A problem I have never really resolved is providing meaningful feedback on an essay, feedback that students will actually use.  In nearly every respect, it’s pointless giving feedback on a finished product—like a final draft, or an essay-test.  But frustratingly, I have also struggled in getting students to apply my feedback to first drafts.

I have initiated conversations with my peers about this, and we all agree that it seems ultimately pointless, and yet we still roll the rock uphill day after day.  And how many of us take home stacks of papers with alarming frequency, thinking more practice for the kids means more grading for us?

Most of us would agree, I think, that we want our kids to write well, to communicate clearly, to be able to support a sustained argument.  So how do we as teachers make that a habit of mind for the kids—without punishing them or are ourselves? 

An answer to that, in my mind, is in the form of a question:  Is the essay itself the point, or is the essay the means to an end?  If it’s the means, what’s the larger goal?  Here’s my goal—the essay is going to become the object around which the students and I can have a conversation about Thinking Itself.

So, this year, I am going to facilitate discussions in my classroom about inquiry—about how to ask questions, how to investigate those questions, and how to express the results of that investigation.  And above all, how to make it organic so that it all stems from the student, and NOT from me.

The challenge, of course, is that I have to teach to a test that will not be graded by me, for a course whose content is determined by an outside agency, and of course, the grade for which may help the student save money in college by getting course credits.  How do I balance the need for test prep and content…Actually, strike that, how do I create a meaningful education for the kids using test prep and content as one of the tools?

I am going to redefine “assessment,” ‘at’s how.  Every permutation of every kind of test that has been used in traditional history classes is going to become the subject of a conversation between me and the kids, and their reflections on those conversations will be their ultimate assessment for my class. 

And if at some point I just vanish altogether, just wink out of existence right in the middle of a class discussion, by hope is that the kids will be so on point that my disappearance won’t even be noted.  My measure of success will be the point at which I'm no longer necessary.