The Writing Teacher - Tips, Techniques, and Advice on Teaching Writing

Entries in teaching techniques (6)

Wednesday

03Mar2010

Complete the Learning Cycle with Peer-Editing

Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 09:00AM

By Vincent Kovar

Vincent Kovar is a writer, instructor, editor, and entrepreneur based in Seattle, Washington. An Adjunct Faculty member with both Antioch University and the University of Phoenix, Vincent writes for the Education 3.0 blog at EarnMyDegree.com.

One of the biggest consumptions of teachers’ time is the correcting and grading of writing. As with all instruction, it is important to give the students the maximum amount of feedback but the process of evaluation should also provide a venue for the maximum amount of learning.

It also wouldn’t hurt if teachers didn’t kill themselves with the amount of time they have to put in marking up assignments.

If you’re leaving school even more tired than your students you may want to reconsider your methods. While teaching is tough work, learning should be even more exhausting. If you’re doing all the editing yourself, you are removing half the learning cycle.

Writing and evaluation are two sides of the same coin. To grow as writers, your students must learn to develop an editorial eye by continuously re-engaging each piece of text.

No one (not even famous writers), gets everything right the first time.

For your students to receive the maximum benefit from the writing process (and for you to retain some sense of sanity), peer editing should be an integral part of your instructional design.

To create an effective peer editing environment first you must create a rubric that targets the objectives for each assignment. This rubric may be based on the classic 6-traits: http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00001707.shtml, but it should always include additional details and examples of both good and poor writing.

It’s helpful to include a list of the most common errors: http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/easywriter3e/20errors/.

Provide plenty of room for positive comments and train your students in what positive, helpful (yet honest) feedback looks like. It’s also good idea to make these sheets a different color.

Then, have the class follow these four steps:

Have the students exchange papers and evaluate each other’s work using the colored rubric sheets. It is always hard to edit one’s own work so exchanging papers gives each writer a fresh pair of eyes and it also allows them the new perspective in which to apply their editorial skills.
The students should put their own name as the “editor” at the top of the colored feedback sheets that they fill-out. The editorial process should be viewed as its own assignment.
When the editor finds an error, they should not only mark it but find a relevant reference in their text that explains why this is an error and how to fix it.
Based on the feedback they receive, have the student writers correct their own papers. When they turn the assignment in to you they should staple or clip together (a) the revised paper and (b) the editing sheet they received with a classmate’s name on it.

The students each receive two sets of points.

The first set of scores is for their own (corrected) work and the second for the editing they performed. Remember, this second set of points is for the peer review they gave, not the one they received.

This second score is based on two things:

The thoroughness and usefulness of their editing
The final product of their writing partner

If a student turns in an assignment which does not correct the errors their partner identified, he or she loses points. However, if the writer turns in work which contains errors not identified in the peer-edit, the editor also loses points. The writer and editor are a team.

Bear in mind that the editorial process should take at least as long as the writing process. The first couple rounds may be slow going but quite quickly, the learning will gear up to progress faster than you ever thought possible.

Use the combined feedback to plan future lessons. If you see certain errors cropping up repeatedly (for either the writer or editors) assign supplemental worksheets for the individual teams.

Aside from the reduced workload on the teacher and the increased speed of writing improvement, peer-editing has several other advantages:

Strong editors will become highly sought after by their peers.
Thoroughness and attention to detail will become traits of positive competition in the classroom.
Students will have their work completed more often. While they may have excuses ready for a teacher, students are less likely to give (or accept) them with their peers.
Peer editing is a skill highly desired by employers and one that is used in higher education.
The process increases autonomy and self-directed improvement as a life-long skill.

Once the process gets going, teachers will find their grading time dramatically cut and they will be able to spend that time giving more sustentative feedback with less focus on mechanical errors and sloppy proofreading.

Decades of educational research support the use of peer editing. Studies have shown that peer editing not only increases overall fluency more than control groups which did not use the technique but it’s been linked to improved reading comprehension as well.

Remember, teachers should be coaches, not crutches. Doing the all the revision for your students isn’t helping them learn, it’s depriving them of half the process. Use peer editing. Send your students home tired and send yourself home sane.

Learning Express LLC |

Using Writing to Improve Test Scores in Other Content Areas

Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 11:00AM

The Providence Journal (Rhode Island) reports of a school wide program that uses writing to improve student achievement levels in science, math, social studies, and the arts.

Students at Mt. Hope High School scored especially poorly on free response questions on standardized tests, resulting in only 19% reaching proficient or above.

School leaders worked with teachers to create cross discipline writing assignments for HS Sophomores. Included in the work was for teachers to assess how well other teachers were grading the student assignments. Teachers commented that this was some of the best professional development they had ever received.

In less than one year, the school showed a gain from 19% proficient to 27%. While still not where they want it, teachers are hopeful that another year will show even larger gains.

Mitch Weisburgh |

Learning, Frivolity, and "Leeroy Jenkins!"

Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 11:22AM

by Lester Smith

Lester Smith is a Writer/Technologist at Sebranek, Inc., parent company of Write Source. He is a 1989 graduate of Illinois State University with a BA in English, Magna cum laude, Honors in English, University Honors Scholar, and with a minor in Spanish. In 1985, while pursuing his degree, he began working as a writer and editor for Game Designers' Workshop in Normal, Illinois, which led to a design position with TSR (publishers of the Dungeons & Dragons® game) in 1991. He joined the staff of Sebranek, Inc. in 1998 as an assistant writer and Webmaster. In 2000 he led the creation of the company's e-Publishing Department. Currently he maintains the company's Websites and podcasts, troubleshoots technology issues, and contributes as a writer and editor to various projects. In his spare time, he is president of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.

My first publishing job was as a hobby game designer. That position paid my way through college and kept my family in beans and bacon for about fifteen years prior to my finding employment at Write Source. But early on as a game designer, I struggled with guilt over writing in the entertainment industry—a field our pastor at the time condemned as part of "America's sinful preoccupation with fun."

Then I started seeing the letters parents sent to game designers like Gary Gygax, letters praising hobby games for giving their children a reason to read, a reason to care about math, a new interest in history, a new venue for their own writing. (Many young hobby fans end up publishing articles in hobby magazines both online and off.) And I met the kids themselves at conventions, teenagers who were often painfully shy and who felt they had no place in the world, until they discovered a community of gamers in their area. Any sense of lingering puritanical shame I might have had faded away as I watched young people have fun, socialize, and even learn something.

Fun in Education

Today while driving to work, I was mulling over that perceived schism between fun and productivity, between enjoyment and learning. And suddenly the example of "Leeroy Jenkins!" put it in a new perspective. In the "massively multiplayer online role-playing game" (MMORPG) World of Warcraft, Leeroy Jenkins is a character who became notorious back in 2006 for ignoring the plans under discussion by his group (plans specifically to gain items for him, by the way) and charging headlong into battle—thereby getting the whole group of characters killed ignominiously. A video of the whole farce was subsequently published on YouTube (warning: the language is sometimes salty), and the story became an Internet phenomenon.

Here's what struck me today about the Leeroy Jenkins story: First, the setting is entertainment—a "fun" setting, if you will. Second, within this setting, a group of roughly a dozen people is working out a resource-management strategy to accomplish a shared goal. At one point, you can even hear them doing number crunching to determine the percentage chance of success. These social, mathematical, and resource-management skills are the same tools used in real-world problem solving. Third, one character bent only on fun destroys it all.

The contrast between productive fun and pointless frivolity is sharply outlined in this example. That's a distinction typically missed in discussions about education—even about writing and literature, in which creativity is assumed. Our puritanical roots seem to suggest that work or achievement (the whole "sweat of your brow" thing) is antithetical to fun and enjoyment.

Granted, work can be difficult. But I thoroughly enjoy my job—I have fun at this thing called writing and with the topic of education. And I suspect you enjoy your job, too. Why? First, because this is work we care about. We enjoy nurturing these skills in young people. Second, it is work that involves problem solving. Just like the characters in the Leeroy Jenkins example, we have to apply the means at hand (our knowledge, available textbooks, class computer resources) within the constraints of the setting (class time, student backgrounds, admininistrative dictates) to achieve our goal (encouraging literacy and learning). This is, in effect, our playground, our game, our ball.

Engaging Students in School

If we want students to be equally engaged, we need to share the playground with them. This means not only involving them in problem solving but also allowing them work they care about. When it comes to assignments in writing, students care most when they are allowed to choose topics they're interested in and when they know their writing will find an audience beyond the teacher.

Clever teachers can use this to their advantage. Take a look at the content you need to cover in a semester. In an English course, this might be a particular literary genre or form of writing. In a social studies course, it might be a particular geographical region or time period. In a science course, it might be cellular biology. Now have your students write proposals for specific topics within that realm. Tell them they can write about anything they like, as long as their proposals convince you (an exercise in persuasive writing) of its relation to the general subject.

Once their topics are set, turn them loose to write (we recommend a workshop environment), with the understanding that their work will be shared with the class at large. In most cases, their writing will involve at least some research (even this blog entry required me to research the specifics of the Leeroy Jenkins story). While they're going through the writing process, you can be considering the class's topics as a whole, to determine what gaps might be left in the overall subject—gaps you may have to fill yourself.

As students complete their writing, have them present it to the class as a whole. After each presentation, lead a class question-and-answer session, allowing the presenter to fill in details from his or her research, and—if necessary—adding details of your own. (Just remember to support, not overshadow, the student.) To be most effective, you can work yourself into the presentation rotation, sharing a piece of your own writing, followed by the same sort of question-and-answer session. (This is your opportunity to fill in the previously mentioned gaps.)

In the end, the class will have covered a broader range of topics, in more depth, than if you had delivered the same material in lecture mode. Further, they will have done it in writing, with a real audience. And they will have a greater sense of ownership of the material. What's more, they will have had fun—without being merely frivolous.

In the end, if we want to treat students like adults, teaching them the joy of accomplishment may be the most important lesson of all.

Mitch Weisburgh |

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Friday

19Dec2008

Teaching Beowulf to Vikings Fans by Liz O'Neill

Friday, December 19, 2008 at 11:00AM

Mrs. O'Neill is a secondary school teacher from the UK who is teaching in Minnesota. She also maintains the always interesting Mrs O'Neill's Blog.

It starts quite well. There's a sticky moment for my Minnesotan students when they realize we are not talking about those Vikings. However, they grudgingly admit they liked the short film on Anglo-Saxon Britain. They are fascinated by just how different old English is from modern English. 'Bad' spelling is always comforting. We actually have a couple of brief discussions on why we use punctuation and Beowulf's author(s) didn't. The students are willing to talk about alliteration and what it actually does in a poem. They have written a couple of their own kennings and some rather clever riddles.

Question: You punch my face and expect to hear a friend's reply. What am I?

Answer: A cell phone.

And now we come to the actual text. We look at several translations, not just the one in our book, and we choose the translation we, as a class, like best. We're off. We race through to Hrothgar's building of Heorot. We are suitably repulsed by Grendel's gory 'take out'. We can't wait for Beowulf to dispose of him. We love it when Beowulf vanquishes Grendel with nothing but the power of his hands. We can almost hear Grendel's claws cracking like walnuts.

The battle with Grendel's mother is a little more challenging. His mother? We descend with Beowulf into the murky lake and dutifully dissect the fight. Attention is waning, however, and students are starting to ask when we will 'finish off Beowulf'? The malcontents are grumbling amongst themselves. Beowulf it seems has become a bit 'boring'—an unwelcome alliteration.

And now comes the English teacher's dilemma. Do I wrap it up now, whilst they are still – apart from the usual suspects, who would be bored by Armageddon - thinking fondly of Beowulf? Or do I push on regardless, to the end of the text, anxious to make sure they 'know the poem'?

Every now and then when I am struggling with this sort of problem. I hear the voice of a wise and wonderful teacher, my last department head. "You have to ask yourself," she says, "what is in this for the kids? What exactly are you hoping they will learn from this? What is your learning objective?"

The answer comes easily. At this point in the study I want them to be making connections with the text, seeing its relevance for themselves. It's time for me to stop trying to entertain them, and have them entertain me.

I set a new assignment. 'Take the basic plot of Beowulf's fight with Grendel's mother and put it into a modern setting. We discuss a few scenarios. A small storeowner about to be put out of business by a large chain, a policeman who discovers that the killer he has put behind bars has an even more evil boss. I put the students in groups to help out the less imaginative. Each group may use the same basic plot, but each member must submit their own version of it.

The results are profoundly heartening. The students choose their own form—a page torn from a novel, a key scene in a movie, or a dramatic monologue. New talents are discovered. A few students opt to script and film a scene on their own time. Another student writes a film script that shows a deeper awareness of the themes of Beowulf than I had grasped myself. He has me cross referencing the text with his script, in delight.

Hardly any students remember their class mantra: 'How long does it have to be?'

And I re-learn something. Don't underestimate your students. Don't be afraid to change direction. Keep asking yourself: What do I want these students to learn, now?

One of these days I am actually going to put that into practice before I get into "the murky lake".

More commentary by Mrs. O'Neill:

In Minnesota, I teach 9th Grade to 12th Grade. It's a small school.

This lesson involved teaching Beowulf to a British Lit class, which is mainly aimed at juniors

who are not taking AP classes.

My school teaches it during the Junior - but I can see it being taught at any high school stage.

I think the idea of placing a scene in a modern context is applicable at most grades, to one degree or another.

In the UK I taught 12 -18 year-olds - our high schools have six grades rather than four. Most high school teachers would have students from each year group.

I have used the idea of transferring the plot to a modern setting to good effect with all of these age groups. The most difficult class I ever had - thoroughly disaffected 15 year olds- began to be enthused about Macbeth when I got them to try portraying him as a soldier suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome. (a pretty serious case :)

Obviously you must take care not to 'dumb down' the material. I insist on having them read the original text. They need to know its context. However, they also need 'a way in'. Great literature isn't bound by time... but we are, I suppose.

Update on Friday, December 19, 2008 at 12:26PM by

Mitch Weisburgh

Teaching Writing Tips Contest Extended

Please note that the deadline to submit or vote on tips for teaching writing has been extended to January 1.

So far, there have been some very interesting suggestions.

Mitch Weisburgh |

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Friday

12Dec2008

The Art of Teaching Writing by Alan Gibbons

Friday, December 12, 2008 at 11:00AM

Teachers sometimes receive stories from their students which drive them to distraction. They may go something like this:

Once upon a time I met a monster so I punched it on the nose and then I chopped its head off with my machete and then I machine gunned it with my Uzi and then I went home for my tea but it was all a dream. The end.

Why does this story fail? There are so many reasons. It starts with a clichéd opening. It is chronologically organized by the connective and then, which dispenses with the need for sentence breaks. It relies on action for plot development and ends with another cliché. This kind of storytelling is increasingly common because of the way society is developing in the industrialized countries. Children view a lot of television programs, which are visual or constructed as a sequence of simple events. Many computer games follow this simple pattern. This reinforces many other features of modern life that can get in the way of good creative writing:

The pace of modern life means there are fewer opportunities for extended, discursive talk (many households don't have an evening meal together where adults and children swap their stories).
Electronic media increasingly challenge reading as a recreational activity.
Schools are forced to adopt ever more prescriptive tracking and testing regimes.

Encouraging good writing

To write well, students have to recognize that a story is not simply a matter of narrating events. It is a sensory interaction with human experience. The writer who wants to make the reader feel engaged in the narrative asks these questions: what do you see; what do you hear; what do you feel physically and emotionally? This is where metaphor, simile, description, telling dialogue, and internal monologue come into play. They reconfigure human experience in the reader's consciousness. In the words of Stephen King, "Description starts in the head of the writer and ends up in the head of the reader."

Teaching good writing

So how do we teach this?

I scaffold the writing process, breaking it into bite-sized ten to fifteen minute sections, modelling sample sentence structures and brainstorming potential vocabulary. This provides a pathway into the activity and allows the young writer to feel secure. It is equally important not to over-model. Once my students are focused on writing a particular section, I step back and allow them to explore. If they do not have the chance to play with language and try new things, they become almost completely dependent on me, the teacher. It is their story, not mine. I can stimulate their writing and structure its possibilities, but it would be wrong to turn story writing into a glorified form of copying.

Usually, I scaffold the opening few paragraphs and then gradually loosen my hold on the lesson, instead suggesting pathways the writers might take. In this way, they begin to take their own decisions, pointing the narrative camera in whatever direction they wish. The teacher's job in this part of the teaching process is to demonstrate a number of points to aid the student's planning of the narrative:

You plan your ending somewhere in the opening or middle of the story so that you can give a shape to it
You don't allow an ending which just 'dribbles away.' You recognize that the ending is what stays in the reader's mind. Make it tell!

The other piece of advice for the young reader is about structure. Most good writing follows this pattern:

anticipation (what's it going to be like?)
experience (what is it like?)
reflection (what do you think/feel about it afterwards?)

It is the failure to understand this that makes many young writers jump straight into a chronological sequence of poorly developed action scenes.

Examples of good student writing

Here is the opening of a time-slip story by a ten year old. It uses tension and the age-old principle of show, don't tell:

I stumbled over a blunt, metal object, brutally poking out of the ground. Spinning round, I stared at it thoughtfully. It was bronze and sphere shaped, which glistened blindingly in the sunlight. I quickly bent down, straining my arms out in front of me. Resting on my knees, I used my fingers to chip away the mud around the object. With one hard tug it smoothly slid out of the ground. As I carefully inspected it, I noticed that I had seen one of these in a book at school. As I ran my fingers over the rusted cheek guards I realised it was an ancient helmet, maybe Roman. My heart started to beat out of my chest as I wondered what it was worth. Scooping out the crusted mud out of the inside of the helmet, I proudly put it on. I soon found that a big mistake as it started to tighten. As hard as I tried, it wouldn't come off. Suddenly, I felt myself falling into a deep sleep, it grew darker around me as I started to fall. There was nothing I could clutch hold to.

Here is another from the same lesson (both students responded to the same prompt):

I stumbled over an object that was bursting from out of the ground. Turning round, I gave a quick glance back behind me to see what it was. It was shimmering in the light and as I looked closer I saw it was a rounded shape.

Suspiciously I started to scratch off the dirt, making it more visible to me. I yanked ..... yanked it until after what seemed like a 100 years, it broke off from the ground into my sweaty palms. Carefully I observed the mystery object. What could it be? It had a dome and cheek guards. Now I knew – it was an ancient helmet. Of course! It looked Roman to me. All of a sudden my heart started beating so hard I thought it was going to come right through my chest.

The teaching has helped both children become more confident writers. It hasn't made them clones of the teacher. Good creative-writing teachers help their students develop their own individual styles. Children should be the subject, not the object, of the education system.

Alan Gibbons is an award winning children's writer based in the UK. A winner
of the BBC TV Blue Peter Book Award, he was a teacher for eighteen years before becoming a full-time writer.

website: www.alangibbons.com

blog: www.alangibbons.net

Below is an example of Alan Gibbons teaching: