Something interesting showed up on my Facebook feed… “And I swear I HATE sticky notes with a passion!!! I want to burn all of them!”
AND this wasn’t written by an angry homework-hating adolescent, but by the mother of elementary and middle school-aged girls. As a language arts teacher, my standing weekly homework assignment was to read for an hour (much less than the recommended 20 minutes a day) and to complete 10 sticky notes to turn in. I recall sharing this assignment at open house with parents and almost always being asked, “Do we have to sign a log every week?” As a parent who loathed the log, I didn’t care if the students wrote the title on a piece of paper along with the pages read each night and then had the parents sign. The parents at my open house were usually ecstatic that the need to sign the log was removed. Why didn’t I want the parent signature, and why did I torture the students with sticky notes?
Maybe if parents understood the goal of the sticky notes, they’d feel better about this homework. I’d tell my students over and over again that reading is thinking. They’d agree with me that thinking is invisible. Therefore, if reading is thinking, and if thinking is invisible, the only way they could make their reading comprehension clear to me is to make their thinking visible to me. I’d joke with them about what I planned to do when I retired. I planned to invent a machine that I would simply hold over their heads, and it would capture their thinking to share it with me. I would walk towards a daydreaming student and hold this imaginary machine over the student’s head and say, “Just think, when I invent my machine, your teachers will be able to capture ALL of your thoughts at all times. Won’t that be great!” Once I’d gotten their attention this way, I’d follow up with, “Too bad that machine doesn’t exist yet, so for now, the only way to capture your thinking is to jot it down on a sticky note for me.” Once they’d pondered that image of me possibly being able to capture every thought that ran through their brain, they suddenly had a new perspective on creating those sticky notes. (This invention is still on my retirement to-do list!)
As a parent, I didn’t mind the log so much in the early elementary years, but I did mind late elementary and beyond. Why did I hate the log as a parent? Because it put all the responsibility on me. I could have my child read in my presence, but just watching him with a book open and seeing pages turn sporadically didn’t mean he was reading and comprehending. Realistically, I wasn’t even a grand observer of this reading process. Instead, the log was usually shoved under my nose the morning it was due and I was told to sign… no time for conversation about the reading. If all the student had to do was fill out the log, how did anyone know if the child was reading successfully? Or even attempting to read, for that matter?
Sticky notes were a great remedy to that problem. Of course, before sticky notes could become the requirement, teachers need to set some expectations for what should be written on them. As a teacher, I needed to model what sticky note completion should look like. As learners, students needed time to practice completing sticky notes in class with one another. Students had to realize that sticky notes were a means to demonstrate comprehension. As a teacher, I could use the sticky notes to monitor a student’s progress. I realized over the years that 4 quality sticky notes for the week would have been enough considering I was only requiring 60 minutes of outside reading. I can admit it now, but I wasn’t actually reading all 10 of those sticky notes submitted weekly by all of my students. I even modified it a bit more to the point of having students reflect on the 4 and choose the one they felt was the best. Sometimes I’d look only at that one; other times I’d look at one they didn’t choose. Both methods gave me a glimpse at my students’ reading comprehension.
To all of you sticky-note hating parents, I hope this changes your mind about sticky notes and reading homework! (or at least gives you something to think about… and maybe even jot down on a sticky note!)
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