How I Get Students to Complete Assignments

“I can’t get my eighth graders to turn in their work… even the easy assignments don’t get finished!” I read it on social media, among teacher groups. I hear it at car-riders duty and everywhere teachers gather to chat about the day-to-day challenges of teaching middle and high school.

The struggle gets worse during this time of year. Teachers’ solutions range from shortening assignments to extending due dates to simply putting a zero in the grade book and moving on. But even low grades often don’t motivate students.

If we are going to spur student success all the way to the very last days of school, we are going to have to go beyond relying on students’ simple compliance and find new ways to engage through interest, choice, and movement.

First things First: Check for Rigor and Interest

If you’re having trouble getting students to complete classwork, you might ask a few questions: Are assignments too easy? Too challenging? The former leads to boredom and the latter leads to frustration. Do your assignments contain activities or information that students will find relatable or interesting? Of course, not every assignment can be super-crazy-fun-time, but there should be some nugget for students to latch onto even if it’s something as small as including statistics related to students’ interests in a math problem or connecting plot development in a short story to a movie that is familiar to students. 

I find that in my social studies classes, offering students a puzzle or providing a little friendly competition ramps up interest. For example, instead of having students research how early settlers in the Andes mountains adapted to their environment, I might provide the basics of the geography and climate and have students make predictions before diving into research. Students receive points for creative and logical predictions. Alternatively, even a basic short-answer assignment can be highly engaging when students are asked to discover a mystery word by unscrambling letters found in their answers. 

Consider Offering Choice and Movement

Imagine you’re an average middle or high school student. You encounter five or six subjects every day, and every one of them more or less follows the same routine: The teacher presents the information, you practice as a class, and then it’s time for an independent assignment, usually desk work.

For better student engagement, try mixing it up a little. Recently, I presented my middle school social studies students with a few resources and directed them to collect 10 facts on sticky notes. Then they worked in pairs to determine which teacher-supplied claim each fact supported. The next step was for students to arrange them on a poster. This activity made an important reading skill both tactile and collaborative.

Choice boards and writing menus such as RAFT are fabulous tools because they encourage student agency. You can offer choices in any subject by varying any of the three Ps: passage (or problem, in math class), process (how students complete their learning, such as doodle notes versus bullet points), or product (how students demonstrate their learning). For example, in an English language arts class, students might choose from reading different poems with similar themes. Or, they might be offered different ways to respond to a short story, such as a written response to a teacher-created question or something more creative, like a one-pager or a graphic retelling on the different aspects of plot or point of view.

Another way to energize students is to offer a more fun activity upon completion of an assignment. If possible, the promise of leaving the classroom—but still staying close by—can provide a tiny measure of “different” that students crave. 

I often use scavenger hunts in the hallway outside my classroom. I’ve given students a list of clues such as “I was an English scientist whose curiosity about a falling apple led to groundbreaking theories about gravity and motion. Who am I?” Brief biographies, with pictures, of thinkers from the Scientific Revolution are posted, gallery-walk style, and students use their clue sheet attached to find their answers. Question trails and word-collecting prompts are other options, offering both student movement and satisfying mini-challenges. Bonus: This is a great way to provide end-of-the-year review.

Encourage Students to be Curious

There are times when something other than lack of interest is at play. When I find a student doodling or gazing off into space instead of working on an assignment, I’m tempted to admonish them. But this almost never delivers the results I’m looking for. In these moments, I try to remember something I heard from that all-time motivation expert, the eponymous coach of the TV show Ted Lasso: “Be curious, not judgmental.”

This flips everything. When a student is stalled, I simply ask, “How’s it going?” Often, they just shrug, but I wait for a real answer. If I have established rapport and trust in this particular relationship, they’ll usually tell me what’s wrong. “I don’t know where to start.” “I’m thinking about the game this afternoon.” “I’m worried my friends are mad at me.” “I don’t feel like it.” “I’m tired.”

Sometimes, this leads to a mini-lesson or a few pointers. Or I might play scribe for a minute or two to get them started. Often, just offering this little moment of connection is all the impetus the student needs to press on.

And sometimes, the assignment still doesn’t get completed. So, we lose a day but build the relationship, a much bigger gain in the long run.