Week 5: Assessment and Writing Response

A lesson in Revision

                I think the concept in “A Lesson in Revision” of re-writing the same story so many times is a great one! This is something that I want to carry in to my classroom. I think revision like this is much more constructive with creative writing, though. I don’t think I would ever recommend writing the same Shakespeare analysis five times over, but I would find this useful if the story changes. Regardless, the tip that he gives about starting to write a paper (even without all the research or facts) a week early is very useful, to let the mind begin to develop the paper. Here is a lesson plan that actually models revision through activities and discussions for some practical ideas on how to facilitate revision.

Winn and Johnson

Winn and Johnson write about assessing student writing in chapter five. I think writing can be incredibly culturally relevant, but I think Winn and Johnson are on to something with the idea that it can be meaningful…with effort.

I really appreciated their suggestion to be transparent with our development in the writing process with our students. Directly modeling our processes and products is a great way to connect with our students and guide them (this reminds me of my elementary gym teacher who always used to make us run, but never ran with us…wtf…). One of the tips that I will take away is that it is important to get students to write every day. The best example I think of this is a journal. To enhance this, I found a website that gives journal prompts categorized by genre…pretty cool!

Another thing they talk about is culturally relevant assessment. A take-away for me from this chapter is that culturally relevant assessment is not just assessing the final product, but assessing the process. A great way to do this is by using the chart (figure 5.3) to help students focus on different aspects of others’ writing, and get them thinking about their own development in each category. I like the idea of doing these informally. I also like the idea of organizing personal ideas, ideas from media, and ideas from discussion so that the student can see how each of these resources contributes to their understanding, and can track the growth of their understanding.

Culturally Relevant formal assessment: I thought that portfolios and rubrics were great ways to “assess the process” of writing. While formal assessments can focus on the final product, this should be the final product as it has developed from formative assignments and assessments. I like the idea of a portfolio because it allows students multiple opportunities to explore multimodal writing- different genres, voices, technologies, etc…

This link is a more advanced approach to portfolios, but it sets up the groundwork pretty thoroughly. This link is a pretty comprehensive and practical way to set up a student portfolio assignment in a middle / high school classroom. 

Week 4: Argument Writing

Major Themes in Writing Arguments

At first I was cautious jumping into the Hillocks readings because I felt that the activities and content in the book did not explicitly focus on the teaching of argument writing. It felt more to me like the book focused on developing sound arguments. Thinking about this a little more, I can realize that this skill (making a sound argument) was not explicitly taught to me, and it has been demanded of me countless times in essay prompts. Hillocks reminds us that students are rarely taught HOW to interpret. The processes of defining, judging, and assigning criteria for a sound argument are a writing skill because they directly affect the content of most writing. The fact that they affect our thought processes, debates, and conversations is just a bonus!

What I love about this process is that it is naturally critical. These thought/argument formations can serve as the frame for all critical thought and that makes it incredibly useful. I found the activities in the chapters relevant to what Hillocks was supporting, but I can’t help but feel like reading through all of them really enlightened my pedagogy too much. The main take-away from the reading for me was the importance of discussion as a precursor to flow (and therefore as a precursor to writing), that this can be obtained by sense of competence and control, clear goals and objectives, appropriately complex, provide clear feedback, good timing, and that judgment is only the beginning of a good argument.

Online Role-playing

I was fascinated by the concept of collaborative arguments. I had no idea how much persuasive essays really mislead students, but after reading about them in all of our readings, I realized that I thought persuasive essays WERE sound arguments when I got into college too. It did take me a while to unlearn this. I think removing competition and potentially personal opinions is much more transformative and useful for our students. I think that the cooperative nature of this activity is a much more realistic and productive way for students to strive for common good, negotiate, and determine what is really important.

I think the online role-play forum is a great way to give agency to students who might not feel like they have much of it. I have always liked the idea of assigning a student a point of view to argue that is differing from their own because it is a great way to look at sound evidence without personal attachment, and therefore a great way to practice considering multiple viewpoints.

Taking all of this a step further; is it more important that our students understand exactly how to make a sound argument or that they understand the social and political implications of the collaborative argument? Does a sound individual argument give a student as much agency or sense of competence and transformation as a collaborative one? It seems in some ways like they have differing outcomes.

Links:

I thought that most of the Hillocks chapters mentioned the importance of definition both in argument and in critical pedagogy. Here is a list of different ways to define a word as well as words that are commonly used in a critical social studies classroom. I think most of these terms transfer into the English classroom as well.

To extend the conversation we had last week in class about different levels of thinking, this resource gives more concrete examples of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

This activity is a philosophical experiment that is a collaborative analysis of “good art.” It reminds me of the readings this week because it attempts to define good art, and uses collaborative judgement to determine some kind of answer.

This is an NCTE resource about using literature to teach inference (I know this seems like reading, but our readings made it relevant!!) 

Week Three: Digital and Multimodal Literacy

Discussion, Speech, and Language

Andrews and Smith mention the "Social Semiotic Theory," which suggests that “all signs and messages are always multimodal” (105). How text is displayed on the page (or screen), what the text itself looks like, where the silences and gaps happen throughout the writing makes it multimodal. (And also critical!) This is something that I have always assumed and enjoyed about writing, but articulating it makes it easier to comprehend- and therefore more teachable. Having my students look at the "affordances" of writing gives them a jumping off point to start answering the question “to what extent are they taking full advantage of the range of mode, media, screen, community in their choices of substance to meet the needs of the audience or the purpose of the piece?” (150). Or..."To what extent are the modalities in my writing articulating what I want to say?"

In this sense, writing is a more developed and polished record of what thought and discussion has already (hopefully) initiated. As Atwell brings up, the "language of writing" is very important. It empowers the students with the "how" not just the "why" of writing.“The dialogic nature of speech offers a model for writers to follow” as long as they see their writing as “part of a dialogue rather than a solitary voice in the wilderness” (106). This is increasingly true as digital writing becomes more prevalent in our lives, and as the “process and products are collapsed," and "composing and publishing become one in the same” (128). I wondered why so many of my friends and peers prefer digital writing as a primary mode of communication. Many of my friends would rather text someone than call them, especially if the topic at hand is something awkward like dating or roommate confrontations. I think this is interesting because text messages have so much potential (exponentially in the Midwest) to be misinterpreted. Language is slippery and tone is virtually impossible to convey in most text messages without emoticons or excessive punctuation. I am always guilty of reading too hard for passive aggression, and therefore overcompensate with smiley faces and exclamation points in my text messages. Thinking about how these modes of communication dominate our worlds today, the rhetorical, compositional, and multimodal framing of text is more important for our students to understand than which process happened first. I agree with Andrews and Smith that improvising and responding to digital text is a new literacy that begs for new teaching. 

This brings me to my final point: that the structural and organizational elements of the five-paragraph theme still influence the way that I compose academic text today. Asking to what extent does the five-paragraph theme inform my writing process bares little fruit, because the FPE is only a format that I use in the context of school. This leads me to believe that despite it's organizational merits, the five-paragraph essay is far from culturally relevant, and so if we are to teach it we should first openly question the power dynamics of it. Who are we appeasing by using it and how is it helping us? Being transparent about this, I think, maintains its usefulness and simultaneously removes its oppressive tendencies.

-Grading multimodal writing is another can of worms to open here are a few ideas for multimodal projects and rubrics for them! 
-This is an interesting article about a test that was created to assess digital literacy... "icritical thinking" ...mhmm. 
-This is an example of an entire digital literacy and citizenship curriculum, pretty rad. 
-This article demonstrates an effective approach towards critical thinking in writing assignments. 

Week 2: Lost in the Process

Week 2: Lost in the Process

The readings this week were frustrating me for multiple reasons. After carefully reading each chapter and taking notes, I did not feel any closer to any pedagogical strategies for teaching writing. The entire subject felt intangible, but I will attempt to articulate some important topics that are worth discussing.

Andrews and Smith

I have a much better understanding of what is problematic about teaching writing because of these chapters. In class we also touched on this topic. It seems that because of new standards and requirements, and because of the emphasis on the writing process, writing is used more as an assessment tool than a skill worth developing. There is a "writing process" that seems to dominate most classrooms that involves in some way pre-writing, writing, and re-writing. The book suggests that this short-term development is less-than-useful because it really narrows the scope of how writing and writers can evolve over time.

This concept of developing writers is incredibly valuable. Considering the rapid growth of the digital world of our students, writing development should be happening in our classrooms in the shape of instruction that considers purpose, audience, and growth. I was able to draw a connection between writing instruction and Understanding by Design. Chapter four suggested that meaningful writing instruction can happen by starting with a rubric and working backwards. This seems more purposeful, however, there are many more aspects of writing development.

I was also interested by the emphasis of development on individual levels. This makes writing instruction seem so much more complex and impossible in a public school classroom, however it seems relevant. How can we isolate our individual students' writing processes and hone in on their personal instructional needs?

Winn and Johnson

It is at this point that culturally relevant pedagogy comes into play. The more relevant (and not "prove-to-me-that-you-know-something) writing is to our students, the more they will be affected and invested by their own writing. They might be more willing to develop as writers if they are benefiting on many levels from this development. For my last question: How can we find balance in necessary writing skills (like grammar and Standard English) and culturally relevant instruction in our classrooms?

I thought this website was a pretty cool resource that combines digital writing and creative development. The teacher starts a story, and the students take turns adding and changing the story as it goes on. The teacher initially selects the length of the story, and there is an option to publish the story once it is completed. The students are also able to vote on their favorite contributions and endings. It is called http://www.boomwriter.com/home/schools/