Now that you have observed typical student responses…
What did your classroom data show you about the use of precise academic adjectives at your school or in your district?
During your observations, did you see teachers asking students to choose adjectives with academic precision or were students able to get by with imprecise language?
Based on our work with thousands of teachers in classrooms, here is what you likely learned:
The use of adjectives by students is usually inconsistent or overly generic. Everything is big, fun, nice and red.
Teachers don’t usually require students to choose specific clarifying descriptors or modifiers.
Teachers generally place no requirements on students to use specific types of adjectives in their oral and written responses.
Students receive many mixed messages related to the importance of specificity in their academic work. You may have heard something like the following:
A teacher asks student to describe appearance over function or purpose.
Teachers advise students to “write what you see” as the primary tool for description.
Teachers accept surface-level descriptors and miss opportunities to deepen thinking through comparative and contrasting adjectives.
Unfortunately, all of these teacher behaviors work against helping students to use adjectives in their sentences in ways that sound academic. But by understanding what we currently do as teachers—and its implication for students and testing—we can be excited to do something different and better.
Click below for two simple behaviors your teachers can immediately do to help students to use adjectives in more academic ways that are essential for testing success.