Last month’s “teaching tip” was Right is Right and was built upon the previous month’s concept of No Opt-Out. Students are not allowed to come to class unprepared and then be “let off the hook,” as it were, so likewise students are not allowed to have a lackadaisical attitude to the quality of both the work whether verbal or written.

This month we will discuss the two aspects of work that teachers, home, or school deal with on a weekly basis: verbal answers to questions and written work. In both cases, teachers must have expectations that they are willing to place upon their students to not only prepare for the day by doing the work required the day before, but also be prepared to work and complete a given assignment.

Just as Right is Right: answers must be correct, as we noted last month – it is important that parents are willing to add another Teaching Tip to their tool kit called: Stretch It!

This is a simple process wherein you ask your student (s) a question; they answer it correctly, and you Stretch it. You do this when they answer the first question correctly, and then YOU, the teacher, ask your student (s) another question. You are essentially asking the student to Stretch It a bit by asking for more information about the topic at hand.

The request “for more information” is to facilitate the higher order thinking skills of your students so that they learn to think more clearly, and deeply, about the subject at hand. Equally, you are building up their ability to formulate deeper concepts within their head about the subject being taught, and thus become more thoughtful when it comes time to discussing things of import!

The second aspect of teaching within the spectrum of the Right is Right noted above, is that when students turn in written work, Right is still Right! (Imagine that!)

When students turn in written work, they may be trying to get an assignment done quickly (who hasn’t at one time, or another done that?!!). No problem! Yet, even when a student attempts to get their work done fairly quickly, they still must be held accountable to turn in written work that anyone could read and have a fairly clear idea of what the writer is attempting to communicate.

The best way to ensure that is the case is in the area of sentence writing: Format Matters: complete sentences are a must. The main thing to keep in the minds of your students is that a complete sentence expresses a complete thought. What and who are they writing about? What did that person do? Whether there are one or more people being written about in their essay or their one sentence response homework – people have names, and those names should be used so the reader can understand who and what is being discussed!

This does not mean that they must rewrite the first 2/3rds of the question in order to have a “complete sentence” – but it does mean that a person with no knowledge of the assignment should be able to tell who the general ideas and people involved in the written material are, and what is important.

Bottom line: hold your students accountable to express clearly and correctly what they are attempting to communicate!