Personal context
In high school, I was a typical student. I procrastinated on almost every assignment and believed “work smarter, not harder” meant reading sparknotes instead of buying the book. In both of the “elite” high schools I attended, this was common among my peers, even in AP classes. I, like most of my classmates, was optimizing for the least amount of effort per assignment. All of my “academic success” was a result of my good memory; things just stuck in my head for a long time. My habits and work ethic were terrible.
Strangely, this was the opposite of my feelings toward reading outside of school. Since I was 15, I’ve been reading over 30 books per year (almost all non-fiction). This practice has changed everything about me. Books allowed the wisest people from history to be my teachers. Through this practice, everything meaningful about my life has changed. I am confident that any sufficiently-motivated student can use books alone to obtain a high-quality education. If you throw on the Socratic discussion, reflection, and guidance a student would receive at a place like Sora, they could be world-class.
So, why didn’t I read the books assigned by my teachers? The answer is simple: it was a textbook failure of extrinsic motivation. From the perspective of Self-determination theory, I was given no autonomy. I was told exactly what to read and when to read it. From the perspective of the Sawyer effect, I was given a reward for an already-existing behavior. And, as the Sawyer effect would predict, this transformed my play into work and made me want to regain control through rebellion. I’m lucky this didn’t kill my love of learning as it does for far too many students.
However, there was one notable exception: Les Misérables. Instead of the classic book report, my teacher was experimenting with a new format for assessment. We were told to write three “annotations” per page of the book. This could be something simple like “Cosette intro’d w/ white colors to represent innocence” or multiple sentences scribbled into the margins. I know, this isn’t revolutionary. Many teachers assign annotations. But, for me, it made all the difference. When I began, I tried to skim for “annotate-able” sentences, but it was not obvious without the surrounding context. In my scheming mind, I simply could not think of a way to “optimize” the assignment. I had to obey the teacher. I had to read—it was horrifying.
I ended up reading and enjoying the book. However, without technology, my teacher suffered; she spent weeks reviewing annotations while we researched our next assignment in class (aka. scrolling reddit until two days before the due date). However, I could easily see how a school like Sora could leverage a software-powered, statistical model to verify quality through student crowdsourcing.
Building a better book report
So, how can we build a better book report? As many students remember, you did not need to read the book to get an A on traditional measures of reading. At Sora, we already have group readings which include Socratic discussions. Those are fantastic but require at least a few other students and a TA or Expert to read the book with the group. We also allow the students to present on a book, but we can only give them credit for the topics they cover in their presentation. There’s no way to verify that they didn’t just read one chapter and make a few slides. So, how can we build a great solo experience that both encourages synthesis and verifies the student read the entire book carefully? If both of these requirements are met, books alone could become a cheap and powerful engine for education.
Sadly, there is very little research on this topic (as is the case with all learning science). So, I’m left to propose my own model.
I believe a 21st-century book report should have 3 components: autonomy, verification, and synthesis.
Autonomy: students should be able to choose their book of interest, regardless of other students’ plans.
Verification: students should be able to verify that they read a whole book without significant, extra effort.
Synthesis: students should have the opportunity to combine their learning from the book into a larger project or goal for either extra credit or as a final step to receive credit. At Sora, we try to use knowledge and inspiration to kick off ambitious projects.
Ideas for autonomy
- Approved list of books that the faculty has already read and denoted with skills/standards/credit one should receive if they carefully read the book.
- Students tag skills/standards/credit as they read through the book. Then, a TA or Expert follows up afterward to discuss those topics, despite likely not reading the book beforehand. (This requires more labor than the first.)
Ideas for verification
- Students have to read through a standardized, ebook format. Could just be a reader app where they import the .pub file. They highlight text and make relevant comments, like a google doc or notion format. This would likely get expensive since we’d have to pay for individual book licenses.
- Students write mini-essays at the end of each chapter like Newsela. These are then reviewed by experts or TAs. We’d have to keep a big enough repository of mini-essay topics and check for plagiarism so there isn’t an underground, black market of answers from other students.
Ideas for synthesis
- Students could write a formal response to the book; this could include critiques or just expanding upon ideas.
- Students meet with an expert to think of a project idea where they can utilize the ideas from the book.
Rough ideas for MVP
Experts create a recommended book list. For each of the included books, we’ve tagged the standards a student would learn by reading each chapter of said book. We copy+paste an ebook into a google doc with a few synthesis questions at the end of each chapter. The students are expected to write three comments per page and answer the synthesis questions at the end. When the students are done, we’ll review the reading chapter by chapter and give them the deserved credit. In the future, fellow students, TAs, or outsourced talent could assign credit. Future challenges include book licensing fees and difficulty automating (thus likely requiring labor).
Conclusion
I wanted to publish an example of a Sora memo in case it is thought-provoking for one of my educator friends. Memos are rough around the edges but are meant to spark ideas. If you have thoughts you’d like to add, get in contact with me! I’ll be implementing some experimental version in the coming weeks to see if it has legs.
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