Tag Archives: teaching

Student Blogs

Track 05. Feedback!

In their articles “Ranking, Evaluating, Liking: Sorting Out Three Forms of Judgment” and “Writing Comments on Students’ Papers,” Peter Elbow and John Bean respectively tackle the subject of writing feedback, specifically in a classroom setting. Elbow greatly emphasizes the need for less ranking in the classroom, while also emphasizing more effective evaluation practices coupled with positive reinforcement; Bean echoes a lot of Elbow’s points, even giving examples of how to actually implement positive reinforcement in feedback.

Elbow explains his reasoning for lessening his emphasis on ranking and increasing evaluation as such: “The crux is no longer that commodity I’ve always hated and never trusted: a numerical ranking of the quality of their writing along a single continuum. Instead the crux becomes what I care about most: the concrete behaviors that I most want students to engage in because they produce the more learning and help me teach better” (Elbow 8). This quote really stuck out to me because it fully embodies what I believe to be the goal that teachers should all strive for: how do I make sure my students learn these skills? When our class discussed the ways we were taught how to write, a point in our conversation revealed that some of us didn’t care for our grades, they were just a means to an end. Pass so you don’t have to do the work anymore.

This sentiment is reflected in another of Elbow’s quotes: “My goal is not to get rid of evaluation but in fact to emphasize it, enhance it. I’m trying to get students to listen better to my evaluations–by uncoupling them from a grade. In effect, I’m doing this because I’m so fed up with students following or obeying my evaluations too blindly–making whatever changes my comments suggest but doing it for the sake of a grade; not really taking the time to make up their own minds about whether they think my judgments or suggestions really make sense to them” (Elbow 9). If Elbow’s practices were more proliferated in the US school systems, maybe we would have been more keen to engage as students. If whole generations of students were taught to write through ranking instead of pertinent evaluations, then we’d have generations of the “blind” leading the “blind,” a feedback loop more akin to the screeching sound from amplifiers than actual cogent critique and suggestion.

A section of Elbow’s article that I enjoyed immensely was the section on Liking. Elbow writes, “But it’s helpful to uncouple the two domains and realize that it makes perfectly good sense to say, ‘This is terrible, but I like it.’ Or, ‘This is good, but I hate it’ (Elbow 13). I enjoy this so much because it reminds me of how I review and give feedback to my writing peers. We all very obviously admire each other’s work, so its very easy for us to give that positive reinforcement to each other; no offense is taken because we know that its all in order to help each other grow. The One Most Inextricable from My Soul and I often send (or show) each other what we’re working on in order to get perspective on our writings, and because of the rapport we’ve built with each other over the years, we’ve become more effective sounding boards for each other. This rapport also allows us to give each other criticisms that might seem harsh to some, but instead for us is the most helpful. Maybe if a teacher and student build enough rapport, the liking will come naturally, and the teacher’s evaluations will hold more weight for the student.

Bean also mentioned something that reminded me of the revision section I presented on. He wrote, “It thus helps to establish a hierarchy of concerns, descending from higher-order issues (ideas, organization, development, and overall clarity) to lower-order issues (sentence correctness, style, mechanics, spelling, and so forth)” (Bean 322). This is incredibly reminiscent of the revision operations and systems of change in Sommers’ article, if not just exactly that. To me this really just emphasizes how important feedback is to the act of revision, and reminds me of how Emily said she’d ask her partner to read her work aloud in order to find places to improve. Another’s eyes or voice can be irreplaceable in the revision process. It also reminded me that Ava purposefully stopped speaking during the discussion because she didn’t want to move onto the topic of feedback just yet. I’m looking forward to her presentation on this section!

This blog post was written while I listened to the original soundtrack for the film Look Back (2024), composed by Hakura Nakamura! I saw it this past weekend after finally finishing a move, and I loved it as much as I loved the manga! It feels like an ode to everyone who makes art, and I know I’m going to watch it at least as many times as I’ve read the manga!

Student Blogs

The Preaching, Practicing, and Strategies of Revision

Before I dive into the more analytical thought that blossomed from reading the assigned articles, I feel that I must reflect on my revising processes as a writer. With this, I choose to be honest and reveal that I do not revise very much. I hate it. When I sit down and write something, I never force myself to. When I write, I have carefully constructed plan in my head after taking time to consider all of the information at hand and what my options are to do with said information. Thus, when I am done, I feel confident about it because I have rendered a careful response – I don’t. need to revise because I have thought about all the mistakes I could have made and did not make them. Here is the problem: I am not omnipotent (this is a huge problem). As I begin to write more than I ever have, I find that sometimes I do need to revise, and it is fine. But why do I not want to do it? Maybe I will stumble upon the answer here…

From Witte’s Preaching What We Practice: A Study of Revision (2013), a high school history teacher who participated in the study stated, “My seniors are very much caught up in editing mechanics and grammar, as opposed to really rethinking a piece of writing or thinking about what that vision for that piece of writing is,” (42). This very much stood out to me, and closely relates to what I will be discussing in a couple of weeks. Student gets caught up in the surface level issues like spelling or using the wrong form of there, their, or they’re. They fix the issue so the paper looks a bit better aesthetically, but they sometimes do not understand the larger issues that may be at hand, such as organization or clarity. Thus, I think the issue that this article points out is that we have to teach the students how to identify these bigger problems (not to be interpreted that mechanical issues are not big issues, because they can be sometimes) within their own writing before teacher after teacher points it out and the student is left with red all over not knowing how to fix it (though I will present on ways on how we can encourage how to fix these problems efficiently soon!). Does this all relate back to the letter grade we all anticipate when receiving an assignment back? Or is this discomfort and lack of wanting to revise simply because we do not do enough?

Not only do we not do it enough, the medium in which our writing is communicated matters, too. The conversation of the growing importance of digital environments really interested me. Specifically, that many of the teachers that participated in the study felt that students would more likely revise if their writing were to appear in a digital space. Not only does the chance that their writing will be viewed by someone other than their teacher or even their peers be a different yet efficient form of motivation, but also the factor of interest, too. Students’ worlds today are based largely online and what they watch, post, hear, and learn from the communities they are building. They want their work to be out there. It no longer becomes a quick communication between teacher (the higher power, so to speak) and student, but rather a more equal environment where the student takes their learning into their own hands… it becomes more than just an assignment that only one person reads – it will now live somewhere intangible, unlike the papers students are used to handing in printed and stapled, to forever inspire so long as the internet lives!

Interestingly, Sommers points out that revision is a word that teachers use, and they reference to their own editing by other means, such as “reviewing”, ‘scratch out and do over again”, or “redoing” – and most of these refer to surface level changes, with the most referenced change being word choice. Further, these changes are only made because that’s how far they feel they are able to go when revising a paper; they are not comfortable scraping the whole paper and rethinking it to better assert their ideas. They are restrained to only fix syntactical errors, and anything larger will be subsequently left to fester simply because it goes beyond better wording. Here, it is understood that the student process is linear, a line that comes from the student and follows to an assignment to be handed it. Though, experienced writers see the beyond – the beyond that holds the realization that the overall vision can, and will, change.

Where have we, as teachers, misstepped? Sommers discusses the difference between the student writers and the experienced writers by experience, but not all students will reach this level if they do not continue to write. How can we show them how to realize their bigger picture? If we show students how to flip between writer-view and reader-view, will this allow them to be able to revise efficiently? If we have more than just a teacher reading their work, will they forget about mandatory criteria, to an extent, and play with their ideas? It does not always have to be point A moving directly to point B, but maybe point A sidesteps to a point A2, and then to point B, and maybe even a point B2. Why is writing only x, y, and z? What about all the space in between?

Student Blogs

Week 3 Writing as a Process, and High Stakes and Low Stakes Writing

a road that has a bunch of trees on it

On Peter Elbow:

As I read Elbow’s article, one quote that stood out to me was: “Low stakes writing helps students involve themselves more in the ideas
or subject matter of a course. It helps them find their own language for the
issues of the course; they stumble into their own analogies and metaphors for
academic concepts.” I thought about my students and how I am trying to incorporate more low stakes writing in my lessons. I’ve found that even when I give a low-stakes writing prompt, questions like:

“Is this for a grade?”

“How long does it have to be?”

“Does spelling count?”

always seem to surface. I can almost always see the student’s face light up when I tell them not to worry right now about those things, as long as they answer the prompt/ question as best as they can, with as much detail as they can. I find that the result of this writing provides a glimpse into how a student is thinking about that concept or prompt more than when they were concerned with the grade, length, or spelling.

On Donald Murray:

I can definitely get behind the notion of teaching writing as a process and not a product. I have found the system of “prewrite, write, rewrite” to be taught in a linear way, and I don’t feel this process is completely linear. As we think, and then put words on the page or screen, are we not always in some state of revision?

I’ve also found that this quote holds true for most things: “you don’t learn a process by talking about it, but by doing it.” Hopefully the practice of this revisionist process leads to better products(writing), so I guess the positive way to see this is that we can only get better the more we do it đŸ™‚

Student Blogs

Comments & The Process

As a student given the privileges of a teacher, I find myself in an odd position; one where I understand the uncertainty that comes with reading evaluating comments from a teacher while also sometimes wearing the hat of the teacher that writes the comments. With this, I have come to realize that pedagogy, in a way, is a double-edged sword (literally): either you are being stabbed with it, or you are the one doing the stabbing (even if inadvertently).

To begin, Elbow brings the student perspective into view. He describes the weariness students have of high stakes writing (pieces that are graded and have an immense weight on overall grade in a class), and validates the fear that seems to be imbedded in many pupils. With this, he pushes the idea of frequent low stakes writing (writing that is not graded as harshly, or at all). It is argued that this low stakes writing will not only have the students practice more, but will allow them to prove to themselves they are capable of writing clear thoughts down. By taking away the weight of a number or letter being assigned to what they write down, the student is able to immerse themself in what they write and ultimately showcase their true, unfiltered thoughts.

As a student, I thank Elbow for his thoughts concerning this. When I engage in low stakes writing, and I do not expect anything particularly great to come out of it, there always seems to be one good idea that I can take and create something more out of. If we ask students to sit down and write something with strong ideas and clear language, something overall fantastic, the overwhelming duty to perform hinders the otherwise “mundane” thoughts that could turn into something great.

As a teacher-in-training, so to speak, I find that Elbow’s ideas are certainly helpful, and allow me to sympathize with the student more (which is an odd observation for me; you would think I would already be sympathetic being a student too, but I find myself to be quite the harsh grader). For example, I helped my professor grade what she described to me as a writing sample, something that seems to lean towards the low stake scale, but did not advertise this to the students. Thus, we got a mix of informal responses with very formal ones. This created quite the jump while grading, and I found myself writing comments on the more informal ones about being lost in a run-on or overall organization. Though, these were the ones that had the most personal feel to them: they used voice. The more formal ones, though littered with strong evidence and great sentence variety, seemed dull. This makes me wonder if we had told the students that it was a writing sample, just to see how each student operates, would the responses have been different? None were perfect, but with the ease of knowing that it was low stakes, would the student be more confident in composing it? Elbow thinks yes, and I am leaning that way too.

Murray emphasized the idea that writing is a process and not a product. Meaning, writing is not an act in which you start and you finish. There is a finish line at some point, whether it be end of the semester or publication, but the writing itself continues to live, and the thinking, done by the writer, does not concede.

As a student who was taught the prewrite, write, rewrite method from early on, I find that I tend to skip over the first step and greatly rely on the second and third steps (prewriting occurs in my head, so maybe I do not really skip it?). Though, I think that with any writing, as Murray explains, there is exploration. Unless the piece one is writing is personal, then one is more than likely not an expert (yet). Not only does the student explore the topic in which the content will reflect, they are exploring the way in which the writing will come about. This is one of the more important aspects to remember, as the whole point of writing is to learn and share what you learned about yourself, others, the world in general. Writing does not call for a certain mastery, only mere thoughts can blossom within other minds to become something more, and more, and more.

Student Blogs

Track 03. Trust the Process

Peter Elbow’s campaigning for the utilization of more low stakes writing assignments in schools correlates with the way I feel I actually “learned” how to write. In High Stakes and Low Stakes in Assigning and Responding to Writing, Elbow posits that “Low stakes writing helps students… find their own language for the issues of the course; they stumble into their own analogies and metaphors for academic concept” in a way that “is saturated with sense or experience” (7). I’ve received all sorts of passing grades during my life as a student, but the ones that come to my mind whenever I think of assignments that I’m proud of are ones where I was allowed to add my sense of humor or a creative twist to the assignment; it sort of speaks to this idea that a student doesn’t view their writing as their writing until a part of themselves is actually in it, and its no longer just a paint-by-numbers recreation of whatever the teacher had them study. To that point, after class Maya and I walked to the parking lot with the One Most Inextricable from My Soul, we continued talking about how we learned to write, and Maya made a distinction that struck me; she made a distinction between her personal writing and her academic writing. I myself make that distinction often, but hearing another writer bring it up casually made me realize how ingrained the disparity between how we’re taught and how we actually learned can be for some of us. We, intentionally or unintentionally, other our academic writing instead of consider it integrated with the writing we do for ourselves.

I also enjoyed Elbow’s sections on how to respond to student’s writings. He writes, “Even when we write clear, accurate, valid, and helpful comments, our students often read them through a distorting lens of resistance or discouragement—or downright denial” (8). Of course, such a reaction is to be expected when helpful comments are directly tied to a decreasing score; they seem a lot less helpful and a bit more punishing. His later mention of “[avoiding] an impersonal ‘God/truth voice’ in [his] comments” actually makes me reminisce about an educator of mine who would use those constantly; I fondly remember “Wrong!!” and “Incorrect!!” or even just “!!” in red ink all over my essays for two marking periods during my senior year of high school (13). She would even yell her heavenly judgments out during presentations if you misunderstood the presentation topic; although I ended up thriving in her class, I definitely understand why so many of my classmates dreaded 2nd period. If she was a bit gentler, maybe we all would be in graduate writing programs.

As for Donald M. Murray’s Teach Writing as a Process Not a Product, the first quote that struck me was his use of the word “autopsy” to describe how educators teach literature (3). It made me smile pretty wryly because its a very apt descriptor for many classes I’ve been a student in and, regrettably, many classes I’ve been a teacher in as well. I also like Murray’s statement that “you don’t learn a process by talking about it, but by doing it” (20). It seems like it can be reductive, but in my experience the best way to learn the process is to practice the process; it’s certainly more engaging than just “autopsying” a piece and holding up its parts for show hoping your student can recreate it by their next due date.

This blog post was sonically powered by John Coltrane’s 1958 album Blue Train. I was in a Coltrane mood this morning, but wanted to try something other than A Love Supreme (which I love; I just needed a bit of variety today).