An Organizational Onus

The secret skill that frames the rest.

I’d still like to use a Chronodex for organization, but I’d have to be organized enough to learn it first. If one of you manages that trick, let the rest of us know; it would have to be adapted for the strange schedule of high school students and teachers. (Image courtesy of the original Chronodex site.)

For grade abatement to work, each assignment has to serve two purposes: It must strengthen a skill or trait, and it must demonstrate that skill or trait.

This is why the completion of work is the most critical facet of our course. Each step is designed to inculcate the skills and traits you need — the amenability, the collegiality, the critical thinking, and so on.

As the quarter progresses, that Gestalt dynamic kicks in. Your body of work develops. The rhinoceros test gets clearer and clearer, so that the last week or so of the quarter — when GAP scoring occurs — should be simple. It should feel inevitable.

The First Coalescence

Let’s start with how the GAP scoring process is organized.

First, using Google Classroom, we determine if all required work was completed fully and on time. If not, the discussion of GAP scoring usually starts with a 6; if everything looks good, the logical consequent is that we have enough evidence to start with a 7.

Then I check my notes, looking over some of the major assignments again to correlate hard data and objective measurements with an anecdotal assessment of your performance. The holistic sense of the student is critical here — the accumulated sense of those skills and traits that we have in front of us after 8–9 weeks.

That holistic picture generally answers the question, “Is it possible that the student could move from a 7 to an 8 or 9?” or the corresponding question, “Is it possible that the student could move from a 6 to a 5+ or 5-?”

Next, I look at the GAP essay, recording the suggested score and taking notes on the quality of the essay itself. I’m sure it’s obvious that the quality of the grade abatement profile correlates strongly to the overall GAP score; vague, perfunctory, or unsubstantiated profiles raise the question, “Is a student who is unable to write well on the most important essay of the quarter likely to be an 8 or 9?”

In fact, weak GAP writing — including late or incomplete essays — can function to drop students who might otherwise be considered for a 7 down to a 6 or lower, or to drop students who might otherwise settle in at a 6 down to a 5+ or 5-.

The last step of the GAP process is the review of any evidence you’ve provided. I should be able to open a Google Drive folders or a set of printed materials to see what kind of metacognition, reflection, and other work you’ve done. This substantiates the 7, bolsters the case for an 8 or 9, and can even tip a questionable 6 into the category of a 7.

That last and probably most important step requires your preparation. It requires your diligence and vigilance. Imagine what is reflected by a poorly organized, haphazardly submitted body of work, one that forces me to search through Google Drive, searching for evidence to try to help you.

It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, only the needle may or may not exist. And the haystack is full of blister beetles.

The Skill of Organization

The list of skills and traits for our course does not explicitly include organization:

1. The skill of reading closely, especially to emulate authors through a universal rubric
2. The skill of thinking critically, especially in answering essential questions
3. The skill of communicating effectively, especially in writing through a universal rubric
4. Assiduousness, or the ability to persevere in completing difficult tasks
5. Amenability, or the ability to take criticism well and use it effectively
6. Collegiality, or the ability to collaborate with peers to read, write, and think
7. Metacognitive aptitude, especially as demonstrated in post-writing self-assessments
8. Autodidactic aptitude, especially in navigating the interstitial elements of the course
9. Demonstrable growth and/or proxy teaching of timed analysis and argument
10. Demonstrable growth and/or proxy teaching of timed multiple-choice work

(Ignore the last two for a moment. They will be most important in Q3, and are separated out from the rest of the list because of our ineluctable AP exam.)

This list does not mention organization. It also does not mention empathy, but empathy is a crucial part of collegiality. In other words, not every identifiable skill or trait is delineated here; these are the aegises under which everything we do falls.

Organization is, in fact, key to every skill and trait on this list. You cannot approach a difficult text without organizing your reading; you cannot approach a difficult writing assignment without organizing your thoughts; you cannot work with others or with me if you do not organize some sense of your own self-efficacy; and so on.

Jack Be Nimble

It’s best to see this in action. Study the following examples, beginning with a lengthy one from a student we’ll call Jack (not his real name).

I’m ambivalent about revealing the identity of these exceptional students. Part of me wants to shine the strongest spotlight on them, because they are your models; another part, however, recognizes the ease with which some of you lapse into derisive jealousy when a student is highlighted like this.

Jack requests a 9, making him one of 24 students to request an 8 or 9 this quarter. Because he has completed all of his work through Google Classroom, a 7 is our starting point.

My observational notes have him participating in class and online fairly often. I look at his essays next, coordinating another read with my previous notes, and then I review his attempts to conference and collaborate all quarter. An 8 or 9 is possible.

But I need to see evidence of certain requirements — regular metacognition, notes on posts and feedback, etc. Fortunately, Jack has sent me a link to his Q2 folder in Drive, where I can verify his GAP essay’s claims and corroborate my own Gestalt intuition.

At each point of the following account, note two things: first, how easy it is to find evidence; second, how that clarity and cleanliness is obviously correlated to substantial metacognition, reflection, introspection, and so on.

Here is the email I received:

This is a screenshot of an iPad Outlook app. It’s a strange new world we live in, but that’s part of the reason you have no reason not to get organized: You have endless digital and non-digital ways to organize yourself. I am emphasizing Google Drive because (1) you have an account through school, and (2) it is by far the simplest and most accessible way to keep your work in one place. If, however, you want to use something else, just let me know.

A couple of notes here:

1. This is a screenshot from Monday, 2/2, after the GAP essays had already been submitted. This is in the midst of my reaching out to you all for evidence, clarification, and so on.
2. You can see two other emails replying to me from Friday and Saturday of that week. Those two students hadn’t turned in a GAP essay, but at least they are communicating with me about it.

Jack has sent along his AP Lang folder, which looks like this when it’s opened:

That’s perfect. I can even delve into extracurricular folders if I think that’s necessary, perhaps to get a greater sense of Jack as a writer. But the information I need is in Quarter 2:

Again, perfect: a folder with copies of the formal assignments, including drafts of Medium-published essays and ETA work; a folder for GAP-related work, including checklists and the essay itself; a folder of reactions to the teacher’s Medium-published essays; a folder of reactions to Sisyphean High posts; and a folder of weekly metacognition.

Obviously, this looks fantastic. It’s the structure a 9 needs. Even before I open each folder, I have evidence that my original Gestalt assumption — the initial rhinoceros test — was correct.

When I check Assignments, I see this:

More clear and accessible organization. And each one of these documents is careful, thorough, and insightful.

Remember, this step is about corroborating — I’ve already looked at the major assignments, hard data, and my own notes. But Jack has made it fast and easy to get that corroboration. There’s no trudging through poorly labeled work, no need to schedule a conference or email him repeatedly asking for clarification…

As an example:

This is another key indicator of a 9. Jack understands that Medium posts function differently from what is posted on Sisyphean High. He is giving each of those Medium posts careful, methodical consideration, and as I pull each document out to check for understanding, I’m met with honest and insightful interaction:

That’s splendid — exhaustive and specific and engaged throughout. The responses Jack has uploaded to Sisyphean High posts are similarly excellent:

And through Google Drive, I can scroll through them quickly, checking for understanding and insight as I go. Then I can move on to the next batch of evidence:

These are shorter — at least, they seem to be. But that’s another indicator of a 9: These should be shorter, because they aren’t essays, nor are they responses to the instructional posts and essays I’ve given you all. They are the kind of reflective and metacognitive upkeep you need in here — not just to write your GAP essay, but to plan for the next step in your learning.

This is about that tardigrade mentality, about being adaptible and self-sufficient. If you organize your work this way, you will never lack for evidence of your strengths and weaknesses. And that is the only way to hone the former and eliminate the latter.

Here is an example of Jack’s weekly writing:

One of the more impressive details here is that the student is actually ahead of me in his work. I didn’t have time to go over the two Bear Facts articles he mentions. But that actually helps us illustrate another key part of grade abatement:

Continually investing in writing and reading and discussion yields incredible benefits. It doesn’t have to be checked in by a teacher, because that’s not how learning works; the teacher is just there to keep you on the right track, to help you adjust, and to provide you with expertise when you need it. I don’t need to rubber-stamp your progress.

Jack gets that, which is why he’s a 9.

The Power of the GAP Essay

The next example is shorter, but the lesson is no less important. Our first exemplar, Jack, emailed me a link to his Google Drive portfolio. That’s one option; another is to use the GAP essay itself as a portal to your evidence:

Notice, too, the certainty this student (let’s call her Jill) has in describing her grade abatement profile. That certainty comes from an investment in the course. It’s also one of the reasons she thought to embed so many hyperlinks; after reading enough of my rambling, that mechanism is bound to rub off on you.

The first link you can see in this excerpt (a screenshot; I don’t want you combing through her work) leads to this:

This is the sort of organization that makes the GAP process at the end of each quarter easy and ameliorative, not a slog through chaotic data. I can comb through this, and if it isn’t as carefully curated as Jack’s portfolio, it is still splendid. That’s why this student is an 8.

Presenting Interstitial Evidence

One last example before you go off to emulate these students. This one illustrates the importance of self-awareness — in this case, of how to provide evidence of galvanizing efforts.

From the student’s GAP essay, which asked for an 8:

Note the awareness of what our focus on Q2 groups did to his (we’ll call this one Underhill to keep up the Jack and Jill theme) plan of participating more. My notes on in-class work corroborate the claim that he was “vocalizing [his] thoughts in [his] small group” more often, but I hadn’t seen enough galvanizing efforts to justify an 8.

Mr. Underhill here is aware of this, though, and directs the first link to his reddit profile, where each and every comment and thread is organized:

The point I make after this image is worth emphasizing: your subreddit does not determine your GAP score. It isn’t the only way for you to galvanize your peers or to discuss this class. It is, however, a very useful tool for collaboration and discussion. You should use it, and many of you need to make it part of your routine in order to increase its traffic and, therefore, its utility for everyone else.

As you know, I don’t monitor the subreddit on a daily basis. It’s your forum for discussion, brainstorming, and the occasional troll attack. When you direct me to it, as this student did, it becomes part of the evidence-gathering process. And in this case, it moved the student from a GAP 7 to a GAP 8.

One important note: Don’t overemphasize the subreddit. Spamming it with threads and comments won’t earn you a higher GAP score. Like everything else, it is entirely about galvanic efficacy — quality over quantity.

Study these models and adapt them for your own system of organization. Do it quickly, too; you can secure whatever GAP score you want, but only if you are willing to put in the hours to get this sort of system off the ground.

Remember, your goal is to inculcate habits that you can take with you beyond this course. Organization may be the most important one.

With some luck, you’ll never have to engage that tardigrade indestructibility, because you’ll only have supportive and student-centered learning environments. You’ll need luck, though, because our good governor appears to be trying to turn learning into his own personal hellscape.