Response to Huot, and Connors and Lunsford

Hands-off Teaching

To begin with, I must say that I have never held “proofreading and editing” in very high regard. For some reason, I have always associated the conscious performance of those terms with error-hunting, thinking of them as surface corrections that do not deal with content. (I have, however, always approached the task of polishing my papers as absolutely necessary. I do not remember ever actually being told that my papers had to look a certain way, but rather that the habit of polishing my papers in such a way has long since become second nature.)

Those admissions aside, I realized about half way through Monday’s class that I do actively engage in editing and proofreading, but that those behaviors have become so engrained in my writing process that I no longer consider them distinct or noticeable steps. It was when Professor Takayoshi discussed the fact that many of her students have developed the unfortunate habit of printing their writing assignments without taking the time to read them aloud that I realized how invisible and fluid my writing process has become. Every time I write academically, even as I compose this blog entry, I pause every ten minutes or so to take a deep breath and reread (aloud) the last paragraph or so of what I have written. This process keeps me focused on the “point” of what I am writing, preventing me from haring off on a literary tangent. For reasons that I cannot identify, I actively participate in my own writing process, though no one ever told me that I should.

I say all of this by way of speaking about my reaction to the Huot article, which is one of appreciation and awe. Students are not encyclopedias, they do not come to us with ready-made knowledge of all things writing, and we should not assume as much. I agree with Huot’s claim that we must ease our freshman students into discussions that involve the vocabulary of writing, and that we should be patient, because though their writerly “orientation” may, at the start of their academic careers, be limited, they will learn more given time and opportunity (214). And while it is probably not necessary to hand-hold freshman writers all the way to their portfolios, we should not assume that they can get through the writing process without our support.

In addition to empathy, I fervently agree with Huot’s position that students’ writing can improve through frequent writing assignments of various types. Assigning students reading responses, informal student journals, and polished writing assignments seems like an excellent way of keeping students (who will no doubt find college at least a little bit overwhelming) engaged in both the writing process and what goes on in class. This engagement should not be underestimated, nor should the wealth of experience earned by such regular composition be overlooked. Though the notion of students resolving many of their own composition problems through increased exposure to and experience with the writing process seems highly intuitive, it also seems very, very likely. Thank goodness for writing therapy, in all its forms.

(Im)Perfect Objectivity

Similar to the intuitive-but-still-true nature of the Huot article, much of what I take away from the Connors and Lunsford article would seem almost uselessly obvious, if it was not so important to think about on a personal level. Though I hope to (whenever possible) avoid the sad and exhausted reality of the teachers mentioned in the article (and their blasé responses), it is hard to fault these weary warriors for their unhelpful and uninvolved responses to student writing. Speaking with the hope and enthusiasm of one who is yet inexperienced in the realm of exhaustive teaching, I can proclaim my belief in the idea that teachers must be active and engaged (and engaging) responders to student writing. It is my hope that when I begin the important task of responding to students’ writing, it will be as an interested, non-objective reader, rather than as a distant professional. For though I believe in the need for objectivity in such fields as medicine and history, I do not believe that writing teachers, who are tasked with reaching students on what I believe is a very personal level, should be trained to be clinically objective. Connors and Lunsford’s claim that the teachers whose responses they analyzed “seem conditioned not to engage with student writing in personal” ways is very disheartening to me, and it makes me more aware of the importance of retaining (and, if need be, actively defending) my lack of perfect objectivity (214).

I believe that I truly must “ache with caring,” both about students’ compositions and the students themselves, and that such caring will positively influence many other aspects of my teaching. If I care, I may be able to close the gap that Connors and Lunsford discuss on page 215 that often exists between what teachers claim to be teaching and what they grade their students on. If I care, I believe I will be able to remain cognizant of the fact that the writing process is entirely flexible, and that I will be able to help my students understand and learn that flexibility. If I care, I think I will be more able to pay attention to student writing in a way that looks to see if it seems like my students are making the same mistakes often, and to help them to grow out of such patterns, rather than bleeding red ink all over their work. If I care, I hope that my comments on students’ writing will attend to their work as the most recent part of an ongoing process, instead of an end in itself. If I care, I believe I can reach my students.

Response 11.18.09

I would like to begin with proof reading and editing, which is where every good paper should end. The thing I have learned most about editing this semester is that it is an ongoing process within the writing process. Many writers edit the entire time that they are writing. In my time in the writing center  I have had to give many encouraging pep talks about the value of deeper level ideas before editing. Not over editing, just before.  Many of these students are so caught up in writing perfectly they hardly write anything at all. Yes, there is a value to a perfect paragraph, but that paragraph still needs a content a substance. These students are concerned that what they write will be wrong, so much so, that they cannot even write. They are in a vicious cycle of expecting perfection, but never finding it. The idea of free writing can be looked down on by students like this who do not see the point in using that much time on an unperfect draft. I think that these are many of the writers who will print a draft and never want to look at it again. 

I also valued Dr. Huot's talk and nudge method as an editing tool to help writers. I have used it and I really think it works for error detection. At the same time it is an encouraging effort. I try to remind the writer that their brain is used to and good at this editing stuff it already auto-corrects for them. They need to just see where they are already fixing their own mistakes in their head and then make the paper reflect that. The students who are introduced to this technique usually walk out with a new idea about editing, a new addition to their process. In fact, I liked all of Dr. Huot's suggestions for editing, especially encouraging students to take an inventory of the skills they need to work on and focusing on them. If that idea would have been encouraged in my first year classes it would have blown my mind and saved me a lot of time in my second drafts. The idea makes sense in breaking grammar into easy to use, understand and correct chunks, as opposed to “do all grammar well, now”. 

I felt the Williams piece was eye opening but more than a bit gimmicky. I think students an instructors should acknowledge that there is a hierarchy to grammar error.  Just as every law in America is not enforced, not every grammar rule is created equal. Students know that being forbidden to walk a cow down main street on Sunday in Portland is a valid law, they also know that it is not worth knowing(unless for radio trivia). The same goes for grammar, not every rule should be as valued for the beginning college writer. Proper editing is showing  respect for the reader. The writer proves that with good editing they care enough about the paper and the reader for it to be read easily. That is not to say though, a writer cannot respect the reader in other ways, this is just one of many ways. The reader too, has a responsibility to be understanding in the reading. Not every small error, or style choice should warrant a letter to the editor or the red pen of doom. The Williams article though does remind me to be generous in my readings even if the work must be assessed. 

The Connors Lunsford article I found the most enlightening and encouraging. The lesson I hope to remember is that instructors are human and so are the students. (WHOA) We do not grade and respond in a paper vacuum we are responding to people with feelings. The positive attitude encouraged in the article needs to be in every article in writing. As a field we are so concerned with good papers we forget we are to help people become good writers. There is a huge difference between the two. I take out of this article the need to be honest and respectful, understanding and encouraging in my grading comments. Writing is a hard thing. Writing well is a very very hard thing. It is not too much to  ask in expecting students to try, we should also try ourselves. It is only fair that if I assign a 2000 word essay than I ought to read it and respond to it. There is a give and take between students and instructors that needs to be encouraged. We may not be equals in the process or the classroom but we are partners. In the article, I would have also liked to have heard the writer response to these comments. We wonder what good they do, we should go to the source and find out. 

To get personal and mushy, I think their ought to be a mutual respect for each other and for writing in the classroom. I feel that the instructor leads by example in their attitude. More importantly as writing instructors we need to be aware that all times we are selling writing. The students are just extremely fickle buyers. We are always reminding others of how valuable a skill writing is and why and how students can use it in their own lives. If it was so obvious to them it would be easier to motivate. It is the job of all teachers to sell their knowledge, with tuition we do that pretty literally. Figuratively though, we need to remember as a field that the value of writing well is not as explicit as other skills, but should not be valued less. We need to sell writing to our students with a positive, encouraging attitude. 

Response to Mirtz

Although I found Mirtz's article to be a little shortsighted at times, I took some good advice from this reading. I have experienced the “direct/indirect” talk as both a student and an instructor. I like that she breaks down the idea of “off task” talk and instead discusses it in terms of direct and indirect discussion of topics. I think this idea fits well with the other article , because it would be very easy to assume as an instructor that our students were being disrespectful and take it personally. At the same time, assessing the frequency of indirect talk could be a good time to critically self reflect on our teaching methods. One of the areas that Mirtz doesn't really account for occurs when she discusses the reasons for “indirect” talk. She makes a very good observation that part of the indirect talk comes as a result of the students feeling each other out and developing an idea of boundaries or points of connection within the group. It is also important to note that the students are also feeling out the instructor. Mirtz does comment on this later on in the article, but I don't think she stresses the importance of establishing boundaries the first week. It is really no fault of the students if they misinterpret this allowance of exploration as a lax teacher and are subsequently shocked when the teacher suddenly switches from “interpreting” to “enforcing” a matter of weeks later. Even if the switch is not as drastic as this, it is still a much easier task to impress a sense of discipline and boundaries upon them within the first week rather than attempting to constantly redirect them weeks later.

I very much liked her suggestion that we don't attempt to control the discussion too much, and to allow for looser demands. I have felt more comfortable in classrooms where the discussion is rather broad and allows for a number of different ideas to come to the table. I think it also gives the students a sense of confidence that the instructor trusts that they are intelligent enough to direct their own discussions and supply the details to a broad subject. However, for this to move fluidly a sense of community and trust is very important. I understand why she allows for more indirect talk in the beginning and I think that smaller and more relaxed groupings in the first weeks could be effective for establishing this. In the class that I most recently observed, the instructor spent the first five minutes talking to the students on subjects other than class. He was very friendly and allowed the students to talk to him and to each other briefly while he organized himself. I was instructed to do this in my ESL classes as a “warm-up.” Again to bring in the second article, I think it is important to check ourselves when we do anything like this, because the students could take it as laziness, etc. on our part if we don't keep the first discussions under control.

Mirtz gave some good advice when discussing just how to get these conversations under control. I like her idea of the instructor as an interpreter, rather than a controller. I definitely think addressing issues of group dynamics in class is a good idea. Especially if tension develops within a class. I personally would not just put it on a handout, although a brief mention of what is expected could be a good thing to included on a syllabus. By discussing it in class you allow the students to give their input and they can freely address issues that may not have been apparent to you. Her suggestion to reflect on why indirect talk occurs is good, but I don't think it's a good idea to devote too much time to this for reasons of practicality. Giving specific tasks seems to be the best of these suggestions. This was another strategy that I am familiar with from my ESL experience. It not only keeps the students on task without being too constrictive, it also allows a series of ends for those who move at a slower pace. It keeps students who move at a quick pace occupied and gives extra time to those who need it. By providing a series of questions, etc. there will be no awkward silences where one group is still working when all others have finished. This strategy is also effective in that you don't end up being too hard on yourself as an instructor because you don't meet all the objectives that you want to accomplish.

When reading this article, the personal biases I have against group work were not entirely squashed. While I see the benefits of group work, and definitely intend on incorporating peer review and discussion groups into my class, I would never pick groups myself and I don't think I could bring myself to assign a graded major group project. I think that students know themselves well enough to choose those they work best with (within reason). I have read various theories (mainly in ESL) that suggest the idea of scaffolding (or pairing weak students with strong, etc.). While this idea can have benefits, it puts a lot of unfair pressure on students and is often very transparent. Scaffolding seems more reasonable within the context of a composition class, but I would still be concerned that the students would figure out that I was pairing weak and strong. I suppose this would be a case where larger groups could be more appropriate if I were to employ scaffolding.

I liked Mirtz's idea of peer group reports, but I would keep these anonymous or in the form of a paper. If a student in my class felt uncomfortable for some reason I would definitely want to know and I think the only way to find this out is in a private paper or anonymous hand-in. The anonymous idea could get ugly, so I suppose I would ask for signed papers. As for the students' awareness of their own direct/indirect talk – I would ask this at the middle or end of the semester so that they would have time to develop a classroom community before attempting to assess how things are working.

Response to Freeland and Johnson

In reading Freeland's article, I couldn't help thinking about my own writing experiences as an undergrad. Everything she described sounded familiar and I remembered my endless revisions, without even being aware of what was really expected from me. Also it reminded me of the annoying times when I waited for the professor to give feedback to my paper. I always did the changes they offered without learning anything at all. So, was the end product mine after all? I have almost always got good marks, yet I wouldn't say that my identity as a writer was affirmed. The control in my own writing process was never mine. The article led me to question the true nature of revisions.

I very much liked Freeland's suggestion that the teacher should be referred to as a reader and the student as a writer. This seemingly minor shift in the roles would definitely give a writer freedom and control over his/her own writing. As a teacher, I believe that it's not easy to disregard structure and control issues. Likewise, the use of collaborative language in responding to student writings is not something easy to accomplish. The responses end up being a monologue. As Freeland argues, using nonevaluative, open-ended questions might be a solution to this problem. And of course "generosity" should be the key. The writing conferences she also offer are very productive but at the same time very time-demanding and I don't know how to manage those given the limited time and the number of students. We can meet them individually as a group and in this way we'll also be a member of the group.

Johnson also stresses the importance of peer response groups as an effective way to introduce students to collaborative writing. He gives some good advice on how to guide students in the practice of peer revising. He suggests that students critique their peers under pseudonyms. In this way, the identities of students would be unknown to each other. The anonymity brings objectivity and the students would focus on the ideas, not on particular identities. The anonymity might also help them to respond one another purposefully and make them evaluate the responses more carefully. The interpersonal relationships do not play a role in commentaries, so I think anonymity helps students to overcome their confidence problems.

reading response to Johnson and Freeland

Reading Johnson’s “Critical Reading and Response: Experimenting with Anonymity in Draft Workshops” was eye-opening on a number of levels. First, though I know that peer groups are well-established in the field and have been proven to be effective by years of practice and research, my personal experience with them has been rather poor. As nearly every English class I’ve had since 7th grade has incorporated the peer editing process to some extent, I’m extremely familiar with it, yet I can’t say that I’ve ever felt like it improved my writing in any obvious way. Perhaps I’m just a pretentious snob, but I never really took seriously the comments and suggestions of my peer writers and generally regarded their ideas with suspicion, dismissing their them as the artificial product of a process where they simply had to say something to fulfill the class task. I can’t speak for others, but for me, peer review has been an interesting if not particularly enlightening exercise that has yet to provide any demonstrably useful information to me, and these feelings of peer editing often being busy work undeniably color my cynicism toward its effectiveness in a general sense.

That said, reading through Johnson’s article, it’s clear that peer review is helpful to the great majority of (probably less pretentious) writers, and the extent to which it appears to be busy work could easily be explained by the fact that most peer editors are afraid to say anything terribly critical in their commentary. In particular, Johnson’s use of anonymous reviewers seems to be an idea worth pursuing, and I definitely know that I’ve both given and received comments that were so vague and bland as to be practically useless out of discomfort with being asked to evaluate the work of a writer who is sitting right next to me and who will read my comments in my presence. The anonymous review process circumvents those particular problems and seems to open up the route of communication to honest and forthright feedback without fear of recrimination of any sort. There might be inherent problems that I don’t yet see, but I can’t really think of any reason not to use such a system if one is comfortable enough with the technology needed to put those ideas into practice.

Further, Johnson’s attention to establishing the criteria for proper peer editing seems particularly helpful. Though I hadn’t considered it (probably because of my general disregard for the peer editing process), it is somewhat unreasonable to expect that every student will enter the classroom knowing how to read and give helpful comments to a piece of writing, and the time that Johnson spends practicing the editing process through showing actual drafts and walking through the process with students would seem to make clear that the usual “this is good” and “I like it” comments would be unhelpful to a writer. In fact, I was struck by just how specific and probing the questions were that Johnson cited, as his students were clearly addressing higher order concerns that show a remarkable depth of insight into the structure of effective writing. Similarly, having this whole process unfold in a public online forum seems to insure that students actually give thoughtful feedback, as the social pressure inherent in the situation would push them not to turn in comments that show that they aren’t taking the task as seriously as everyone else, not being too insubstantial nor too harsh in their appraisals. In this case, the social pressure of the situation would seem to create a context where the work takes on extra meaning and the failure to complete the task takes on extra authority.

Freeland’s “Awakening the Writer’s Identity through Conferences” was similarly revelatory, though in a somewhat opposite way. Having worked as a psychotherapist, I would characterize her participant/observer approach to instruction as something akin to a “writing counselor” (or a tutor), someone who doesn’t exactly impose her values on the student writer but who reflects, models, and clarifies objectives through questioning in an unassuming and unimposing way. This egalitarian approach is fascinating, and I’d like to think it is effective; I just wonder how easy it is to simply expect the student to assume the “writer” persona without being forced to do so. I’m not yet entirely sold on the idea that simply setting up a free and open learning environment will provide the transformational spark needed to create such a chemical reaction in the student, though it certainly seems to work in Freeland’s classrooms.

Though I don’t have the benefit of watching these processes unfold over the course of an entire semester, my experiences as the Kent writing center indicate that some students would be resistant to not being given more active instruction. I agree that it’s ideal to sit back and allow the student to claim this process for his or her own, giving as little instruction as possible and pushing the student to develop his or her own authoritative voice, but I wonder how students who are too insecure or unwilling to accept that responsibility progress through the class. Perhaps I give students too little credit and am too quick to provide direction, but I tend to assume that some writers will need more hands-on instruction than others. What do you do if they simply aren’t identifying the variables that add up to effective writing, despite your questioning and mirroring techniques? This approach seems to be at least somewhat at odds with Johnson’s, as it almost seems that Freeland would see the pronounced emphasis on peer reviewing as potentially stifling the emerging voice of a writer, with too many hands in the molding process.

Finally, Freeland’s use of portfolio grading is intriguing and probably a natural outgrowth of her extensive use of writing conferences seems to establish the context of collaboration between students and teacher. Though it’s difficult for me to believe that this approach creates the impression that “the notion of grades seems unnatural,” as I still assume that most of our students are there more to get a good grade than become a good writer, I think the goal of creating a context where students are rewarded for revising their body of work throughout the semester is something to consider. The idea of negotiating a grade with a student still seems a bit intimidating to me, as I fear that I would be too easily persuaded by the student’s good faith arguments, similar to how I often feel uncomfortable giving negative feedback in peer editing groups. Still, I’ve often been struck by how most students seem to have an intuitive sense of how good or how lacking their writing is, and Freeland’s assertion that disagreements rarely occur seems reasonable to me. In the end, as a lazy person, I’m certainly drawn to Freeland’s less-is-more ideology, but I may not be ready for such a hands-off, non-directive approach quite yet.

real writers in students

In both Johnson and Freeland’s articles, I discovered the valuable idea of regarding students as real writers, who are capable of, if given sufficient preparation, critiquing others and their own writing. Both the online peer response and the collaborative teacher/reader-student/writer conferences remove the social, cultural, and interpersonal factors that are disruptive to the identity of students as responsible and intelligent writers and critics. As teachers of College Writing, we must recognize that in every student there is a writer. No matter what their writing backgrounds, experiences, and levels of proficiency in writing, they have the need to express their opinions on issues of their concern and they are proud of putting their opinion in words. As teachers, we must protect and refine that pride at the outset of their college writing experience. Moreover, we need to nurture the capacity of the critic in student writers to enable self-sufficient writing process. Once students are at the wheel of the writing process, they will be willing to and often enthusiastic for explore (-ring) audiences, purposes, rhetoric, and other strategies.

Peer review and conferences

The greater part of this week’s blog post is inspired and supported by my writing center experience. Our latest readings have reminded me just how formative those experiences have been to me as a teacher, student, and writer. While I may differ from the authors in my plans for implementation, I consider peer revision and student-teacher conferences essential to the learning process for student writers.

Like Freeland, I see great value in both reflective writing and reader-writer conferences, and plan to incorporate them into my course. With respect to the latter, I have been a writing consultant/tutor for so long and worked with so many people that the experience has come to shape my pedagogy as an instructor. My extensive writing center experience has led me to become something of a true believer in one-on-one writing consultations and in precisely the sort of Socratic, non-evaluative dialectic upon which Freeland relies. I’ve seen countless students – many of whom were frustrated, confused, miserable, and even irate – make dramatic, fundamental improvements at all stages of the writing process. Even the most sensitive and understanding teachers are, to some degree, limited by the dynamics of a classroom setting. There are ways to make a classroom more inclusive, and I plan to do so – but in even the most interactive of classrooms, personal attention given to one student necessarily excludes the others. However, a personal conference can work outside these constraints, allowing teachers to work one-on-one with each student. I want to move away from treating my class a collective whole (which, admittedly, is necessary at times) and towards viewing my students as a group of separate, distinct writers with widely varying backgrounds, learning styles and personal inclinations. Reader-writer conferences are a step in that direction.

And while “cancelling” 10 classes (!) in order to hold these conferences seems a bit much (would we even be allowed to do that?), I see numerous benefits to them, most notably (for me) that writing conferences (as well as peer revision) allow students to see writing as social and collaborative. A central goal of my writing class is to debunk pervasive myths about writing, particularly the widely-held view of writing as an individual, spontaneous undertaking, as if brilliant prose spontaneously emanate from writers’ brains and pens at will. Woods speaks to this notion, noting that students more inclined towards “creative” writing tend to “believe that all their writing comes from within, from some deep-down burning desire to express something” (193). This is all well and good (perhaps one should be happy that students are excited about writing at all), but I want to move towards an appreciation of writing as a social undertaking in my classroom. As such, I want students to talk about their writing – to one another in peer review sessions, on the blog in the form of reflections, and to me in teacher-writer conferences. This emphasis on talk (especially with respect to revision) will hopefully foster a more Bakhtinian understanding of writing as inherently dialogic. I want them to struggle not only with their own ideas, but the ideas of others.

I also plan to continue incorporating peer revision into the classroom. The advantages here are twofold. In terms of production, students gain a wider sense of audience, writing not only for themselves and the instructor but also their peers. In terms of consumption, students learn to respond with critical empathy as readers. As an added bonus, the looming imperative of peer revision may even dissuade some students from writing those contrived emo-confessional type papers (actually, I’ll probably explicitly discourage them from those). Moreover, the prospect of additional readers may also move students away from ‘please the teacher’ type papers.

One issue with peer revision is how to introduce it, since some students are reticent towards any group work, and others see no point in using their class time on someone else’s paper. I particularly like Woods’ exercise on p.189-90 for introducing peer workshops; I think it would really help reluctant students to see the exercise as useful. I have in the past devoted almost an entire class period just to showing students how they should approach a peer’s paper. Again, this is steeped in writing center pedagogy – ask don’t tell, describe don’t evaluate, address macro-level concerns before moving to grammar/mechanics, etc. After hearing about Matt’s experience yesterday (the tutee whose peers refused to review his anti-Obama paper), I now am considering having students review some sample papers first. Peer revision, when students believe in it, can teach them to navigate between a variety of responses and expand their understanding of what it means to write.

I also want to debunk the myth that writing is the linear creation of a fixed final product. Both peer review and conferences implicitly stress the importance of multiple drafts. I want to show students – not only through what I say, but what we do in the classroom – that writing is ongoing, recursive, and subject to constant revision. I will be telling my students that they need to revise, revise, revise...but merely telling them isn’t enough; my classroom practices should reflect my goals – otherwise I’m just repeating empty words. As such, I want to avoid the rough/final draft dichotomy; students will create first, second, and third drafts.

And, perhaps most importantly, I want to really know my students, and I want them to know one another. Certainly, I will become acquainted with them through class discussion and interaction, but a personal conference affords us a chance to develop an even stronger working relationship. Having taught and worked in writing centers, I have found that it much easier to develop trust in a one-to-one consultation. Conferences and peer revision sessions allow students to share their struggles – with me and with each other – and can build the kind of trust necessary to make a classroom more like a community. I’m aware of how touchy-feely that sounds, but the importance of having a good rapport with students, of working with people who like and trust you – cannot be overstated.

Ultimately, peer revision, reflection and reader-writer conferences are all part of a larger objective: to encourage students’ to see their writing as something ongoing, fluid, and collaborative.