers, and better problem-solvers.

To carry an idea out to see if it is “true” to the thinker or not, I think this is so important. I want students to grapple with the complexity of a subject, to see it from all sides by way of a formal written response. Further, I think breaking down that response into its finer parts help me to teach the components that would go into an extended response. An example of this would be a section of their packet simply titled, DEFINITION. Before going into their response, I ask my students to define their terms and to set their parameters for the paper, not only as a service to their readers, but as a guidepost for themselves.

Writing is thinking—and, quite honestly, I don’t think any of us fully knows what our writing is (will be) about until we write it. Writing develops our thoughts and allows us to grapple with the “whats” and the “whys” of life. In this respect, writing informal and formal texts serves as role playing exercises as much as they do anything else. It is practice in being critical, analytical, reflective, informative and so on. We’re shipping young people out into the world where they are going to have to buy a car, a lawn mower, a stove…and they are going to want to read informative reviews before they spend their money. Writing it allows us to become familiar with it–we may never write an informative review once we leave school, but some…many…will want to read reviews before they spend their own money on something. Beyond buying something, I want to emphasize “writing is thinking is role play for life” as a cross-curricular ideal that too often becomes buried as just an English class objective.

Long texts give students the opportunity to deeply analyze an idea. Longer texts are essential to articulate complex concepts and beliefs. Although not everyone will be asked to write a long academic paper for their jobs, the reflection that goes behind this type of writing is critical for everyone. The process of making thinking transparent and clear to others is essential to knowing the why behind the what. The notion of form al texts supports the idea of knowing how to communicate with various audiences. The more registers a person has in his or her arsenal, the more effective that person will be when communicating with a diverse group.

I think that there is value of having long and well organized thoughts about a topic. I think that when we delve deeply into a topic and have to provide an argument or exploration then we must be able to write logically and coherently and be able to develop a point without getting off track. We must be able to write for an audience and provide evidence and delve deeply. I think there are also audience needs to be met when deciding on what level of formality we will write with so I see the value in teaching formal writing. People have to produce reports for colleagues and prospective business partners and college professors so this is obviously a skill that needs to be learned.

Writing is crucial across the curriculum. Good writing teachers teach students how to communicate a logical argument that is well-researched. At my school, I am impressed with the amount our English and history students write as well as the amount our science students write. The IB program does not have many multiple choice tests; therefore, students have to be good writers to perform well on IB exams… The IB program places such a heavy emphasis on communication that the students (and teachers) have adapted their definition to include anything that involves clearly stating ideas and explaining rationale.

While many focus group participants stressed the importance of learning to write in multiple styles—including more “formal” styles—and to write lengthier pieces on complex topics, other teachers questioned the “term paper mentality” and the tendency of some educators to equate length of assignment with complexity of thought.  Some AP and NWP teachers in the study debated the value of longer textual expression today, not just for students but for society as a whole. As many digital tools encourage shorter, more concise expression, these teachers questioned whether mastering more traditional writing styles will be critical for their students moving forward.  While these skills may be valued in standardized testing and in the college and university settings, there was some debate about how useful these skills are beyond those two arenas. Moreover, some teachers questioned whether lengthy writing assignments are the most effective format for teaching students specific writing skills.

Regardless of the length of a student’s writing, I think it is more important to teach students to develop their thoughts completely. If development of thought can come through length or formality then so be it. More important than length or formality would be for students to have a firm understanding about how to organize their ideas in such a way where they can effectively communicate their thoughts and ideas. I certainly don’t think that a teacher should only teach any one kind or length of writing, but the most often I hear the reason we should teach students to write lengthy formal essays is because that is the way they will have to write in high school, which in turn is how they will have to write in college. While I would say there can be value in getting a student dedicated to deeply investigating a certain topic through a longer writing assignment, I would never be willing to teach kids formal writing just because that is the way they do it in high school – there would have to be another purpose.

This almost starts to get at the “how many words should this be question.” I tend to find that when I say 500 words long, kids work to that end and stop. Sometimes they seem to like this better…it’s easy and sure. Usually, I say to make a plan and work to thoughtful response to the assignment and the feedback from their peers. This usually drives more from their thought process that my giving them a word count. Is this a formal text? Not really, but yes at the same time. I think many teachers panic when students deviate from the 5 paragraph essay that they know and understand. The belief seems to be that this serves their needs on the near future high stakes test that are demanded on students. I’m not sure that this serves them past this point.

I don’t think length is a point to pound home with any student. We need to look at the content of a students’ writing the most. If that means a paper has 8-10 pages to it, then so be it, but students need to learn how to sort out what is relevant and irrelevant details and information. Students need to produce well planned, thought out papers that get to the point.

• “Writing, Technology and Teens,” available at  https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/Reports/2008/Writing-Technology-and-Teens.aspx . ↩
• For more on the latter, see “How Teens Do Research in the Digital World,” available at  https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/Reports/2012/Student-Research.aspx ↩

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Applying to NYC high school? Here’s what you need to know.

It’s not an easy time to be an eighth grader in New York City. 

Across the five boroughs, 12- and 13-year-olds are in the midst of high school admissions season with newly changed rules that sort kids into different “groups” based on their grades from last year. 

New York City has more than 400 public high schools with 700 programs. Roughly 120 of these use “screens,” such as grades, essays or exams. Twenty-five high schools require auditions. Eight base admissions solely on the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT. Given this landscape, New York City is home to more schools that screen students based on academic performance than other large school districts nationwide. 

Schools Chancellor David Banks defended the city’s system of stratifying students when he announced changes to this year’s admissions proces s, saying, “if a young person is working their tail off every single day and they get a 99% average … that should be honored … you should not be thrown in a lottery with just everybody.”

The system concentrates lower-performing students on the same campuses and contributes to the city’s status as one of the most racially segregated school systems in the country . This year’s admissions process will likely reverse some of the pandemic-era diversity gains when competitive schools couldn’t rely as heavily on grades and other screening measures. 

The changes for many families, especially those who may now be shut out of selective schools, has brought a wave of anxiety as they begin the process of ranking up to 12 choices on their applications. 

“Anxiety is extra high because, once again, there are changes to the application process,” said Mahalia Watson, founder of the Let’s Talk School s online parent guide. “I tell everyone to be sure to choose 12 schools that they would be OK attending and chances are more than likely that they will be fine. I don’t agree that the specialized high school or a few select screened schools are the only good options available … Focus on selecting a school that is a good fit for your student and not whether it’s a ‘good school’ or not.”

Other advice she gives parents: “Don’t try to outsmart the matching system. Only select schools that you would attend if an offer of admission is given.”

What else you need to know:

What are the important deadlines?

Applications are due by Dec. 1, and you can apply online through your child’s MySchools account. 

Submitting your application early doesn’t give you any advantage, but many experts advise against waiting until the last minute. 

“Start early. Don’t wait until the last minute to select schools,” Watson said. “There are so many that it can get overwhelming so the more time you can devote to the process, the less difficult or confusing it will be.”

Eighth grade families should have received a letter from the education department with a code to create a MySchools account, if they didn’t already have one. (Students not currently enrolled in New York City public schools can visit the education department’s website with instructions for new students .)

Offers are expected in early March.

What about the specialized high schools?

There’s a separate process for eight specialized high schools that require a test for admission, like Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech. You must register for the SHSAT — again, though MySchools — by Nov. 4. Eighth graders attending the city’s public middle schools will take the exam at their respective schools on Nov. 17. Other students — at charter schools, private schools, home-schooled or at public schools with grades 6-12 — will take the exam at specific locations on Nov. 19, Nov. 20, or Dec. 11. 

Last year, roughly 28,000 students took the test, and about 4,000 received offers. Basing admission on a single test has long been controversial because of the dearth of Black and Latino students who score high enough to get seats: Just 9% of the offers based on the test went to Black and Latino students despite making up about 66% of students citywide.

The specialized schools also enroll relatively few English language learners or students with disabilities. Children with testing accommodations giving them double time — which could be more than 6 hours — should talk to their schools about the possibility of multi-day testing, suggested Jenn Choi, who runs Special Support Service s, which advises parents of students with disabilities.

Another specialized high school, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts , uses auditions or portfolios for entry instead of the SHSAT, and requires a separate application via MySchools. There’s a common applicatio n for the 25 schools that require auditions, which means, for example, if you apply to three dance programs, you only need to send in one dance audition. A student’s lottery number will break a tie if students have the same rank, education department officials said.

Offers to these schools are given at the same time as other schools in early March.

How should you research schools?

After logging into your MySchools account, you can search for schools and research their information pages, which should include any tours (virtual or in person) as well as additional admissions requirements or selective criteria. Other helpful resources include InsideSchools , which offers write ups based on school visits along with other helpful data points, including results of school surveys on questions like bullying and safety. 

“Make sure you are finding schools that are good fits for your child in terms of academics, rigor, interests, and teaching styles,” said Elissa Stein, a consultant who runs the HS 411 subscription service . “Consider quality of life issues like commute, start time, out[side] lunch, extracurriculars, and freshman support.”

After viewing so many options they might start to blend together, so it’s important to take notes, Stein suggested. Also, she advises families to involve their eighth graders in the process, “whether it’s doing post-touring recaps, having them research in MySchools, or spending time talking through options.”

Additionally, double check that your child is eligible for the programs and schools you’re considering, she said.

Watson advises families to visit as many schools as possible through virtual and in-person tours, and she was excited for the open house calendar on MySchools. 

“In addition to visiting, the best way to find out information about a school is to speak to parents and/or students already enrolled,” Watson added.

What’s up with the new grouping process?

The city recently announced that this year’s eighth grade students will get priority to screened schools based on their seventh grade scores for coursework in core subjects. (State test scores are not factored in.) Students are grouped as follows :

• Group 1: Those with final seventh grade course grades with an average of at least 94.33 qualify for the citywide threshold, as do students who are in the top 15% of their school, with an average of at least 90.
• Group 2: Those with an average of at least a 90.25 average qualify for the citywide threshold (if they’re not in Group 1), as do those in the top 30% of their school with an average of at least 80.
• Group 3: Those with an 83.5 average qualify for the citywide threshold, along with those in the top 50% of their school with an average of at least 75.
• Group 4: Those with a 76.75 average qualify for the citywide threshold, along with those with seventh grade course grades in the top 70% of their school with an average at least 65.
• All others will be in Group 5.

Applicants can find out which group they fall into through their MySchools profile. (Click on “edit profile” above your child’s name and scroll down to find the admissions group.)

If there are more applicants in Group 1 than available seats, students from that group will be selected by a lottery using the random number linked to each person’s application, according to education department officials. If seats are not all taken by Group 1 applicants, students from Group 2 are considered in the same way, and so on.

About 20 of the city’s selective high schools , including Beacon and Bard Early College high schools, require students to complete essays, school-based exams, or other assessments. 

What about schools that are part of the city’s Diversity in Admissions program?

More than 40 high school programs set aside a certain percentage of their seats for students from low-income families or in temporary housing, for instance. 

If students from Group 1 who meet those admissions criteria don’t fill all the available seats set aside for them, those seats will then go to “Diversity in Admissions” applicants in the next group, education officials said. For instance, Frank McCourt High School, Beacon, and Millennium Brooklyn High Schools give priority to students eligible for free or reduced price lunch for 66% of their seats. 

What about students with disabilities?

When it comes to the enrollment process, students with disabilities who have individualized education programs, or IEPs, are considered in a separate pool if they have a special education service — either a special class, special education teacher support services, or SETSS, or integrated co-teaching, or ICT — for 20% of their week. 

But not all high schools are inclusive when it comes to students with disabilities, said Choi, of Special Support Services, who trains parents how to research a school’s special education culture. 

Like many parts of the city’s school system, for children with disabilities the onus falls on the family to figure things out. 

“If you think about how fast a family can find out which schools have golf teams in New York City, it’s literally less than a minute,” Choi said. “We have to call to find out what ‘partial accessibility’ even means. That’s another fifty phone calls.” 

Families should ask, for instance, how a school flags when a student is not making appropriate progress and what happens next? Is there a conference or tutoring?

“Is the student’s entire curriculum on Google classroom? With reminders, reading material, worksheets, due dates, assignment information, and powerpoints?” she asked. “For many students with disabilities, it’s an essential accessibility need and for others, it’s just a desired good practice.”

What does your random number mean?

This year, for the first time the city is sharing students’ lottery numbers in their MySchools account profile. These hexadecimal random numbers may be hard to decipher —  though that hasn’t stopped some from trying. For schools that have various admissions priorities, these numbers act as “tie breakers,” Joyce Szuflita, who runs NY Schools Help , explained on her blog. Someone with a lower random number in Group 1 still would be ranked higher than someone in Group 2 with a “good” lottery number, she explained. 

Szuflita advises families to look at an array of schools, and understand your odds based on admissions priority to specific groups of applicants before others, such as to students who live in a specific borough, or continuing middle schoolers in a 6-12 grade school, or for Diversity in Admissions students, or students with certain grades for screened schools.

“Make a robust list of different kinds of schools, with different sizes, with different admission criteria, with different [applicant to seat] ratios, with different priorities,” she wrote. “The random numbers are a factor, but they are not your fate. Then rank your list in true preference order.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at [email protected].

Beasley Academic Center’s Tammy Anderson — known for her killer dance moves and infectious smile — will be one of four crossing guards honored in an awards ceremony next week.

Education was a big issue in 2024, with a school funding formula rewrite dominating the last weeks of the legislative session.

As childhood hunger is on the rise, New York City is scaling up a program for schools to donate food directly to families in need or to food pantries, shelters, and soup kitchens.

For the third year in a row, about 53% of Indiana high school graduates are going to college.

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Free printable Mother's Day questionnaire 💐!

Teaching the Photo Essay

A picture is worth 1,000 words.

Your students, if they’re anything like mine, love to communicate through images—photos on Instagram , GIFs shared in a text, photo stories on Snapchat. And yet, so much of our conversation in school revolves around words. Understanding text is critical to students’ success now and in the future. But do we also help students identify, read and understand images in order to become literate in the visual language that is all around us? The photo essay can be a great middle or high school assignment that will have strong appeal and grow your students’ writing skills.

What Is a Photo Essay?

For those who aren’t familiar with the term “photo essay,” have no fear. A photo essay, in its simplest form, is a series of pictures that evokes an emotion, presents an idea or helps tell a story. You’ve been exposed to photo essays for your entire life—possibly without even knowing it. For example, you may have seen Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother:

An iconic image of the Great Depression, this picture, along with Lange’s other gripping photos, helped Americans better understand the effects of poverty in California as well as across the nation. Migrant Mother is one of countless photographs that helped persuade, influence or engage viewers in ways that text alone could not.

Photo essays can feature text through articles and descriptions, or they can stand alone with simple captions to give context. The versatility of photo essays has helped the medium become a part of our culture for centuries, from the American Civil War to modern environmental disasters like the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. This versatility is also what makes the photo essay a great educational asset in classrooms today; teachers can use them in any content area. Math students can use them to show a geometric concept in real life. Science students can document a chemistry process at home. Auto students can photograph the technique—and joys and frustrations—of learning a new procedure.

So, where does a teacher begin? Read further for tips and ideas for making photo essays a part of your teaching toolbox.

Start With Photos

Introducing photo essays as a means of changing lives and changing society can hook student interest in the medium. Begin by simply showing pictures and letting students discuss their reactions. Consider this famous photo of the field at Antietam during the Civil War. Share some of the photos from this collection from CNN of 25 of the Most Iconic Photograph s or this list of 50 Influential Photographs That Changed Our World .

Each of these photographs stirs emotion and sends our minds searching for answers. As a warm-up assignment or series of assignments, have students choose (or assign randomly) a photograph to write about. What’s the story? Why did this happen? Who was involved?

DIY Photographs

Before giving a formal photo essay assignment, give students an opportunity to practice and receive feedback. Consider presenting students with several open-ended, ungraded challenges like “For class tomorrow, take a photo that depicts ‘Struggle.’” Other possible photo topics: chaos, frustration, friendship, school. Have students email you their photo homework and share it as a slideshow. Talk about the images. Do they convey the theme?

You can give examples or suggestions; however, giving too many examples and requirements can narrow students’ creativity. The purpose of this trial run is to generate conversation and introduce students to thinking like photographers, so don’t worry if the photos aren’t what you had in mind; it’s about getting feedback on what the student had in mind.

Technique 101

Even though the goal of a photo essay is to influence and create discussion, there is still benefit in giving students a crash course on simple photography concepts. Don’t feel like you have to teach a master-level course on dark-room development. Even a simple overview on the “Rule of Thirds” and the importance of perspective can be enough to help students create intentional, visually stirring photographs.

You can teach these ideas directly or have students do the work by researching on their own. They have most likely seen hundreds of movies, advertisements and photos, so these lessons are simply labeling what they’ve already experienced. Having some knowledge of composition will not only help students improve their visual literacy, it will also help empower them to take photos of their own.

Choose Your Purpose

Are students telling their own stories of their neighborhoods or their families? Are they addressing a social issue or making an argument through their images and text? A photo essay could be a great assignment in science to document a process or focus on nature.

If you are just getting started, start out small: Have students create a short photo essay (two to five images) to present a topic, process or idea you have been focusing on in class. Here’s a Photo Essay Planning Guide to share with your students.

With pictures becoming a dominant medium in our image-filled world, it’s not a question of if we should give students practice and feedback with visual literacy, it’s a question of how . Photo essays are a simple, engaging way to start. So, what’s your plan?

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Differentiated Instruction Strategies: Tiered Assignments

Janelle cox.

• September 23, 2014

Many teachers use differentiated instruction strategies  as a way to reach all learners and accommodate each student’s learning style. One very helpful tactic to employ differentiated instruction is called tiered assignments—a technique often used within flexible groups.

Much like flexible grouping—or differentiated instruction as a whole, really—tiered assignments do not lock students into ability boxes. Instead, particular student clusters are assigned specific tasks within each group according to their readiness and comprehension without making them feel completely compartmentalized away from peers at different achievement levels.

There are six main ways to structure tiered assignments: challenge level, complexity, outcome, process, product, or resources. It is your job, based upon the specific learning tasks you’re focused on, to determine the best approach. Here we will take a brief look at these techniques.

Ways to Structure Tiered Assignments

Challenge level.

Tiering can be based on challenge level where student groups will tackle different assignments. Teachers can use Bloom’s Taxonomy as a guide to help them develop tasks of structure or questions at various levels. For example:

• Group 1:  Students who need content reinforcement or practice will complete one activity that helps  build  understanding.
• Group 2:  Students who have a firm understanding will complete another activity that  extends  what they already know.

When you tier assignments by complexity, you are addressing the needs of students who are at different levels using the same assignment. The trick here is to vary the focus of the assignment based upon whether each group is ready for more advanced work or simply trying to wrap their head around the concept for the first time. You can direct your students to create a poster on a specific issue—recycling and environmental care, for instance—but one group will focus on a singular perspective, while the other will consider several points of view and present an argument for or against each angle.

Tiering assignments by differentiated outcome is vaguely similar to complexity—all of your students will use the same materials, but depending on their readiness levels will actually have a different outcome. It may sound strange at first, but this strategy is quite beneficial to help advanced students work on more progressive applications of their student learning.

This differentiated instruction strategy is exactly what it sounds like—student groups will use different processes to achieve similar outcomes based upon readiness.

Tiered assignments can also be differentiated based on product. Teachers can use the Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences to form groups that will hone particular skills for particular learning styles . For example, one group would be bodily/kinesthetic, and their task is to create and act out a skit. Another group would be visual/spatial, and their task would be to illustrate.

Tiering resources means that you are matching project materials to student groups based on readiness or instructional need. One flexible group may use a magazine while another may use a traditional textbook. As a tip, you should assign resources based on knowledge and readiness, but also consider the group’s reading level and comprehension.

How to Make Tiering Invisible to Students

From time to time, students may question why they are working on different assignments, using varied materials, or coming to dissimilar outcomes altogether. This could be a blow to your classroom morale if you’re not tactful in making your tiers invisible.

Make it a point to tell students that each group is using different materials or completing different activities so they can share what they learned with the class. Be neutral when grouping students, use numbers or colors for group names, and be equally enthusiastic while explaining assignments to each cluster.

Also, it’s important to make each tiered assignment equally interesting, engaging, and fair in terms of student expectations. The more flexible groups and materials you use, the more students will accept that this is the norm.

Tiering assignments is a fair way to differentiate learning. It allows teachers to meet the needs of all students while using varying levels of tasks. It’s a concept that can be infused into homework assignments, small groups, or even learning centers. If done properly, it can be a very effective method to differentiate learning because it challenges all students.

• #DifferentiatedInstruction , #TieredAssignments

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, high school vs college: 15 key differences.

Other High School , College Info

Are you about to start college soon? Are you wondering what changes to expect? How is college different from high school? When you compare high school vs college, you'll find many differences, some of which are obvious, others less so.

It's important to understand how high school and college are different from each other so you know what to expect and can have a smoother transition when you begin college. In this guide, we explain the 15 most important differences between high school and college and give you tips to help make this major life change a bit less intimidating.

How Is College Different From High School?

There's a reason so many movies, shows, and books focus on new college students: many people see the transition from high school to college as one of the most important turning points in their life. You're no longer a kid living under your parents' roof; instead you're an adult living on your own and expected to make real, important decisions about your future.

You'll have a lot more freedom, but a lot will also be expected from you, both in class and out. Read on to learn specific high school vs college differences.

Below are 15 high school vs college differences you'll likely encounter once you begin college. There are pros and cons to both high school and college, but knowing what to expect will make you better prepared for this big change.

#1: You'll Have More Independence

The biggest change for high school vs. college is that, in college, you'll have much more independence than you had in high school. Many people focus on the fact that you'll be living away from your parents, and this is a part of it, but you'll have independence in many other areas as well.

You'll have the freedom to decide what you want to major in, which classes you want to take, when you want to schedule those classes, if you want to go out with your friends, how late you want to stay out, even what you want to eat in the dining hall. (I ate Reese's Puffs cereal every day for four years because my parents never allowed it and I was thrilled to finally be able to have it for breakfast.)

#2: You'll Be Treated Like an Adult

Along with your increased independence, you'll also be treated like an adult in college as opposed to a child under your parents' care. In college, you'll no longer need to bring your parents permission slips to sign, you'll be trusted to make your own choices for what you want to study, and you can arrange meetings yourself, without Mom and Dad helping you.

For many students, it's exciting to finally be viewed as an adult, but it also means an increase in responsibilities. If you have a problem with or question about homework, classes, a grade you got, etc., you are the one who will need to solve it. You can't expect your parents to call the school and fix the problem for you like they may have done in high school.

#3: There Will Be a Wider Variety of Classes to Choose From

In high school, you didn't have a lot of choice in regards to which classes you took. You could probably choose a few electives , but your schedule was mostly filled with the standard math, science, English, and social studies requirements that all students had to take.

In college, even if you attend a smaller school, you'll have many more options. They'll be a wider variety of classes to choose from , and many of them will focus on more specific topics like astronomy, ancient Roman history, French literature, the geography of the United States, and more. Many college students like this increase in class options since it makes it easier for them to choose classes on topics they're really interested in.

#4: Classes Will Have Different Formats and Sizes

Each class you took in high school probably had about the same number of students and consisted mostly of lecturing, maybe along with some individual or group work. This isn't true in college. Classes can range from two to 500 students, and their format can vary widely as well. Classes may be completely lecture-based, require hands-on lab work, or be discussion-based where you spend most of class time engaged in conversations or debates with your classmates and professor.

#5: Your Schedule Will Be More Complicated

In high school, school started and ended the same time every day, and your class schedule was probably the same for every day of the week. In college, things get a little trickier. Some classes meet three times a week for an hour and a half, some meet five times a week for an hour, some meet once a week for three hours, etc. This means you'll likely be starting and ending class at different times during the week, and you may end up with a different class schedule for every day of the week.

Some people like the variety this gives them, but it's important to stay on top of your schedule so you don't wind up forgetting to attend class.

#6: You'll Have a New Set of Classmates

One of the most jarring things for many new college students is they're no longer surrounded by classmates and friends they've known for years. Instead, you'll be in a sea of strangers (at least at first), many of whom come from different areas and backgrounds than you. Additionally, you'll likely have a different set of classmates for each of your classes. That's a lot of new faces!

This means you have lots of opportunity for making all kinds of friends, but expect there to be some awkwardness and loneliness at first as everyone gets to know each other and figures out their friend groups. Additionally, since in college everyone wants to be there (at least on some level), you may find your college classmates more motivated and dedicated to doing well in school compared to some of your high school peers.

#7: Classes Will Require More Critical Thinking

Is college hard compared to high school? Going to college isn't just like attending four more years of high school. This is a big step up in your education, and your classes will be more challenging and expect you to keep up. You'll be tested less on memorization and basic regurgitation of facts and more on critical thinking skills and being able to apply what you learned in class to other situations.

You may learn a specific math equation and then be asked to apply that knowledge to more challenging types of equations, learn about different historical events and be asked to analyze how they affected future events, learn a scientific process and be asked to describe how it affects the environment, etc.

#8: College Costs More

There's no way around it; c ollege definitely costs more than high school. Tuition is thousands of dollars, and you'll likely be paying for room and board as well. And those are just the main costs. College requires all sorts of smaller purchases too, like special goggles for your chemistry lab or official test taking booklets for final exams. Buying just one college textbook (often over $100) is enough to never let you take for granted all free materials you got in high school.

#9: You'll Spend Less Time in Class

Most full-time college students spend about 15-20 hours in class a week, which comes out to about three or four hours a day. This is probably much less time than you spent in high school classes every day which means you'll have a lot more unscheduled time to spend how you think is best.

#10: You'll Have More Schoolwork

Don't get too excited about spending less time in class; college definitely knows how to keep you busy. The general rule of thumb is that you'll spend about three hours a week on schoolwork for every one hour of class you're in.

With a standard schedule of 15 credits, that means you can expect to spend 45 hours a week on schoolwork, about as much as a full-time job! This is often much more work than students had in high school, so you should be prepared for an adjustment.

#11: Attendance Will Be Up to You

In high school, you had to go to class every day because if you didn't, you could get in trouble for truancy or (sometimes even more frightening) your parents could find out. In college, there are no requirements for attending class, and no one is going to call your parents if you don't show up. However, don't make the mistake some college students do and think this means you don't need to go to class.

Many professors include attendance as part of your grade, and some will even fail you if you miss a certain number of classes without a valid excuse. Plus, it's often very difficult to do well in a class if you never show up, and you're paying a lot of money for these classes! Make sure you get the most out of them that you can.

#12: You'll Have More Social Opportunities

Even if you were a social butterfly in high school, you'll have tons more opportunities to be social and make friends in college. There will be sports teams to join, parties to go to, clubs you can be part of, and more. Most colleges are large enough to have something for everyone, so you're bound to find an activity you're interested in, whether that's a recreational hockey team, the student government group, a club focused on promoting renewable energy, and more.

There are also likely many more students at your college than there were at your high school, so your opportunities for making friends will multiply as well. However, you do need to make an effort to get the most out of these opportunities. Push yourself to try new things and strike up conversations with new people, and if you're feeling nervous, just remember that they're likely feeling the same way. Standard questions to ask new people you meet in college include: Where are you from? What dorm do you live in? What are you majoring in? Get ready to ask and be asked these questions a lot!

#13: It'll Be Harder to Stand Out

Once you start college, you won't be a big fish in a small pond anymore, and it'll be harder to stand out from the crowd. While in high school you may have been the star student/athlete/singer, in college you'll be surrounded by many talented classmates, many of whom were also the best at something in high school. Some students struggle with no longer automatically standing out, but there are plenty of benefits to this.

First, you'll be able to bond with other students who are also skilled at your talent. If you were, say, the star drama student at your high school, you may not hold the same position in college, but you can befriend all the other high school drama stars and create some awesome shows together.

Additionally, some students like the anonymity being a new college student brings. If you've been labelled as a jock or theater nerd for all of high school, going to college--where people don't know you--allows you to shed or alter that identity if you wish and try new things (or try the same things with less pressure).

#14: You'll Get Fewer Grades in Class

In high school, you probably had daily homework assignments you had to complete and got a grade for. These, along with some larger projects, quizzes, and tests made up your final class grade. If you got a low score in one, it was usually fine since there were plenty of other chances to make up for the low grade.

Once you start college, you may find that many classes have far fewer assignments, meaning you'll receive fewer grades and each of those grades are worth more. Instead of regular homework assignments and quizzes, many college classes are based only on a midterm grade and a final grade. This means you need to take those exams/papers/projects very seriously because if you mess up on one of them it'll be very hard to raise your class grade back to where you want it to be.

#15: You'll Be Doing Lots of Reading

You know those pictures of exhausted-looking students sitting next to a pile of textbooks they need to get through? That's how many college students feel. Expect to do lots of reading in college, including textbooks, journal articles, and literature. If you're majoring in a field like computer science or math you can expect less reading (and more homework), but you're still guaranteed to have at least a few classes where you're assigned to read a couple dozen textbook pages before the next class. You'll get to know your school's library very well.

Tips for Making the Transition From High School to College

Going from high school to college can be tough no matter how excited you are to start at your new school. Below are three tips to help make the transition easier.

Know There Will Be Changes

You've already taken one of the most important steps to prepare for transitioning from high school to college: you're expecting and preparing for the differences. When you know that the high school to college transition will bring major changes, you'll be more prepared for anything that comes your way.

Be Prepared for Some Bumps

Many movies about college make it seem like new college students immediately find a group of close friends, know exactly what they want to study, and have an awesome social life. In reality, it rarely works like this. Many new college students have moments where they feel awkward, lonely, and homesick. This is completely normal; after all you're making a major life change.

By managing your expectations of college and not expecting to love it right away, you can better manage the transition from high school to college and not end up disappointed when it takes a little while to feel comfortable.

Put Yourself Out There

When you first start college, there will be a lot of changes, and it'll be easy to hang out in your dorm room and text with your high school friends. However, you should resist this urge.

College is probably the best time you'll ever have to meet new people and try new things, so you should take full advantage. Keep your dorm room door open to meet your neighbors. Strike up a conversation with your chemistry lab partner. Join a club or sport you've never tried before. Not only will this make the transition from high school to college easier since you'll be meeting more people, you may discover a new friend or hobby.

What's Next?

Not sure which college you want to go to? Check out our guide on choosing the right college so you can make the best decision.

Stressing over college applications? We're here to help! Our step-by-step guide breaks down the complete college application process from start to finish.

Worried about choosing a major on your college applications? Learn how to navigate the process and make an informed decision.

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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High School Literature Assignments Should Have Meaning

High school literature assignments should have meaning. Now, we all know that teaching high school literature is important, but how can we accomplish heavy tasks?

Loving literature probably made you want to teach language arts. We remember a book saving our lives, a story carrying us through a difficult time, a specific line resonating with us. Whatever attracted us to becoming English teachers, literature likely played a role.

Teaching high school literature require more than a teacher showing love of literature or completing a fun activity or two—even though those acts can be part of your community. Still, literature lessons can be difficult to craft.

Toss in high school literature standards (which are incredibly difficult!), and you might feel overwhelmed. Some school years, I have printed off the standards, brainstormed ideas for meeting them, and re-read the literature pieces. I have taught for twenty years, and I still find myself overwhelmed with balancing the components literature lessons require from me,  still find myself reworking pieces.

So, I understand.

In this post, I aim to cover how high school literature assignments can have meaning for students while meeting standards and not creating piles of writing for teachers. Below, I cover literature standards, student interest, and our work loads.

Literature Standards.

The literature standards depend on prior knowledge and domain-specific language . Plus, to meet them, students must invest in them which often means we must show students why they should care.

When I’m teaching high school literature, I might try to tackle this standard: Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. So for example, I would acknowledge. . .

That standard has a lot of moving parts. Students need to understand complex character and be able to explain what defines a complex character and the pieces that build a character as complex. We might discuss the motivations from beginning to end of a story. Then, we would look at how a particular character interacts with other literary devices (such as the plot and theme).

Lots! When begin working on applying this standard with a literature piece, I find myself following a pattern. Here are ideas that better my high school literature assignments:

• Put the standards and your explanation of the standard on every assignment. When I have the standard on the assignment, students and parents can see what concept we are working toward. The visual is also a reminder for me to talk about the standard throughout the assignment.
• Make a basic chart to begin. Break down each component of the standard. For instance here, I would have a column for “characters,” one for “dialogue,” one for “motivations,” and one for “summary.” Each teacher has a different method, but to me, the idea of a starting place would be angles to help students consider complexity. As we completed those columns, I would purposefully show connections between our discoveries.
• Build off activities. The next step could narrow down the complexity to a certain angle. If students struggle, present another “first step” breakdown for them.

The more you work with literature standards, the more your high school literature assignments will build off each other.

Student Interest with Literature.

Previously, I have written about ideas that help me to connect with students which then enables me to help students see connections of literature to their own lives. Here are some ways I build student interest with literature:

• Essential questions with literature help me to engage students. Since each student will bring individual life experiences to a story, essential questions provide guidance and reassurance that students are relating to the material.
• Literature circles and independent reading allow students to choose their own book. Plus, students get to explore new genres. For instance, when I run dystopian literature circles , we start with an introduction to the genre which builds community around a common understanding. Then, we work on individual book studies. The questions I develop, however, can work with any dystopian book.
• Finally, I build a literacy-based community around engagement in my classroom library . To do so, I actively put books on display and in the hands of students. I also rotate books, talk about books, and model reading for students.

The standards ask us to dig deep with literature. Part of getting students to do such work requires that students invest in the reading material.

Teacher Work Load.

I am a real teacher, not an educational consultant or “expert” watching from another room. When I am on social media or my blog, my perspective may not always be the trendy or upbeat because I teach every day in a real classroom. And English teachers have too much to grade.

Do not grade every piece of student work that your students complete. Give feedback in other ways:

• You can provide verbal feedback and ask students to jot down three ideas that you gave them. Then, they can reflect on those ideas later.
• Students can write several literary analysis responses . After they finish them, students should choose their best one, edit and revise their writing, and submit one for grading.
• In small groups, you can ask students to look for evidence that supports their analysis. The smaller groups help students to share more authentically.
• Another activity that helps students move toward analysis (and meeting standards) is for me to complete an activity (like the above chart I described) as a model for students. It might seem awkward at first, but I also verbalize my thought process—mistakes and all.

As we work on teaching high school literature, we can meet standards and provide meaning for students without increasing our work loads. As you develop high school literature assignments for your students, I hope these ideas inspired you.

All of the above activities are in my high school literature bundle:

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Synonyms of assignment

• as in lesson
• as in appointment
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Thesaurus Definition of assignment

Synonyms & Similar Words

• responsibility
• undertaking
• requirement
• designation
• appointment
• authorization
• installment
• installation
• destination
• emplacement
• investiture
• singling (out)

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• dethronement

Synonym Chooser

How does the noun assignment contrast with its synonyms?

Some common synonyms of assignment are chore , duty , job , stint , and task . While all these words mean "a piece of work to be done," assignment implies a definite limited task assigned by one in authority.

When is it sensible to use chore instead of assignment ?

While the synonyms chore and assignment are close in meaning, chore implies a minor routine activity necessary for maintaining a household or farm.

When is duty a more appropriate choice than assignment ?

Although the words duty and assignment have much in common, duty implies an obligation to perform or responsibility for performance.

When might job be a better fit than assignment ?

The synonyms job and assignment are sometimes interchangeable, but job applies to a piece of work voluntarily performed; it may sometimes suggest difficulty or importance.

When could stint be used to replace assignment ?

In some situations, the words stint and assignment are roughly equivalent. However, stint implies a carefully allotted or measured quantity of assigned work or service.

When can task be used instead of assignment ?

The meanings of task and assignment largely overlap; however, task implies work imposed by a person in authority or an employer or by circumstance.

Thesaurus Entries Near assignment

assignments

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“Assignment.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/assignment. Accessed 12 May. 2024.

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Chunking: Breaking Tasks into Manageable Parts

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Chunking (Chunk is used as a verb here) is breaking skills or information into smaller, more manageable segments in order to help students in special education succeed. The term can often be found in Specially Designed Instruction (SDIs)  as a way to adapt the curriculum in a Child's ​ IEP.

Chunking Academic Tasks

A pair of scissors is a great chunking tool.  Students who quit when given a worksheet with twenty problems may do just fine with 10 or 12.   Knowing your students is critical to making decisions how much each student can do at each step of chunking will help you make decisions about how many problems, steps or words a child will handle at each stage.  In other words, you will learn how to "chunk" the scaffolding of skills as students acquire them. 

Thanks to the "Cut" and "Paste" commands on your computer, it is also possible to scan and modify assignments, providing broader practice on fewer items.  It is also possible to making "chunking" assignments part of a students "accommodations." 

Chunking Projects in Secondary Content Classes

Secondary (middle and high school) students are often given multiple step projects to build research skills and to fully engage them in the academic discipline.  A geography class may require a student to collaborate on a mapping project, or building a virtual community.  Projects like these these offer students with disabilities opportunities to partner with typical peers and learn from the models they may provide. 

Students with disabilities often give up when they feel that a task is too big to manage.  They often are daunted before they even take up the task.  By chunking, or breaking a task into manageable parts, it helps scaffold students into longer and more complex tasks.  At the same time, careful chunking can help students learn to strategize their approach to academic tasks.  This helps build executive function, the ability to intellectually structure and plan a series of behaviors, like writing a paper, or completing a complex assignment.  Using a rubric can be a helpful way to "chunk' an assignment.  When supporting a student in a general education setting, it is invaluable to work with your general education partner (teacher) to create structured rubrics that will support your students.  Once that is in hand, lay out a schedule that helps your student meet multiple deadlines. 

Chunking and 504 Plans

Students who may not actually qualify for an IEP may qualify for a 504 plan, which will provide ways to support students with behavioral or other challenges.  "Chunking" assignments is often part of the accommodations provided for the student. 

Also Known As: Chunk or Segment

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New IHSAA enrollment figures: How it all adds up for Bloomington area programs

The IHSAA released it's official enrollment numbers for the 2024-26 school years and in conjunction with the new 20-25-25-30 classification formula announced last June, it could mean some big changes in the postseason, especially for Edgewood.

The new splits will see the biggest 20% of schools in 4A, then the next 25% in 3A, the next 25% in 2A and the remaining 30% in 1A. These will be consistent across all sports with four classes of competition (volleyball, basketball, baseball, softball) save for soccer, which has just three classes.

The IHSAA will announce the official classifications for each school in each sport in the coming weeks, a press release said. After that, sectional assignments will be doled out and put up for approval at the IHSAA Executive Committee's April meeting.

Here's what the numbers mean for our local schools:

Bloomington South, North in top 60

South checks in 52nd at 1,681 students while North is 55th at 1,589 and solidly in the lower half of Class 5A for football and middle of the pack 4A for other sports.

In Conference Indiana, Southport is the biggest school now, 23rd at 2,368 with Columbus North 26th at 2,267. Terre Haute South is 53rd at 1,609 and Terre Haute South is 60th at 1,467.

Class 5A in football will have 32 schools, with Whiteland now the biggest at 2,074. Valparaiso and Lafayette Harrison both bumped up to 31st and and 28th, which would put them in 6A. Fort Wayne South, Kokomo and Mt. Vernon (Fortville) are dropping to 5A, so the only southern sectional lineup change likely comes in Sectional 9 where Harrison was playing.

Mooresville grew from 70th to 68th (1,398) and Martinsville was 75th (1,315). Bedford North Lawrence dropped from 69th to 79th at 1,242, making it one of the smallest in 4A.

Changes coming for Edgewood

As for Class 4A, Sectional 13 could be losing Greenwood, which came in 82nd and would be the largest 3A school. At 20%, the math puts 81 of the state's 407 teams in 4A and 25% means 3A should have 102 schools.

Also slated to move down to 3A: New Palestine, Cathedral, Crispus Attucks, Jennings County, Evansville Central, Shelbyville and Roncalli.

Edgewood came in 133rd at 761 students keeping them in 3A but it could also bump the Mustangs back down to 3A for football with the cutoff between 3A-4A last last year at 127. Owen Valley is 150th with 650. Northview remains the biggest school in the Western Indiana Conference at 112th (894). With 2A-3A cut off around the 183rd biggest school, dropping to 2A would be West Vigo (189th), Monrovia (196th), Brown County (205th at 488 students) and South Vermillion (213th). Sullivan (503) climbed from 215th in 197th.

Soon to be former WIC members , Cascade (178th) will jump to 3A while Greencastle (201st) and North Putnam (225th) remain in 2A. Cloverdale, however, dropped to 305th (283) and ended up in 1A.

That leaves Cascade, Tri-West, Danville, Speedway, Indian Creek and Greenwood as the closest 3A neighbors to the north and Washington, Vincennes and Jasper to the south, but those schools are more connected to the Evansville area.

Few changes for small schools

Linton is 250th (387) and Eastern Greene 274th (351) and Mitchell 226th (430) to firmly stay in 2A.

Lighthouse Christian came in 398th out of 407 schools with an enrollment of 74, one of 16 schools with fewer than 100 students.

Seven Oaks Classical, which will become a fully participating IHSAA member in the 2026-27 school year, was listed at 106.

A complete list of school enrollments is posted at IHSAA.org .

Contact Jim Gordillo at [email protected] and follow on X @JimGordillo.

Teen suspended for using term ‘illegal aliens’ sues his North Carolina high school

A 16-year-old North Carolina student has sued his high school for suspending him after he used the term “illegal aliens” in a question about an assignment.

Christian McGhee, who received a three-day suspension for using the phrase last month at Central Davidson High School in Lexington, has accused the school of violating his First Amendment rights in the lawsuit filed in federal court Tuesday.

“Aside from the obvious fact that his words had nothing to do with race, his speech was protected under the First Amendment: he asked his teacher a question that was factual and nonthreatening, and officials could not have reasonably forecast that his question would cause substantial School disruption,” the suit said.

“Nor did his question actually cause substantial School disruption.”

According to the lawsuit, the incident occurred on April 9 when a teacher gave Christian an assignment that used the word “alien,” and he asked, “Like space aliens or illegal aliens without green cards?”

A Hispanic student in Christian’s class reportedly “joked” that he was going to “kick Christian’s a–,” so the teacher took the matter to the assistant principal, per the suit.

Eventually, his words were deemed to be offensive and disrespectful to his classmates, so he was suspended.

“The School punished C.M. for his question with three days out-of-school suspension — a punishment described by the administration as ‘harsh,'” the suit states. “In issuing that punishment for his comment, the School baldly concluded that C.M.’s question was ‘racially insensitive’ and a ‘racially motivated comment which disrupts class.’”

According to the complaint, the school had no legal justification for harshly punishing

the student.

The teen’s mother, Leah McGhee, said the lawsuit was filed against the North Carolina school because it indirectly accused her son of being a racist, and she doesn’t want that to affect his chances of being accepted into colleges.

“This label that was so unfairly placed on his record is going to hinder him,” she told  NewsNation . 

The suspension may also affect the student-athlete’s prospects of securing a college sports scholarship, the Carolina Journal reported

“Because of his question, our son was disciplined and given THREE days OUT of school suspension for ‘racism,’” McGhee wrote in an email describing the incident.

“He is devastated and concerned that the racism label on his school record will harm his future goal of receiving a track scholarship. We are concerned that he will fall behind in his classes due to being absent for three consecutive days,” she added in the message, which was shared with the outlet.

McGhee said she hired an attorney because the assistant principal refused to remove the suspension from her son’s record.

The popular  X account Libs of TikTok  weighed in on the issue by saying Christian’s record could be “damaged” by the brouhaha over political correctness.

“Please support this based student by helping to raise awareness to his story!” the conservative account wrote in the post, which has received more than 4 million views.

Among those to respond was X owner Elon Musk, who wrote: “This is absurd.”

Conservative personality Ian Miles Chong called it “insane.”

“How does one get suspended for using the term illegal alien?” he asked.

Libs of TikTok added: “Hopefully North Carolina officials can step in and ensure his record isn’t tarnished in any way because he’s trying to secure an athletic scholarship for college.

“He should not be persecuted for using the correct term just because the left is trying to change our entire language,” the account added.

A staffer at Central Davidson High School told Newsweek that they could not comment about a specific student due to federal protections.

“Please know that Davidson County Schools administrators take all discipline incidents seriously and investigate each one thoroughly,” the rep told the mag. “Any violation of the code of conduct is handled appropriately by administrators.”

The student handbook says that “schools may place restrictions on a student’s right to free speech when the speech is obscene, abusive, promoting illegal drug use, or is reasonably expected to cause a substantial disruption to the school day,” the Carolina Journal reported.

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How one school is trying to improve attendance of chronically absent students

Leigh Paterson

Elizabeth Miller

In 2023, about one in four students was chronically absent. Schools are going above and beyond to turn those numbers around. That often means having difficult conversations with students and families.

Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

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“Mean Girls Jr.” cast makes history at St. Bonaventure High School in Ventura

VENTURA, Calif.-It is spring musical season and "Mean Girls Jr." is playing at St. Bonaventure High School in Ventura.

Director Patti Strickland said 2008 graduate Linnea Fechtner, M.D. helped pick up the tab for the rights to the popular show.

She shares her story in the program.

Strickland also said the cast made history by putting on the first musical in the drama department's new theater that used to be the school library.

Many of the cast members have never been in a performing arts production.

The show that runs through Sunday, May 19, has been selling out.

For ticket information visit Saint Bonaventure High School's Drama Department on social media.

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South Jersey Mean 15 baseball rankings for second week of May

Anyone expecting stability in the Courier-Post Mean 15 will be disappointed as this week’s rankings proved volatile once again – unless, of course, you’re Gloucester Catholic.

The Rams keep their stronghold on the No. 1 spot with a 19-0 record heading into a big weekend for the 50th Joe Hartmann Diamond Classic’s final four, which includes Gloucester Catholic, Cherry Hill West, Delsea and Northern Burlington (more on them later).

Two new programs enter the mix this week, meaning a pair of squads saw their stay in the rankings come to an end – at least for now. Here’s a look at this week’s Mean 15 (through May 9) .

More: Top performers from South Jersey baseball from first week of May

Mean 15 rankings

• Gloucester Catholic (19-0) – The Rams survived a close call, rallying for four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning May 7 to edge Rancocas Valley, 6-5, in the Diamond Classic quarterfinals. Senior Tate DeRias had three hits and a pair of RBIs in the victory, while sophomore Guy Lynam knocked in the game-winning run. Gloucester Catholic was scheduled to meet Cherry Hill West in the semifinals on May 11.
• Cherry Hill West (19-3) – Offense is keying an impressive stretch for the Lions, who scored 26 runs in Diamond Classic wins against Paul VI and Lenape before picking up a nice victory over Moorestown as well. That set up a marquee showdown with No. 1 Gloucester Catholic for May 11 where Cherry Hill West will look to hand the Rams their first loss of the season. The Lions have four players with 20-plus RBIs, led by Jon Young Jr.’s impressive 39.
• Kingsway (15-4) – The Dragons are 5-4 dating back to April 26 and saw their Diamond Classic run come to an end May 8 in a 10-3 quarterfinal loss to Northern Burlington. Senior catcher Tommy Popoff had a pair of RBIs in that game, adding to his team-high 26. Kingsway rebounded with an 11-1 win over Washington Township on May 9, when pitcher Josh Herner went 6 2/3 innings with seven strikeouts.
• Delsea (19-1) – Wins against Audubon and Washington Township push Delsea into the semifinals of the Diamond Classic where the team is likely to see its toughest matchup to date with Northern Burlington. The Crusaders erased a 4-0 deficit against Washington Township with help from a 3-run home run by Tyler Schoppe. Senior George Starr notched a win in relief, allowing just one hit over three innings. 
• Mainland (13-4) – A jump in the rankings for Mainland following a two-game sweep of St. Augustine this week. The Mustangs earned a 4-2 road win over the Hermits on May 6 then blanked St. Augustine, 2-0, the following day. Jake Lodgek and Brady Blum combined for the shutout. Lodgek allowed just one hit over five innings, while Blum struck out three in two innings of relief without allowing a baserunner.
• St. Augustine (12-5) – A week that started so promising with a 1-0, walk-off win over Bishop Eustace ended in frustration for the Hermits after back-to-back losses to Mainland. The setbacks mean St. Augustine can only, at best, claim a share of the Cape-Atlantic League American Conference crown. Hermits pitcher Jake Podgorski went seven innings against Bishop Eustace with seven strikeouts. Sophomore DJ Lloyd provided the game-winning RBI.
• Rancocas Valley (13-6) – All in all it was a good week for the Red Devils, who picked up quality victories over Paul VI, Eastern (Diamond Classic) and Lenape before pushing Gloucester Catholic to the brink in that aforementioned 6-5 loss. A 3-2 defeat at the hands of Cherry Hill East on May 9 followed in a game RV surely would like to have back. The Red Devils have a daunting schedule ahead with the likes of St. Augustine, Bishop Eustace, Eastern and Cherokee.
• Eastern (17-5) – A slide in the rankings for Eastern, which has lost three of four, albeit all to teams in the Mean 15. The Vikings’ lone win in that span came in a 6-0 triumph over Shawnee on May 7. Sam Winsett doubled and drove in two runs in that contest, while freshman hurler Will Martin tossed a complete game with five strikeouts. Winsett owns a team-high 32 hits, with 12 going for extra bases.
• Bishop Eustace (14-5) – Two big tests faced Bishop Eustace this week and the team managed a split, topping Cherokee 7-1 before dropping a 1-0 heartbreaker to St. Augustine. Junior Jack Torrence tossed a great game in defeat, going 6 2/3 innings and striking out eight while allowing just three hits. Senior Landon Mack had two of his team’s four hits, including a double.
• Cherokee (11-8) – A tough stretch this week for the Chiefs, who dropped three of five games. Cherokee did manage a big 3-2 win over Eastern on May 6 to salvage an otherwise challenging run of games. Junior Nathan Linden played the hero in that victory with a walk-off, two-run single in the bottom of the seventh inning. Brody Minder went the distance for the Chiefs, striking out seven without a walk across seven innings.
• Ocean City (12-6) – The Red Raiders handled Pennsville, 12-3, on May 4 before battling Egg Harbor Township to a split in CAL American play. Ocean City’s 5-0 victory over the Eagles came at home on May 7 in a game that saw pitcher Travis Large toss a complete game, two-hitter with six strikeouts. Junior Ryan Baldwin came through with three RBIs in the win.
• Lenape (9-7) – The Indians went 4-2 this week, picking up some big wins in the process over the likes of Moorestown, Cherokee and Eastern. Cherry Hill West ended Lenape’s Diamond Classic hopes in the quarterfinals, 14-9. Senior Andrew Shank has paced the Indians’ offense with team highs in hits (24), RBIs (21), batting average (.393) and two home runs.
• Audubon (14-6) – The Green Wave couldn’t slow down No. 4 Delsea in an 8-2 loss in the second round of the Diamond Classic on May 4. Audubon quickly got back on track with straight wins against Colonial Conference competition, racking up 39 runs in the process. Junior Tyler Wiltsey is on a heater for the Green Wave and now leads the team with 28 runs, 25 hits and 20 RBIs. His .417 average is second only to junior Trent Bantle, who is hitting .429.
• Northern Burlington (11-6) – The Greyhounds, in the midst of an impressive Diamond Classic run that includes a 10-3 win over No. 3 Kingsway, check into the Mean 15 for the first time this season. Northern Burlington gets No. 4 Delsea next with a spot in the final on the line. Junior Luca Mannino is putting together a nice season for the Greyhounds with a 2.85 ERA and 30 strikeouts over 27 innings. Mannino also has four hits and five RBIs in the last two games and is hitting .340 this season.
• Shawnee (10-8) – The Renegades rebounded from a 6-0 loss to Eastern with a dominant performance against Winslow and quality 6-2 victory over Burlington Township. Ried Uccello and Kayden Maybury each had a pair of RBIs for Shawnee in that win. Senior Kyle Batt struck out seven in 5 2/3 innings of work to earn the victory.

Knocking on the door: Egg Harbor Township (14-7); Collingswood (11-6); Pennsville (12-7); Pitman (13-5); Haddon Heights (13-5); Holy Cross (14-4); Gloucester (15-6); Cinnaminson (12-6); Burlington Township (9-5); Cedar Creek (15-6); Moorestown (9-8); Hammonton (16-4).

Anthony V. Coppola is a freelance reporter for the Courier-Post. He can be reached by email at [email protected]