[PRL] Fwd: TP Msg. #824 Eleven Things You Could Start Doing Today for the Benefit of Your Students' Writing
Mitchell Wand
wand at ccs.neu.edu
Tue Oct 23 17:20:43 EDT 2007
I thought this much of this might be adaptable to the way we grade
programming and writing assignments, both as mentor/advisors and as TAs.
--Mitch
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rick Reis <reis at stanford.edu>
Date: Oct 23, 2007 3:32 PM
Subject: TP Msg. #824 Eleven Things You Could Start Doing Today for the
Benefit of Your Students' Writing
To: tomorrows-professor at lists.stanford.edu
Reminder: You can comment on this or any past posting by going to:
http://amps-tools.mit.edu/tomprofblog/
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"The spread of the writing process and writing across the curriculum
movements means that today's faculty who teach or use writing in their
courses understand that it is both a process and discipline-based. Still,
our experience with colleagues tells us that teachers continue to look for
new strategies to engage student writers and boost their own teaching
effectiveness. We've put together a list of practices that are doable and
"no-tech," yet each has the potential to transform the ways you assign,
discuss, and comment on student work."
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Folks:
The posting below describes a list of simple practices that, if even one
were implemented, might transform the way a professor assigns, discusses,
and responds to student writing. Originally created as a faculty development
resource for use in workshops on teaching writing, it is co-authored by Jane
Kokernak, M.A., Writing Center Supervisor, Mount Ida College and Lowry Pei,
Ph.D., Professor of English, Simmons College.
Regards,
Rick Reis
reis at stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Leading Initiatives for Integrative Learning
Tomorrow's Teaching and Learning
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Eleven Things You Could Start Doing Today for the Benefit of
Your Students' Writing
The spread of the writing process and writing across the curriculum
movements means that today's faculty who teach or use writing in their
courses understand that it is both a process and discipline-based. Still,
our experience with colleagues tells us that teachers continue to look for
new strategies to engage student writers and boost their own teaching
effectiveness. We've put together a list of practices that are doable and
"no-tech," yet each has the potential to transform the ways you assign,
discuss, and comment on student work.
1. Give writing assignments in written form, not just word of mouth.
Your student will be able to carry away your actual words about the
assignment, not just a vague memory of them, and when she wonders at 1 a.m.
what she's really supposed to do, she'll refer to your handout. For many
students, puzzling over an assignment sheet becomes the first step in doing
the writing. And for you, the act of writing down the assignment will help
clarify its connection to your course goals.
2. During classroom discussions of student writing, hand out copies of the
writing being discussed.
You want students to talk about both what has been said in the writing, and
how. Both require students to discuss the written text, not their personal
recall of hearing it read aloud by the writer. It is impossible to have a
discussion of writing at the sentence level, where much of the crucial
action takes place, without having the written text to refer to. Also, the
presence of the physical text reminds students that you're asking them to
work with the writing, not work on the student who wrote it.
3. Insist on a classroom with seminar-style seating or moveable desks, so
that teacher and students can face each other in discussions.
By giving feedback to another writer, guided by a more experienced writer
(the teacher), students learn to recognize and talk helpfully about a text's
various qualities. Over time, students gradually internalize these
discussions; they learn how to put into words their own use of written
language. It is this that will leave them with a greater feeling of control
over their future writing.
4. Get your students to write weekly in some form, whether it's a draft,
informal response, or free write.
Habits are powerful things, and the ability to generate written text at will
is crucial. Weekly practice in small doses flexes a student's writing
muscles regularly and gives her more material (e.g., her own concerns about
the course material) when it comes time to draft an essay. As Courtney, a
first-year writing student, once remarked, "By having us write short
assignments every week, it made the research paper less scary when it came
time to do it."
5. In class, write when your students are writing.
You are what you teach. If you want your students to write, be a writer in
a way visible to them. Embody the writing way of life. If, for example,
you ask students during a charged dialogue to pause and reflect in writing
for 10 minutes, your joining them displays a commitment to writing as a way
to struggle deeply with hard questions.
6. Only grade finished products, not drafts or informal writing.
Drafts and informal writing are, by definition, not completed work. The
whole point of assigning them is to move students away from trying to write
the finished product on the first try. The act of grading a draft, response
paper, or journal entry sends a contradictory message by implying that it
can be judged by standards applicable to completed work. The power of
making room in the course for process will be lost if students believe that
their "draft" should look finished.
7. Give students' writing back within 1 week. Adjust level of feedback to
time available.
Work returned soon with a little feedback, from the teacher or from a
structured peer review, beats work returned later with a lot of feedback. A
teacher's few sentences penciled on a student's informal response paper or
another student's questions jotted on his classmate's draft will prompt more
thinking and writing. Timing matters: The student needs to feel he is in a
live exchange of ideas.
8. The first time you read a batch of student work, do so without a pencil
in hand. Just read to get a sense of it; make no comments. Second time, read
closely and make comments.
This method makes use of the power of your mind to process what you've read
in its own quiet way. If you read the first time simply as a reader, not as
a commentator or editor, then let the reading sink in, you can arrive at a
basic idea of what your student is up to with surprisingly little
effort. By the time you return to the stack, your brain will have invisibly
processed, for example, that one student has sorted out the chronology of
her ideas while most of the class still grapples with ordering their
paragraphs. (Skeptical? Try this once; it works.)
9. On each piece of writing you respond to, make at least 1 mark per page.
Easiest technique is to underline what's promising, worth pursuing, well
said.
This is the basic practical way of creating a feeling of ongoing dialogue
between writer and reader. Never underestimate the power of a student's
knowing that you are paying attention to him. Underlining promising things
is quick and communicative; it becomes a way of cultivating your own
perception of the student's potential, as well as guiding and encouraging
the student to become aware of it. And don't forget to tell your students
what the underlines, and your other marks, mean.
10. Retire the red pen; stop copy-editing your students' work. Point out no
more than 2 patterns of error, and leave it to the student to find a way to
resolve the errors.
When you copy-edit a student's work, many students will look at the
marked-up copy and think "Oh, that's been taken care of for me." Rather
than encouraging learning, it sends the message that correcting those things
is the teacher's job. If a student can see that she regularly makes errors
of a certain type, based on a misunderstanding of the underlying principle,
and then correct that misunderstanding, lasting learning could take place.
11. Commenting on the first draft of a full-fledged paper is your best
opportunity to bring about learning. On the draft, make no more than 3 major
suggestions.
Only the strongest students -- who are likely to be the best writers already
-- will read the commentary on a graded paper, extract general principles
from the comments, and carry them over to their next writing
assignment. The others will simply zero in on the grade. However, when
your comments on a first draft go back to a student who knows she will be
writing a second version, those comments stand the best chance of being
applied. As for limiting your suggestions, both you and the student will
benefit if you make your task, and subsequently the student's, more
manageable.
Here are some aspects of a student's work you might consider when responding
to it:
* assignment (degree of completion);
* form (appropriateness for assignment);
* focus (the paper's main idea, thesis, guiding question);
* organization (order of paragraphs, central idea of each paragraph);
* evidence (data, examples, quotations, illustrations, personal
experience);
* language (appropriate to the topic, assignment, discipline);
* discussion (establishing connections between focus, evidence, and
writer's own ideas);
* gaps (missing evidence, discussion, connection);
* sources (selection of relevant ones, presentation in formal style);
* the writer's personal voice; and
* other aspects relevant to your discipline.
For more discussion about commenting on student drafts and resources on
using writing in your teaching go to
http://my.simmons.edu/academics/asc/wac/teachingwriting/
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