A Simple, End-of-Week Reflective Writing Activity for Secondary Students

Dear colleague,

Some time ago, I was leading a Will to Learn workshop at a school in Palmdale, CA. During a break, middle school educator Teri Cook shared a writing activity she does with her students at the end of the week. I'm going to share it with you here — it'll take just a few seconds because it is very simple — and then I'll expand on all the things I think it's doing.

The Strategy

Teri has her students fold a piece of paper into quadrants, and in each quadrant, they respond to a prompt:

1. What worked this week?
2. What didn't?
3. How can I [your teacher] help?
4. What're you doing tomorrow?

Why It's Smart

There are several reasons why I love this:

1. It gets students writing provisionally.
2. It gets students reflecting on how the week went, which is right in line with Strategy #8 in The Will to Learn, Unpack Outcomes, Good or Bad. This matters so much because such reflection is excellent practice for the development of the Effort and Efficacy beliefs, as students have to point their mind towards:
   • A) What they did in the past week (i.e., their specific efforts and lack of efforts).
   • B) What kind of results that produced. Secondary students don't get nearly as much time for this in school as they need.
3. It signals that the teacher is available to help (prompt 3), which signals Credibility.*
4. It allows students to think and write about both their academic (prompts 1-3) and non-academic (prompt 4) lives, which is great for Belonging.
5. It provides the teacher with lots of insight into how students are doing in terms of goal clarity, application of effort, motivation, need for assistance, and even at home.

*The One Caveat

The only downside to this activity in a secondary setting like Teri's or mine is that giving it to all classes takes 10 minutes per class period but produces 20 or 30+ different responses for the teacher to read. If I was Teri, I'd be reading first period's submissions while second period wrote theirs, second period's while third period wrote, etc. This would help with time. And since it's provisional writing (bottom of the Pyramid of Writing), I'd not be closely reading these or grading them but rather looking for anything concerning or noteworthy. The information I'd glean would be great soil for next week's moments of genuine connection (MGCs), Woodenization attempts, and so on.

So, solid share from Teri Cook and total mad respect for simple, repeatable classroom strategies like this that accomplish a lot in a deceptively simple package.

Teaching right beside you,

DSJR

P.S. If your team is wrestling with student motivation this semester, my “Why Do We Have to Do This?” Mini-Course gives you 10 strategies in under two hours of video. $99 for individuals, or group licenses for your whole faculty start at $499. Learn more here.