Integrating Metacognitive Routines in Middle School ELA

How can teachers effectively integrate metacognitive routines into their classrooms? It always seems we never have enough time, and asking students to reflect regularly on their progress takes space away from other skills that students might need to practice.

I take reflection and goal setting seriously, however, both because there is good evidence that sharpening student capacities at metacognition improves their overall achievement, and because I have seen the importance of these skills in my students. Like many teachers, I make use of exit tickets to spur student reflection and gauge student learning, but I find a more expansive approach to reflection and goal setting to be especially important for supporting growth in middle school. As an English teacher, I want my students to be sophisticated readers, elegant writers, and confident speakers, but I also want them to be able to explain to themselves and others why we do what we do in English class and why. To meet this goal, a sustained approach to metacognition is key.

Using outcomes to support metacognition

Meaningful student reflection relies on the availability of clear and timely feedback on their progress. In my classroom, feedback takes many forms—written comments, one-on-one meetings, and peer feedback are all parts of how students track their learning throughout the year.

The most important tool I use, however, is the “outcomes” feature in Canvas. I like teaching with outcomes for two reasons: I can see directly how students are doing at the skills we are focused on at any given time, and when the Learning Mastery Gradebook is activated, students can see how they are doing at specific skills as well.

Ensuring that outcomes are transparent and student-friendly is essential. At the start of each academic year, I upload outcomes for all of our skills to Canvas in the form of “I can…” statements. I use these outcomes to build rubrics for each of our assignments, and I make time to go over these outcomes in detail when introducing assignments so that students know which skills we’re focusing on in an assignment. The goal is for students to know at each moment in the term what skills are being practiced and how well they are doing at each one.

Teaching students to work with feedback

Feedback is an essential part of enabling students to think metacognitively, but few students will examine outcomes data or reflect on other kinds of feedback on their own. In my classroom, I help foster metacognitive skills by engaging in regular, low-stakes reflections on feedback—especially the feedback generated by the use of learning outcomes in Canvas.

Every few weeks, I take 10 or 15 minutes to have students do a comprehensive feedback review. This gives them a real-time look at their progress at individual outcomes in Canvas and allows them to see how their performance on different assignments feeds into their achievement in skill areas. Students examine any written feedback they’ve received as well, along with relevant quiz grades, and write short reflections in their classroom.

The result is a series of notebook entries on areas of strength and areas of growth throughout the academic year. These entries are important as a means of helping students build self-understanding, and they provide helpful valuable data points for one-on-one meetings, student-led conferences, or the learning statement assignment, which I discuss in more detail below.

Developing the Learning Statement

The most important metacognitive work that students do in my classroom is called “the learning statement,” a reflective essay that students complete three times a year. The first learning statement is a low-stakes assignment. Typically, students produce this essay at the start of the academic year and include general reflections on what they recall about areas of strength and areas of growth from the previous academic year. I grade it as complete or incomplete and provide feedback oriented toward future growth, especially in terms of how students use evidence to make claims about their learning.

The next two learning statements, however, are treated as formal assignments, with an emphasis on using strong evidence to support claims about growth and future goals. The best learning statements cite particular assignments—sometimes even inserting links to relevant work—quote directly from feedback or other pieces of student writing, and accurately name the skills that students are best at and those that still need practice.

My students typically write their learning statement, but there’s no reason why it needs to be limited to writing. Students might also do their learning statement as a podcast, video essay, poster, or oral presentation, depending on strengths, classroom context, and teacher and student needs. The form is less important than the opportunity for students to practice structured reflection on who they are as learners and how they hope to grow.

My students usually struggle at the beginning of the year, making claims that they can’t support or that might be contradicted by the evidence they present in their favor. By the end of the year, though, they are typically much more fluent when it comes to discussing who they are as learners and justifying their claims with clear evidence from the course. When I send them off to high school, they are ready not only for the rigors of regular seminar discussion and essay writing, but for managing themselves as learners in a more independent environment.