The Power of Pulse Checks in the ELA Classroom

Flash back to 2018 to one of the cringiest moments in my ELA teaching career. I was eight years in—so not a newbie— and I had a toolbox of strategies that had worked in the past. The class sizes at my Florida middle school were nothing I hadn’t seen before, and I was well-acquainted with the standards I was meant to be teaching. 

But things felt different that year. Students weren’t completing assignments. Group work was unfocused at best. Worst of all, students weren’t having the deep and challenging discussions I’d hoped for. 

And, as much as I hate to admit it, this was mostly my fault.  

Every day, I drove home filled with frustration over why my students didn’t seem to care about the work we were doing. I racked my brain for better ways to invite my students into conversations about the texts we were reading. I was out of ideas and realized I needed help from the very people who had the most to gain (and lose) from our floundering class time.

I needed to talk to my students.  

But first, I needed to check in with myself. 

First, Check Your Pulse

There's a reason flight attendants instruct us to put on our own masks before assisting others. We can’t support our students in bringing their authentic selves to the table if we don’t first show up authentically ourselves. After some soul-searching, I realized I had spent the entire first part of the quarter modeling how not to show up as the heart-centered leader I knew I was. 

I was so stressed about not getting through the content I knew I had to teach that I completely lost sight of the humans sitting in front of me. My hyper-focus on data and progress monitoring led me to prioritize everything except what mattered most: the kids. 

Setting up (or resetting, in my case) classrooms to hold deep discussions around important and challenging topics is HEART work. We know theories of human motivation all start with basic needs before moving to human connection and self-actualization. Showing up daily like a drill sergeant, sticking tightly to my lesson plan, and not taking stock of student needs did not create an environment that welcomed discussion. 

Fixing the root problem started with me. It starts with you too. 

If you’ve been there, or you’re there right now, check your pulse. Start by asking yourself some of these questions:

• How do I feel when planning lessons? What’s top of mind when building a curriculum?

• How do I feel before each class? After each class? 

• How do students feel when they walk into my classroom? Out of my classroom?

• Do my students feel included in my classroom? How can I tell?  

• Whom does my classroom serve? Who might not be getting served?

• What books do we read each year? Whose perspectives are missing?

Next, Check the Pulses of Your ELA Students 

After realizing that I needed to change my classroom approach and structure, I was ready to face my students.

This was new territory for me. I hadn’t learned how to check in with my students in my teacher prep programs. My schooling mainly focused on content and writing lesson plans: all about what I did in the classroom. No one had suggested that I include students as collaborative partners. 

But I had to try something.   

I wanted to model that teachers make mistakes, too, and there’s always room for a comeback. At the start of class, I arranged our desks in a circle, sat with my students, and told them: “I think I forgot that you’re adolescents, capable of owning your learning, and I fear I’m missing out on opportunities to meet your needs. For the next five minutes, we’ll do a pulse check. I want you to write down two things going well for you in this class and two things you think can make our time together more meaningful.” 

This pulse check was a total GAME CHANGER. 

For the first time, I didn’t hear groans when I asked them to write. Why? Because they had the opportunity to write exactly what they wanted to share for a real purpose. Suddenly, they understood the importance of clarity and organization in writing. They also viewed themselves as agents of change and learned that I trusted them as capable thinkers.

And they were full of valuable intel for me. They wrote about activities they loved and wanted to do again and shared their favorite ways to partner up for different tasks. They were also honest about the absurd amount of pressure they sometimes felt I put on them to master complex skills too quickly. And they impressed upon me that they desperately wanted to learn but often found the texts confusing or uninteresting. 

This was just the information I needed to define our next steps forward together.

Use Pulse Checks to Build an ELA Classroom Where Everyone Thrives 

I took my students’ suggestions to heart and started including their favorite activities, such as debate groups, in class more often. I also built new, connected activities, like evidence-gathering circles and performance opportunities, to add variety to our sessions. I immediately swapped out some of our older, drier texts with newer, higher-interest ones that included more diverse perspectives. And I started doing regular pulse checks to gain insight into what was working for my students and what needed tweaking.   

In time, students saw that we were creating a space where they had a say in what they were learning and how they were learning it. And when I adjusted our texts and activities, they saw that their voices had the power to shape the classroom they were part of. From here, they began to feel safe having discussions about the texts they were reading. And because they trusted each other and me, we could navigate a range of topics together–even difficult ones.  

When (and Why) to Pulse Check in Your ELA Classroom

As literacy teachers, we can’t afford to veer away from knowing our students because knowing them is how we can use literacy to make sense of the world. Just in the past three years, our students have experienced an incredible amount of change and loss through COVID, racial reckonings, continuous school shootings, natural disasters, economic instability, and changes in legislation affecting women and trans people. Writers provide examples of how to live in the world we’ve built, and students need to see as many of these examples as possible.   

Early in my teaching career, I shied away from challenging topics because the world seemed messy enough without me piling on. However, I eventually learned to ask my students, “Which part of the world do you want to try and make sense of or challenge? Let's start there.” As future adults, my students had to start grappling with difficult topics so they would one day feel capable of exploring solutions.  

Managing hard conversations in the classroom requires frequent pulse checks. They will help you ensure you’re meeting your students’ needs and give them a place to let you know they’re okay (or not) when conversations get rocky. 

The Benefits of Frequent Pulse Checks in ELA Classrooms 

Here are some benefits I saw once I began implementing frequent pulse checks in my ELA classroom:

• Room for Vulnerability. Students felt they were in a safe space where they could learn, share more of themselves, and feel seen and valued. 

• Classroom Climate. Students could share how particular conversations, topics, or texts made them feel, giving me a sense of classroom climate and strategies for addressing fraught or delicate issues.

• Engagement. Students were more engaged because they could impact learning structures and processes as well as the overall classroom environment.

• Self-Directed Learning. Students reflected on their learning process and set new academic goals. These check-ins also helped me assess prior knowledge and monitor for understanding in a tangible but low-stakes way.

While pulse checks are essential at the beginning of the school year and at the end of units, quarters, or semesters, they can be used more frequently, particularly when discussing potentially tricky subject matter. My average time frame was every two weeks, but I did them almost daily when reading and discussing something particularly contentious.  

Just as you plan a variety of classroom activities, pulse checks will be most effective if you mix them up so they don’t get stale and predictable. Read on for five distinct pulse checks, complete with questions, that will help you stay up-to-date on classroom climate and student mindsets. You can also click on the image to download a handy PDF with all the pulse check questions, separated by category. 

Note that while I’m giving you many questions to choose from, I found the sweet spot to be between two and three questions. More than that and most students burn out and stop being as thoughtful as they were on earlier questions.   

1. Opener and Exit Ticket Pulse Checks 

You can use five-minute openers to assess prior knowledge, introduce a new topic or skill, or ask students to recall something they learned last class. You can also use them to see how students feel about what they read for homework or as a general emotional check-in. Similarly, exit tickets can be used to solidify knowledge at the end of class or assess how students feel as they walk out your door. Students can also use exit tickets to ask questions or share an idea that will stick with them.  

 PULSE CHECK Opener QUESTIONS
 

• What’s one thing you learned last class?

• What’s one thing from last class you’re still unsure about? 

• What’s one goal you want to accomplish during class today?

• How are you feeling today? Anything you’d like me to know? 

Pulse Check Exit Questions
 

• What’s one new thing you learned today? 

• What’s one question you still have about today’s class?

• What was your favorite thing that happened in class today?

• What was your least favorite thing that happened in class today?

• How’re you feeling as you walk out of the classroom? 

• What are you most looking forward to for the next class?  

2. The Pre-Discussion Pulse Check

The pre-discussion pulse check can be a little more academically focused than general check-ins, and they’re a great way to prepare students for potentially difficult conversations. Ask students to clarify what they would like to discuss and formulate questions to ask their peers. You can also prompt them to find passages they’d like to focus on and set discussion goals for themselves. At the beginning of the year, I tended to provide students with sample goals (build off a classmate's comment, ask a question, challenge respectfully, etc.). Eventually, students can identify their own goals. 

To ensure that we were all still leading with our hearts, I often asked students to write about how they had experienced the text we were about to discuss–specifically if they were processing it more intellectually or emotionally. This question required them to assess their state of mind before entering a discussion and was also a good reminder that their classmates may have experienced the text differently.   

Pre-Discussion Pulse Check Questions
 

• What emotions did this text make you feel?  

• What did this text make you think about? Did it remind you of anything else you’ve read or seen? 

• What is one thing you noticed about this text that you’d like to share with your classmates? 

• What is one question you have about this text that you’d like to ask your classmates?  

• What’s one goal you have for yourself in this discussion? 

3. The Post-Discussion Pulse Check

The post-discussion pulse check will solidify new ideas, let students reflect on whether they met their discussion goals, and can also serve as an emotional check-in, which is essential after a difficult conversation. Asking students when they felt most and least comfortable during a discussion will give you valuable insight into their sensitivities, strengths, and blind spots. If students seem particularly reticent to talk during a discussion, you can also ask them if there is anything you can do next time to better involve and support them.   

Post-Discussion Pulse Check Questions
 

• What was the most surprising thing about today’s discussion?

• What’s one thing you learned in this discussion that you will keep thinking about? 

• Did you change your mind at any point in this discussion? About what? 

• Which classmate do you think did a great job in this discussion? What did they do?

• What’s something you did in today’s discussion that you are proud of? 

• What’s something you could have done better in today’s discussion?

• When were you most engaged in today’s discussion? 

• When were you least engaged in today’s discussion? 

• Is there anything I can do to make our next discussion better for you?

4. The Curve Ball Pulse Check

We’ve all been there. 

Despite best-laid plans, class goes completely off the rails. 

Maybe students abandon discussion guidelines and resort to personal attacks, or perhaps no one completed the reading and the discussion is stilted or nonexistent. Whatever the scenario, it doesn’t serve anyone to stay the course and ignore what’s happening. So when the unexpected occurs, take a deep breath, tell your students it’s time to assess, and pull out your good friend, the pulse check.  

Curveball pulse checks are powerful because they give teachers real-time feedback to make instructional changes on the fly. You may need to clarify learning goals, switch from a whole-class discussion to group work, or even ask a student whose been dominating the conversation to take a breather. Interrupting the flow of a class with a pulse check might not feel good the first few times you do it, but it will inform your pedagogy while there’s still time to make changes and let students share the hard work of diagnosing ruptures in the classroom dynamic.   

Curveball Pulse Check Questions
 

• If you described to an absent friend what we did in class today, what would you say in one or two sentences? 

• What do you still have questions about?

• Are there concepts I need to be clearer on or that you need more time with?

• Whoa! What just happened? Can you explain why the conversation took that turn? 

• What do you think we need to do as a class to get the conversation back on track? 

• How do you feel about the conversation we just had? 

• What do you need from me to resolve any anger, hurt, or frustration you’re feeling?

• How can we ensure that whatever didn’t go right today doesn’t happen again?

• It sounds like there was a lot of disagreement around the table today. Can you summarize a viewpoint you heard that you disagree with? Then, in a few sentences, can you explain why you disagree? 

• Is there something you wanted to say in the discussion that you didn’t have a chance to share?  

5. The Self-Assessment and Reflection Pulse Check 

These more comprehensive pulse checks can double as formative assessments where students show what they’ve learned and reflect on their learning. They can happen after units, texts, projects, or quarters. If you want to improve discussion dynamics and procedures, you can question students about those specifically.

Self-Assessment and Reflection Pulse Check Questions
 

• In a paragraph or two, tell me what you learned in this unit.

• What in this unit challenged you the most? What surprised you the most?

• Tell me something you learned about yourself during this unit. 

• When were you most engaged during this unit? Why? 

• When were you least engaged during this unit? Why?  

• What work in this unit are you most proud of? What could you have done a better job on in this unit? 

• If you were designing this unit, what parts would you keep? What would you cut? Anything new you would add?

• Talk briefly about how you improved as a reader, writer, and discussant during this unit. Then, set yourself a reading, writing, and discussion goal for our next unit. 

Pulse Checks Are Just the Beginning 

I still marvel at my classroom's transformation once I started focusing on my students as whole people. And, of course, once I invited them to voice their opinions, make their own decisions, and control some of the circumstances of their environment, genuine learning began to happen.  

But that first step of getting to know them was everything.   

This article was adapted from my 2022 collaborative session, “Talk in Out: Tackling Challenging Topics in the Middle School Classroom,” at Literacy For All: The National Institute, Carnegie Learning’s annual professional learning event for literacy educators. I hope you’re as excited as I am about the 2023 Institute, scheduled for July 17th-20th in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Hope to see you there!