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Saturday, September 10, 2016

The End of the No-Name Paper: A PSA

This post needs to be accompanied by angels descending upon us playing harps while showering the world with flower petals and happiness and smiles.

Seriously. I know I'm a bit late to the party, but...

The highlighter trick to getting students to put names on their papers?


It. Works.

I mean, it really, really works.

Why has it taken me until my fourth year of teaching to get on board with this idea? Well, I'll tell you why. I was skeptical. I thought that adding a step to students' turn-it-in procedures would just confuse them more. Then I'd not only be policing the no-name papers and the kids who want to put their papers everywhere but the turn-in basket, I'd also be constantly reminding them to use the highlighters. Right?! Wrong. So, so, so incredibly wrong.

After telling them what to do with the highlighters, it took my firsties all of fifteen minutes to get on board with this procedure. Now they walk up to the turn-in basket, highlight their name, and turn in their paper turn around, walk back to their desks, write their name, highlight their name, and turn in their paper.

I don't want to jinx things here, but not one no name paper has shown up since that glorious day.

Not. One.

Whoever first came up with this idea should be a millionaire by now. Seriously.