Dear colleague,
The second-to-last strategy in The Will to Learn is one that's easy to sleep on: Unpack Outcomes, Good or Bad. You can read a full explanation of the strategy on pp. 206-219 in your copy of the book, so today I won't re-explain it here and will instead give a recent example from my classroom.
When my general-level world history students came into class on test day, this is what they saw:
As the warm-up, they were tasked with 1) writing what specific actions they took to prepare for the test that day and 2) stating their target score for the assessment.
There are a few things that happen in these prompts:
- By focusing on their inputs (the specific actions they took to prepare for the test), I'm setting the stage for them to be more thoughtful about their outputs (their test results). This idea of SPECIFIC actions is very important because many of my ninth graders will default on questions like this to things like “I studied” or “I did not study.” We want to be more specific than that. To help with this, I Woodenize specific study behaviors for my students. Focusing on specific actions taken or not taken helps to build the Effort belief.
- By stating a target score, students are defining success for themselves, which is key for building the Efficacy belief.
I told them to hold on to this piece of writing until after the test.
Then, they took the test.
Finally, once they had their results (this works well for computer-graded tests, but I also have students do this for written tests), they returned to their writing and answered the following questions:
- How did you do? This gets them comparing their target score with their actual result. (I wish I had also asked, “Why do you think you got this result?”)
- What changes would you like to make during the next unit? We now shift into them deciding how and if they'd like to improve for the next unit's work.
- Beyond test scores, how is this class giving you a chance to grow STRONGER, more KNOWLEDGEABLE, and more CAPABLE? This is a Valued Within exercise, as it gets them thinking about the WHY of the class in a deeper way than simple test scores.
Here are some samples from the students:
(I'll translate the ones where handwriting is an issue. I often have students write by hand because we avoid the distractions of a device, we don't need to bother about AI, and spiral notebooks are always charged! The biggest drawbacks of writing by hand are handwriting and spelling problems.)
Here, a student is identifying that simply getting work done is inferior to working to learn. Why settle for “getting it done” when you can instead embrace the chance to know more things than Avery? 
In my note to this student, you see me trying to point his mind and heart toward attributing his success to his efforts. This helps develop the Effort belief.
This one's hard to read. He says, “What I did to prepare for the test was first I went over the flash cards, then I did the matching game, and then after I did the practice test.” This is a great example of being specific about studying. What we're after when we Woodenize effective studying is getting students to understand that there are lots of ways to “study” and that some are much more effective than others.
This student says that “By writing every day, we become more creative thinkers because we have the ability to put our thoughts down on a page freely.” This is a student who was very resistant and slow to write when I first began starting my general-level classes with a 10-minute freewriting warm-up. (I began this once we had mastered the Article of the Day regimen I describe in this video.)
And finally, this student's epiphany is a beautiful example of what's possible with a good Unpack Outcomes activity. She is realizing — through experience — that hard, smart work can get you a better outcome. That is an incredibly powerful realization, the impact of which will never be measurable on the kinds of standardized tests that we use to judge schools but that is nonetheless incredibly important at the scale of a human life.
Hope something in here is helpful, colleague.
Teaching right beside you,
DSJR
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