We’ve written extensively about the importance of feedback, and we’re always listening to feedback we receive from our community of teachers.
To that end, we’re excited to release new content addressing one of those most frequent requests – instructional material teachers can put to use in Eli Review. These materials are open-source and free to use in any classroom context, even without Eli Review. The materials are framed by explanations from their authors, giving insights into their learning goals (including alignments with standards like Common Core), tips for assessment and coaching, and all of the original materials that can be given to students or utilized in Eli Review.
Set 1: First-Day Icebreaker Activities
This is a short set of activities designed to fit a short writing and review task in the span of a single class meeting. The writing prompt asks students to reflect on their prior experiences with peer review and the review task ask them to respond to the experiences of their classmates. These exercises not only give students the opportunity to start thinking critically about review, but also to become comfortable and familiar with using Eli Review in a relatively low-stakes exercise. (keyword FD1)
Set 2: High Art Evaluative Essay
This essay, developed by Richard Kreinbring of Avondale High School in Auburn Hills, Michigan, is designed to help students develop an argument about what constitutes art. Students collect examples of what they consider to be art and then develop an essay draft making a claim about what they consider artl, using their examples for support. Once drafts are complete, students give one another feedback using a very structured, criteria-driven review and use that feedback to prepare a revision. (keyword RK1)
Using The Materials
The materials in these resources can be used any number of ways. Instructors are free to repurpose them however they like, but each task can be put to use in Eli Review.
Here’s how you can put the materials to use inside Eli Review:
Within Eli Review: if you’re already signed into Eli, these materials are already available to you via the task repository. Just create a new task, look for the “Load from Library” buttons, and browse or search by keyword.
“Use This Task in Eli:” if you’re browsing the instructional materials on the web, each task that can be put to use in Eli Review will have a corresponding button. Just click any of these “big blue buttons” and the Eli app will launch and help you set up that task.
Copyright: The copyright to these instructional materials belongs to their original authors. However, they are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. This means you are free to copy and redistribute them in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material, as long as you provide proper attribution to the author. Commercial use of this content is prohibited.
Upcoming Materials
We’ll be rolling out new instructional materials regularly from here on out. We’re currently working with some great writing instructors on two exciting curriculum projects:
- ACT Test Preparation – Michael Schanhals of North Muskegon High School in North Muskegon, Michigan will share the six-week curriculum he developed using Eli Review that helped him successfully coach to better performances on the ACT.
- Complete First-Year Writing Course – Bill Hart-Davidson of Michigan State University (and one of Eli’s co-inventors) will share the entire 15-week curriculum he developed to teach his first-year writing students utilizing Eli Review.
To stay up-to-date as curriculum materials become available, follow Eli Review on Twitter, Facebook, or this blog’s RSS feed.
