Blogging

Did anyone from this class continue posting to their individual blog after the class was over?

Hearing Multiple Voices

I thought you might be interested in the conversation in the comments at Bitch PhD about the ways to encourage inclusive converation in class.

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.