On Response Groups

As a writer I need peer review, so as a teacher I want to provide the opportunity for students to share writing in groups. But as Paton points out, it’s not magic that just happens. I think about my seventh graders from years back – for them I created “job” cards to guide their discussion as we learned how to talk about writing (somewhat like Paton’s response sheets). One student provided a summary of the paper, one gave praise, another asked questions, and another thought of suggestions, etc. The jobs changed and rotated, and eventually were set aside as students developed a sense of their group and of how to discuss writing.

One common element in my own response groups and my students’ was a consistent make-up of group members. I still remember sitting in a circle with my Nebraska Writing Project group, sharing our writing, mostly just having someone hear us read our work out loud. Then we asked questions, gathered ideas, so by that night I was ready to revise or pursue a different piece that emerged from our discussion. So, how do we create this in a college class, especially when groups don’t meet on a daily basis or regularly enough to build relationships as easily?

One thing I’ve tried only once and want to do again, is having students send their papers electronically from time to time, and then be able to come together and discuss after they’ve had a chance to read and think through the papers. I once participated in an online response group, which actually worked. We emailed our papers to one another, then emailed comments, and periodically met to discuss in a virtual chat room. I don’t know that the chat room took us deeper into our papers, but it did foster the sense of community and led to discussions about the course, the readings, our teaching, etc.

Paton mentions the role of the teacher and that she observed her groups, trying to be unobtrusive. I also like to roam to different groups, taking notes, seeing what they discuss, what issues to address in future lessons, etc. I don’t like being out of this part of the class, even though I also question if my presence negatively affects the group. I oscillate on this issue, but the bottom line is that I feel more connected to what is happening if I sit in on groups than if I don’t.

From the articles in Roen, varying the approaches is good as is making the group’s goals clear. We can’t assume that groups will automatically fall into great writing discussions; regardless the age of the writer, there needs to be guidelines and these can change depending on the make-up of the group, the type of writing, and goals of the writing. Finally, modeling is important for students to observe or practice and debrief how a writing group works and why a writing group helps.

yea for peer reviews?

My report for this class also deals with peer reviews, so I hope I’m not being too selfish if I blog about some of the questions / difficulties I have in regards to this topic. One of the things I couldn’t help but notice was the fact that the first two essays seem to contradict each other in some ways. Paton recommends “a great deal of structure…Response sheets with questions or prompts are a good way of focusing students while helping them internalize the principles you are trying to teach” (294). Cahill, however, says, “I provided them with very general directions: talk to one another, share concerns, help direct your partner’s reading, and be prepared to discuss strengths as well as possible revisions” (306). This seems to be lot of what I’ve found for my report; teachers seem to recommend both ways of conducting peer reviews. About the only consistent thing I’ve found is a general sense that peer reviews are so very hard to make successful.

Part of the reason I wanted to write on this subject is that I did have some very good experiences with peer reviews as an undergrad. Through my classes, I was able to find a few friends that, even after the class was over, we still sometimes would seek feedback from one another on other writing. I’m beginning to suspect that I was the exception. I also think that I may be just selectively remembering the good peer reviews and forgetting the ones that were not helpful. So, I would also not mind hearing from you about your experiences with peer review. My personal experiences have convinced me that peer reviews can be a wonderful thing. However, I think the fundamental problem with trying to theorize about them is that we are trying to develop a method to get every student to give his or her best response every time, and I’m just not sure that can be done.

Tears for Peers

I begin with a peer review story:

Sometime during the first half of my first year of teaching, I designated a class period for peer reviewing drafts of student poems. We’d only attempted peer reviews once or twice before, and the task hadn’t been received or completed with much enthusiasm or effort. In my 2nd period class, they broke into partners and set to work, using the detailed handout I had made as a guide. I circulated throughout the room, listening and observing, and I heard one of my students, Andrew, say to his partner, “Well, I really like how you phrase this line, but I wonder if it would be even more emotional and effective if you move it to the last stanza.” I almost fell over. It may not sound like much, but these are the same students who tended to zip through peer reviews by providing feedback like “Your paper is good” or “I liked it.” So when I heard Andrew offer such a precise, thoughtful suggestion for another student’s work, I could barely contain my joy. I actually got teary-eyed – no joke. I told Andrew what a great job they were doing and thanked them for their effort, and he said, “Are you crying, Ms. Spooner?” and then my overemotional involvement in peer reviews became a running joke for the rest of the year.

Unfortunately, incidents like the Andrew peer review were few and far between when I attempted to have my students do peer reviews. I’m hoping for a bit more effort and involvement from my English 1000 students, particularly since I do plan to make peer reviews an integral part of the writing process. I really appreciated Fiona Paton’s article (290+) for its practical and helpful peer review guidelines. Her article helped me realize the importance of introducing peer review with more than just a brief explanation on the day we were going to do it in class – I really think the key to getting students to do good peer reviews is making them realize they can be helpful to both parties and that the reviews are NOT just busy work. I love her policy of not accepting a finished paper without “a previous draft and written feedback from someone in the class” to go along with it. I’m going to do that. Also, her brief comment about how “a class that is based on graded writing assignments…can never elide (and shouldn’t pretend to) the authority of the teacher” (294) was refreshing. I often feel as though so many of the pedagogical articles I read advocate the giving of all the agency and power to the students, and while I recognize the intentions behind such moves, I just don’t feel many of those suggestions are realistic as long as the teacher is still the one dishing out grades.

Also, Cahill’s reflective article was interesting because I’d never even thought of trying to get the students to create their own peer review questions – I just assumed that they needed the guidance of my detailed handout. I might try to implement her suggestion: start with more guided peer reviews and then wean the students off of the guides as the semester progresses, prodding them to become more active and conscientious peer reviewers as they gain experience doing so. Good stuff.

Question: Do any of my fellow future 8010 teachers want me to e-mail them the peer review handouts I have on file? I don’t claim that they’re perfect, but they’re a decent start, and you can modify them to fit your own needs. Just let me know.

A Question of Priorities

In designing my lesson plan for last week, I got to thinking about what really matters in peer review. If I could only get one thing out of peer review, what would it be?

I don't actually think the goal of peer review should be better papers. If all we want is better papers, we can send students to the writing lab, or spend more time commenting on their drafts, or have them read writing manuals, etc -- all of which, I think would be a more effective way of getting them to write better papers than peer review.

I think an attainable, realistic goal of peer review is to create better reviewers, critics, analysts, and commentators. The learning part of the peer review is in the reviewing, not the supposed helpfulness of the comments, which is why my lesson plan was more focused in the act of reviewing, rather than on the outcome of the review.

I liked Roen's idea of peer reviewing ideas (the "Day 1") rather than entire papers. In the writing lab, I always prefer tutorials where the student has less written and needs help, rather than a more finished product, because I feel like I can actually do something about the problems in the paper, "nip it in the bud" so to speak. This is why I am somewhat opposed to the idea that students must bring in "polished first submissions" and not "rough drafts." If you want me to do something in peer review, give me something that needs a alot of work, and something that the author will be more open to changing because it's less realized.

The First Day of Class

I thought everyone would like this list.

What do you want to do on the first day of class? Check out this huge list of things to do. Lots of ideas!

A Concern

Something that I wanted to mention in class, but we ran out of time:

I think a major problem with discussing issues of diversity in the classroom is the disparity in previous knowledge about such issues between students of color and white students. We have to remember that students of color deal with issues of multiculturalism, stereotying, racism, and diversity every day. But for most of our white students, a classroom discussion about such issues might be the very first time they've ever even thought about it. But as a teacher you have to give equal weight to each student's opinion (to avoid the tokenizing "Well, you're black, so you know a lot about this" or "You're white, so you don't have as much right to speak").

This is, in effect, like a bunch of chemistry majors walking into our 8010 classroom and spouting their opinions on how we should teach writing because they took English 1000 and because they've written some lab reports . We would be outraged: "But we've devoted our lives to this!" we would say. "What gives you the right to just waltz in here and offer your opinons? Have you even done the reading?" I feel like it would much the same feeling for students of color who have to listen to white students talk about issues of race. Or for LGBT students to have to listen to straight students talk about issues of sexuality, women to have to listen to men talk about campus safety, etc.

Granted, any issue we teach will have more resonance with some students than others. But with a polarizing and personal issue like race, how do we acknowledge disparities in experience with the issue without granting one student the right to speak over another?

Diversity

I'd like to begin with a brief comment on one of the essays we were not required to read in the Roen textbook. In "The Importance of Framing the Writing Classroom as a Space of Public Discourse," Michael Stancliff states, "your classroom will be diverse, even if your eye registers demographic homeogeneity." This is so true. Just to name a few quick categories: we have people who are men, women, single, married, parents with infants, parents with older children, and people from all different parts of the country. We are all different and we all approach teaching and learning differently.

One of the key points I pulled from the "Contending with White Instructors" article is that racism can manifest in subtle ways. I'd like to give just one small example. To say, "we read essays by Black authors and they were wonderful..." vs. "we read essays by Black authors but they were wonderful." In the first example, I don't hear any discrimination; however, in the second example with the use of "but" I hear a difference that makes me cringe. In the second example, it is as if the author expected Black authors' writing to be less wonderful than essays by other authors.

Another subtle example of behavior that could be perceived as racist is how often people of color are called on to respond in class in proportion to their caucasian counterparts. I read the research a long time ago about how boys are called on more frequently than girls. I can't remember the exact study information, but the point that I wanted to draw is that in addition to watching how frequently I call on male or female students, I should also ensure that I solicit responses from as many different students as I can.

Language

These readings made me think about language and what is "okay" to talk about in class. What if we talk about diversity and differences through language and the rhetorical purpose of the language that we use? Can we separate the issue from the term and then analyze the effects of the different uses and contexts of the word?

I remember feeling strange talking about certain topics: religion, sex, obscene language, death. When I have had students whose parents have died, I really struggled with what to say. Now, as time goes on, I just talk about it. Maybe I'm talking about this issue on too basic of a level. I guess I think with first year comp, students may not have had too much of an opportunity to really think about the power of language. I think of the phrase "that's gay." Some of the best discussions in class have taken place when I've said, "okay, let's talk about this word." We had a great discussion on the rhetorical purposes and context of certain obscenities, starting with "bitch." I hear these words and phrases all of the time, and I felt like when I stopped and pointed it out and talked about meaning and effects that students stopped for a second and thought about language. They might not use those terms and labels so freely after that.

Okay, so my point is, if you open up your class to thoughtful discussions of diversity, difference, and touch issues, you can make them aware of language and the bias in our words that sometimes we don't even recognize. So, let's say that you have a class that has very little diversity, I think you can still affect a change toward acceptance by talking about and identifying the language used to describe different groups. I think I can see a good assignment coming out of this.

I felt like I should share this story. I think it was my second semester of teaching comp at a regional bi-directional university. We sat in a circle and everyone had an artifact bag with five items that represented you in some way. We got to a student that I will call Stan. He went through several items until he pulled out a condom. He said, "This represents me because I've been ridden more times than a Greyhound bus." This is a vivid classroom moment for me. A year before I had graduated from a southern Baptist university--sometimes called the baby Baylor. I had no idea what to say. So, I smiled and said "thank you." I was not sarcastic; I treated the comment like he said he loved peanut butter, but I was stunned. Homosexuality was in the classroom and could not be ignored, but actually, I ignored it. He was always very open about his sexuality and his comments, but I also saw tension build between him and other students. Actually, I think now that if a heterosexual student said that I might have said, "that's not appropriate," but I don't think I could have said that to Stan; I don't know where I am going with this except to say that this is my first teaching experience where the topic of sexuality was raised.

Some more about blogging

Will Richardson of Weblogg-ed, always an insightful blogger, has two especially useful entries that speak to some discussions we've had in class.

Discussion 1: Isn't blogging just like keeping a journal? Richardson's answer: Uh, no.

Discussion 2: How can critical writing and personal investment come together? Richardson's answer: Maybe through blogging.

No Red Pens, Please.

Okay. First, I thought much of what was included in Ch. 9 of Roen was rather helpful and/or interesting; I especially appreciated Kahn's clarity and concrete specificity -- overall, a great article.

I'm totally fixated on the "I/you" debate. A quick anecdote: when I taught writing-heavy AP Lit & Composition, "paper-handing-back" day was stressful for both me and my students. They were anxious to know their grades but were not anxious to have those grades become reality in my gradebook; I was nervous that my beloved students would take my comments personally -- which some of them did. More than once, a student would receive his or her paper, flip to the grade in the back, and dramatically flop his head on the desk and exclaim, half jokingly, "Ms. Spooner, why do you hate me?!" These reactions occurred once in awhile despite my repeated passionate assurals that I critique their writing, not them, and I still love them as people -- I just don't always love their papers. When grading their papers, I also always made a conscious effort to make statements like, "The paper starts to lose focus..." instead of "You tend to lose focus..." I just feel as though using "you" in statements like that only contributes to the way students often feel that teacher criticism is inherently personal. When making margin comments, I know I slip more and write things like "What are you trying to explain here?" or "Your logic is confusing in this paragraph," but I also know that the conversational style for margin comments is often the most practical and effective.

I think students will always take paper criticism personally, because for the majority, their papers are a reflection of themselves somehow -- their time, effort, ideas, etc., and nothing is more fragile-y personal than our ideas. I do think that doing things such as replacing "you" with "I" or "the paper/essay" and writing conversationally in the margins helps, as does limiting comments to a few main ideas. I saw the most overwhelming teacher comments IN THE NATION on a Writing Lab paper today -- holy cow. I couldn't discern what comments went where and what the teacher really wanted, and the student was rightfully confused. I'll probably bring this example up in class today, so I'll avoid a detailed description here.

Oh, and I really believe in banning red pens except for artistic purposes; I've never used them to grade and never plan to do so. Red is associated with terror, alarm, and blood, none of which are usually pleasant and do not become so when associated with an academic paper. I love pencil. You feel the need to rephrase a comment, and you can easily do so. Just a thought.

Did you see Donna's post?

Donna's post, Blogging as writing evidence has gotten pushed down on the blog because of our posts on the readings for this week. Check it out. I've written a comment on that thread and I'd like to hear what you have to say. I think there are issues related to this post that we could talk about even separate from the connections with blogging. What do you think?

comments and a grade

I have to admit that I haven’t yet had a chance to read all of the readings for the week, but I wanted to at least contribute to the blog early enough in the week that everyone would hopefully have the opportunity to read through it before class. I’m working my way through chapter nine in the Roen et. al. book about how to respond to student writing, and some of the suggestions I have found helpful. I really “like” what Amy says about “liking” student writing. One of my biggest fears about teaching English (well, I probably have a lot of fears if I stop to think about it), or at least one warning that I’ve heard from others about teaching English, is the amount of work involved in grading student writing. I realize that this can be a chore (probably like right now in my classes I love the works we read but still struggle to enjoy the paper writing process) but I do hope that I will be able to engage enough with my students’ writing that the task won’t seem as bad as some have predicted. And I am able to say I “like” what I read in the writing lab, so that is helpful. I also agree with what Keri was saying about “I / You” comments. I actually had a different class in high school that discussed the differences in communication that these different forms cause, and the “you” comments are more likely to find fault, while the “I” comments seem more likely to point to what the reader notices (which I think fits very well with Kahn’s suggestion to ground your responses in the student’s text and give them a playback of your reading experience).

The question that was running through my mind while reading these essays about commenting is that none of them (so far) have talked about what happens when the comments for revision are coupled with a grade. Some of the writers in chapter nine seemed to be suggesting that it was important to offer revision advice without a grade. Obviously, we are going to be grading the first submissions for English 1000, and I’m going to be realistic and say that I don’t know how much written response I’ll be able to give otherwise, given that we are busy with our own lives and classes. So, I guess I’m just wondering how the grade with the comments affects students’ perceptions of the revisions comments. I’m not even suggesting that we change this (because I don’t know quite how) but we could maybe discuss the way the grade and the comments may work both with and against one another.

Less is More

in 8010: Theory and Practice

Here at Mizzou the program requires that we read and respond to multiple drafts of students' writing. In "Less Is More in Response to Student Writing," Clyde Moneyhun presents what I think is an ordered way to make comments on students' writing. I don't know how well it would work in practice, for each student is different and has different issues with their papers. However, I think, for me, it would be a good reference.

First, Moneyhun comments on global topic issues (Strategies 327). Then, he moves to commenting on the organization and development of students' essays (328). And last, he comments on style and mechanics; however, he is quick to make the distinction that instructors should meet students where they are and even if it's say the third draft and they're having topic issues, to still stay with matters of topic and not move on to mechanics (Strategies 328). This method offers me some way of focusing myself so that I don't desolve into grammar, spelling, or punctuation corrections. Finally, I'd just like to note that Moneyhun prefers to "ask a question (rather) than make a specific suggestion" (Strategies 328). This is a refrain we heard in multiple instances in the readings for this coming week.

In "Another Kind of Teacher-Student Talk: Conversational responding and Revising," Seth L. Kahn suggests that instructors try to ask questions rather than simply make statements on students' papers using an informal, conversational tone (348). The Instructor's Guide to English 1000 at Missouri even mentions that it's best to "(c)riticize with a neutral tone" refrain from using the possibly offensive "huh?" or equally "discourteous" word, "unclear" in the margins of students' texts. However, the Missouri Guide doesn't draw the line at the occasional Frag. or Awk. unlike Kahn who says these abbreviations should be avoided in favor of more posing of questions because we "aren't likely to say 'Awk' or 'Frag' in the classroom..." (Strategies 348). Yes, on that, we can agree.

I'm still trying to figure out the math so that I can value paper #3 more than paper #2 or paper #1, and rank the multiple drafts so that students will make a concerted effort to write the drafts as best they can despite the fact that they have multiple tries on the each essay, especially if we take Elbow's advice and provide as many opportunities for "evaluation-free" writing (Allyn and Bacon Sourcebook 394).

In his essay, "Guidelines for Responding to Student Writing, Richard Straub suggests that instructors "concentrate most of your work with response in the first half of the course" (Strategies 365). What he means here is that commenting done well, models for students how to do peer reviews. In my mind, I was struggling with how to best integrate peer reviews and Straub's suggestion helps me plan my own course.

Responding "yea" or "boo"

After reading the Anson chapter in McDonald, I wrote on my personal blog reactions to Leang’s piece. Leang is the student from Cambodia, and I found his account touching. As Elbow would say, I “liked” what he wrote. In fact, I cringed at the possible response that this was written to try to win teacher sympathy and an easy good grade. Yikes – this seems hard to imagine as a response when the voice of this writer sounded authentic and the story rang true. I guess one would need to know the student to know if this was a sympathy piece or authentic writing. But I was reminded of Leang’s essay when I read Elbow, p. 406: “Only if we like something will we get involved enough to work and struggle with it. Only if we like what we write will we write again and again by choice—which is the only way we get better.” Do I agree? As a student, I see it true for myself and classmates. If we work on papers that we do not like, do not like what we are doing, we have a hard time continuing the work. Sometimes I move from not liking a paper to liking it, and then really wanting to work more on it. However, if I never get over the “liking” hump, it is hard to care. It is then I am writing for a grade, for the assignment. Elbow’s comment about students needing to “like” what they write makes me think how we can help students like what they write. I suppose by trying what he suggests: freewriting, response from peers, response from teachers about what the teacher likes. This brings up the second point of “liking”: Teachers need to like student writing (and students). Recently in the course I teach, we read 9th graders’ four-paragraph essays over Of Mice and Men; neither the teacher nor the pre-service teacher evaluators liked the writing. Thus, a dilemma. How can teachers enjoy student writing if the writing is consistently bad or in the form of specified paragraphs? To return to Elbow’s suggestions, students need to write first about what they know and care about – themselves and their own chosen topics. Knowing your students helps, as he points out. Good writing teachers know how to talk about what they like within student writing, even if the writing is poor. I guess I liked this section of Elbow’s article because I found it affirming. I worked with some pretty reluctant and struggling student writers, yet most all of these students I really liked, and I always tried to find something to like about what they wrote. This was where analytic assessment vs. holistic assessment helped me. I could comment more specifically and find areas for work and areas for applause.
I asked in class last week what the role was for publishing in English 1000. I became a huge proponent of publishing student writing (reading aloud in class, sharing in small groups, creating a class anthology, publishing a class newspaper/newsletter, etc). I found the extra work provided students motivation through purpose and audience. They started to care that their work was good, and they started to choose the pieces of work that were their best. This became an authentic form of evaluation, I guess. It seems more difficult to have that kind of publishing opportunity in a college class because the time with the students is much less. Still, I wonder about the possibilities.

Responding to Student Writing

I am writing this as a list:

Our comments affect how our students write. Are we supportive, encouraging, challenging, and helpful? Do we give just enough feedback, too little or too much?

I guess my question is this: Is there a place for improvement in the grade?

I think feedback from the teacher can be taken better when there is a lot of nonevaluative feedback in the beginning of the semester. Elbow mentions this too, and I felt like it changed how students responded to feedback that I gave. It helps build community when I do this.

I don't write a number in the margin that can be referenced in the handbook. A teacher I observed did that. My first thought about that is not positive. But maybe it is a good idea.

I have comments concerning the second sample of comments for the Instructor Manual. I stay away from "you" sentences. Instead of "After a very strong start, your paper rant into trouble..." I would probably say "I noticed that the paper started running into trouble..." The second sentence could be framed as an I-statement, or I might frame it as a question. He/She said, "You weren't selective enough..." I would say, "Can you select details and episodes that help to prove your point more? Which episodes would do that?"

On #5 she/he writes, "I appreciate"--would it matter or change the comment if the instructor said, "I noticed you knit your points together." Maybe it's the same.

I also like to mark the sentence that has an error rather than correct the problem. The reasoning that I give students is that it is more effective and helpful to them if they can identify the problem. I help to narrow it down for them. If they can't figure it out, then we talk about it.

In section 4-2 of the Instructor Manual, I thought that this was interesting word choice. #4 uses the phrase "the kind of probabilistic, contingent thought you expect your students to engage in." What does that mean? I get it, but I think it is funny and pretentious.

I was just reading Donna's blog and she mentioned something about hating the feeling of being a superior being to students. I hope I didn't butcher that paraphrase too much. I don't like the first sentence in #4. "An oversimple way of describing the immature writing of some freshman..." Is "immature" the best word here? Could the perception be more like looking at these students as developing writers. This makes me wonder about the expectations of the comp class. Are they supposed to be fabulous writers when they walk in? Is this class about learning to write better? That questions takes me back to my question about the place of improvement in the grade.

What did the class think about the average GPA's of the courses. 2.2 and 3.2 are considered to be normal. Will this affect how you grade? At the end of the semester, will you curve the grades?

Sorry this is choppy.

Grinding the Grammar Mill

I still think that teaching grammar effectively is one of the hardest things we have to do as English teachers. In class, Faith asked about what to do when a paper is so littered with grammatical errors that it’s actually unreadable. Now, I understand that as you get used to grading, you become more seasoned at seeing through, in a sense, grammatical problems in order to unearth the content of a paper. But there are papers that are so problematic that it is nearly impossible to make sense out of them – I’ve received papers like that from high school students. When I was a first-year teacher, I laboriously attempted to grade the atrocious papers, marking the major problems, writing suggestions, etc. By the time I was finished, the paper had more of my writing on it than it had of the student’s – and I had spent a LOT of time doing it. Had I been a more seasoned teacher, I probably would’ve handed the paper back to the student and told him to “clean it up” so that I can actually focus on what the paper was saying, offering my one-on-one help before or after school.

But really – what is the best way to teach grammar? Because I’ve tried lots of methods: mini lessons, using real examples from my student papers, teaching in context, etc., and yet it seemed hard to gauge whether anything was really working. I mean, I spent a good five minutes emphasizing the difference between “where” and “were” (a tricky difference for some students in western Illinois), making a big deal about how since “where” has the word “here” in it, than that’s the one to use when you’re talking about location. And then I’d get papers with sentences that read, “We where the best of friends.” No matter what type of grammar instruction I tried, I’d still receive grammatically appalling papers and I’d receive flawless ones. Do some students just shut down when a teacher says “semicolon” or “clause”? Perhaps.

I think I’ll look through the student papers I’ve saved to see if I have any interesting examples to share. I’ll let you know.

Blogging as writing evidence

I know, I know: I'm a little too enthusiastic about blogging. But I just read this entry by a fellow rhet/comp professor in Connecticut and thought I would share it: it touches upon the brief discussion we had about blogs as evidence of students' writing abilities.