An Updated Exit Ticket

Last week, I gave an exit ticket during our Foundations of Rhetorical Analysis unit that asked students to identify & explain two examples of how an author appealed to logos in their argument about opening up National Parks to corporate advertisers like Chipotle. The key misconception I was trying to get in front of was that strong appeals to logos don’t only need to rely on numbers, stats, and graphs; any type of clarity—and especially when that clarity reveals a cause & effect relationship—can be considered an effective appeal to logos. Here are some of the responses I got:

Wu is appealing to logos by comparing the different things and proving it.

One way Wu appeals to Logos is through is specific examples that correlate to his belief that advertisements in national parks is harmful and can soon spread into other areas of privacy and peace. One specific example he uses is when he talks about how in Minnesota, banners of advertisements were hung up across lockers, and eventually these banners spread towards other parts of the school such as the gymnasium. This represents the advertisements in parks and how they can spread to other areas.

Wu uses the quote of "make our five million visitors your next customers" to show that he supports the idea of attention merchants because he thinks the park is selling people into the park instead of the park itself.

There is some misunderstanding of Wu’s position on the issue itself (he’s skeptical), but some key ideas around logos seem to have landed, which is good.

What’s more interesting than this, though, is some other data that I collected along with this content-related exit ticket. This year, I decided to do something that I’ve often thought would be a good idea, but for whatever reason wasn’t consistent enough with it, or it just never got off the ground. I’m sure every teacher has hundreds of these ideas on the cutting room floor. However, I picked this one up and ran with it.

These content responses are only the second half of the exit ticket form, which is the same form students will submit exit tickets on all year long. The first half is designed to collect quick, self-reported responses to how students are experiencing the class, and whether or not they need to check in with me 1:1.

Then, students have the option to describe or elaborate on their selections. Crucially, this data collection needs to feel fast & not intrude with what students are trying to get—which is a good grade. I think one of the reasons this failed earlier was because I was trying to have students spend too much time on these reflection questions, which became burdensome for both them and me. I mean, how much detail do you want to give once the DoorDash order has been dropped off and eaten? So, I narrowed down these questions and only included the essential stuff I needed.

Right away, I had a few students select “Yes” in order to check in with me 1:1, including some who didn’t elaborate. I emailed all the students who selected “Yes,” and got this response from one of them:

The class had been a little more confusing each day and for day B I don't have AP lang so I'm not in the room meaning I'm a little behind in work and I'm not sure if I finished the vocabulary.

The student is referencing a specific after-school study group structure that we’re rolling out this year. We’re investing a lot of time and energy into it, and want to make sure it’s going well, which is also why I included a question about it on the exit ticket form. However, there are a few important reflections that immediately became clear:

1. This student comes to class every day prepared, takes diligent notes, and makes a strong effort to participate in her small-group discussions.
   

2. She’s confused about some technical hiccups that are easily cleaned up once we understand that being a tech-native doesn’t automatically mean you have tech-fluency, which is a big flaw in education that I’ll design a soap box for at another time.
   

3. She’s scared of getting behind since she doesn’t have AP Lang study group every day, but doesn’t realize that I’ve made some accommodations that take this into account, since she’s certainly not the only student in this situation.
   

4. Perhaps most importantly, I never would have known this if she hadn’t been explicitly invited to share this via the exit ticket questions.

Because this student is quiet, and maybe doesn’t want to ask for help in person, I can easily imagine a regrettable scenario where I see her in class on a daily basis working hard, submitting work as best she could, but continually falling behind because she’s confused. I don’t ask if she needs help, and she doesn’t ask me for help, and maybe she just floats along with middling grades and a handful of incomplete assignments until she resigns herself to the idea that AP Lang just isn’t for her, and things stay relatively static from September to May. Teachers have many students, and obviously not enough time to tutor each one individually—much as we’d like to.

However, adding this layer of self-advocacy into a normal classroom routine, one where students are explicitly invited to ask for help if they need it, proved to have an immediate impact. Teenagers often don’t want other people knowing if they need help, but if they are given the opportunity to raise a red flag privately to their teacher, they will.

As much as I regret waiting until now to collect this data—which allows me to immediately intervene & at the very least communicate to the student that I see what they’re saying & will be there to help—I’m very thankful that I finally did.