Reliability Data Of Raters

CUNY (City University of New York) Association of Writing Supervisors. According to the CUNY group, examinations that require students to edit prose passages do not *“indicate the ability to generate grammatically correct sentences in the student's own writings.”* 5 Writing teachers know that only an actual piece of writing allows them to evaluate a student's skills. Alas, this requisite for composition test validity has not been widely accepted by instructors outside the English department

Inventory of Professional Interests

These are the things I'm interested and curious about professionally:

1. Peer Feedback -- does it do any good? What good does it do? What's the best way to teach feedback? Does oral feedback work better than written? Does an open-ended memo format work better than a list of teacher-provided questions? Do students find any value in peer feedback? Do they learn anything from it? Do they make changes to their work because of it?

2. Online courses -- What are students' expectations walking into an online course? Does taking an online course shidt the students' locii of control from external to internal (i guess, this relates to my courses specifically, because, I imagine, you can create an online curriculum that does NOT require students to take responsibility for their own learning.

3. Seminar -- #2 makes me think of seminars, and this tiny enhancement to a course: does the simple act of requiring seminars alter students' understanding of college expectations, and their locii of control, internal versus extrinsic motivation. This would be interesting because I could do it with Darrell's students, in his classes.

Actually, this seems like a good idea. I'll stop here, talk to Big D, and see if I can get this rolling.

William James Seminar #1

Well, we finished our first seminar today, our first real seminar that is.

The course has been going well, and I really think that students are learning a great deal. My first indication of this was with the diagnostic essay. I asked students to come up with a metaphor for a University education. Is it like an assembly line, a fast food restaurant, a sublime sunrise . . . whatever. I've used this prompt before, and I quit using it because it hasn't been that successful in the past. The first barrier is that many students simply do not understand what a metaphor is, let alone able to craft one quickly on the spot to describe their education.

With this diagnostic, from what I have seen so far in grading them, everyone at least has a legitimate metaphor in their essay. Darrell did a similar activity in his class, which meets before mine. He asked students to come up with a metaphor for philosophy. He explained to them what a metaphor was, and put them in groups to come up with a metaphor, and I think the group work allowed students to educate each other about what a metaphor is, and this really, really made my job that much easier.

Anyways, on Tuesday, we did a sample seminar using the fishbowl principle. We put half the students in a group, around a table, and had the rest of the students arrange themselves around the outside to observe. The students in the middle discussed an assigned reading, while Darrell and I took notes and observed. Then we switched the groups.

So, students were fairly well-prepared for the seminar activity today. For the real seminar, Darrell took half the students for his class and had them discuss James' essay, and I took the other half for my class.

My seminar went extraordinarily well. It was a lively conversation, mostly on task, with lots of contributors, and, I think, people really exploring each other's ideas. I redirected them a few times, emphasizing some of the implications for each position, determinism and libertarianism, as well as focusing their attentions on exactly what James' argument in the essay actually is. They were sort of talking around the choice of worldviews that James highlights, and the implications of each, so I redirected them to consider what James' point was.

I was really nervous thinking about having to teach and respond to philsophical questions, but in the end, it just like reading an essay or piece of literature, and while I can't provide a comprehensive background like Darrell can, I can read and interpret and understand the reading as an essay, with a point or purpose that is identifiable and appropriate to an audience. It's fun. It's also hard work.

I really like the social dynamic that seems to be developing in the class. Students seem to be adjusting quickly, and, even, maybe developing some social connections within the course, which is pretty amazing for it only being the 2nd week of class.

When I came into class today, the students were already sitting around having a pre-seminar seminar, talking about determinism and libertarianism. I heard Samanatha say that this is her favorite class. I think she was talking about philosophy, not writing, because she said that she keeps going home after class and discussingthese ideas with anyone she can persuade to lend her an ear.

I'm pretty sure that students do not go home speaking incessantly about rhetoric, but I could be wrong (yeah, right).

Overall, I think a very positive beginning to this learning community experience.

Research Idea - Snapshot of WAC at SWIC

What about a project to examine the messages students are getting about writing, from disciplines and departments across the curriculum? A project that examines how writing is taught in departments outside the English department? This would be primarily a descriptive study intended to take snapshot of how students are taught writing across the disciplines, looking for ways in which certain principles are reinforced, how others take precedence within certain disciplines, and the ways in which students might be confused by the messages they receive in their two years at SWIC.

How?

You need a core of teachers willing to allow a researcher access to their classes when writign assignments are discussed, copies of the writing assignments after tehy are graded, and interveiws with both students and teachers during the entire process. Interviews with teachers as they design and administer the assignments, and interviews with students as they prepare to write the assignments and maybe reflective memos after they have completed them. Maybe something akin to Jane's action research group.

But why would professors volunteer for such an event? What's in it for them?

Fieldnotes -- 4/10/06

ENG 101-17

COL Writing Studio - pop open the calendar and let's take a look at that.

Read three papers, write at least 3 comments on each of the papers -- Revised version of the essay due on Monday.

Sentence-Level concerns

At this point in the semester, look at sentence-level concerns. Began the semester by looking at more global issues, now, time to look at lower-order concerns.

Reflective Essays
Final Portfolio
Comment


What does the little (S) and (E) mean on the calendar?

It means the start and end date. Use the same entries for TR and MWF classes.

Make sure your comments deal with content, and that you support your opinion.

Prof and student discussing Wolf's Beauty Myth. Prof suggested student read it in a lecture, and student picked up the book and began to read it.

"Cool."

The room is quiet. I see a student looking at MySpace.com, looking at profiles, sending messages to friends. Check, 2 students. Student next to me is reading. Young man across from me looking intently at cpu screen.

A few of the female students are talking to one another. Both students in their 20's.

"Can we comment on our own paper? Like putting my ideas into comment so I can refer to them later?"

"I'd rather you guys commented on your own papers."

Jerry finishes his mini-lecture, covering the outline for the rest of the semester. Students will finish commenting on their peers' essays, then revise, then put up the best of the best for peers to comment on, in preparation for the final portfolio, which is due the last day of finals week.

Students seem to understand the process, and they have very few questions about the calendar or what's expected of them. This seems to be a process they have repeated numerous times.

People are not talking, but very quiet, and seem to be working on something.

Click. click. click. Tap. tap. tap.

Busy, but reserved. No chaos. The room feels relaxed. I see two students working in Comment, a peer feedback program published by Bedford/St. Martin's. Students are able to click on a word within a peers text, a popup window appears, and in that window, annotate the text with ease.

4 students on MySpace. Funny, I have a student who is writing an essay on MySpace, and she quotes a professor who claims MySpace in the number one barrier to student learning in her computer classes because she can not wrestle their attention away from MySpace.

It seems like this could be something that could be harnessed for educational use. I know that MySpace is largely dominated by teen culture, an emphasis on hyper-sexuality, music and photos, but maybe an educator could work with the imperative students feel to read and contribute to MySpace?

5 Students.

This class, an afternoon class, has 16 students in it, 7 females and 8 males, and all seem to be traditional age students, and, from what I can tell, only one minority student, a young woman who appears to be of other-than-European descent, although I'm not sure how I would characterize her heritage.

Student checking cell phone.

Old technology versus new.

Cell phones are becoming more and more the digital hubs that computers once were. Cell phones hold many of the keys that computers once did. We receive e-mail, text messages, have calendars, news updates, all received via cellular connections.

6 students. MySpace rules.

Student with headphones.

Professor sits at desk, writing furious comments on a paper. Head down. Lost in thought. Student approaches, asking . . .

"Do my comments show on your computer? I want to make sure my comments appear?"

"Yep. There here. It's a cache thing. If you hit refresh a few times they'll appear."

The atmosphere is very relaxed.

What do I say? In the two writing classes, not much has been happening to observe. Students are working on revising their own writing, or providing feedback to their peers to help them revise their own writing. In each case, the emphasis is on revising, in both basic and college-level writing course. There is consistency, repeated messages, over and over. Revise. Revise. Revise.

A student gets up to leave a little early, 13 minutes early. We're supposed to care about these things, but prof doesn't bat an eye. It's his decision, if he wants to leave early, then he takes responsibility for that decision. It seems like responsibility sits solely within the students' laps. It is their decision whether to surf MySpace, or work on their own writing, and they will make that choice.

Another student gets up to leave. Both are male. Traditional age students.

2 female students seems to do most of the talking. The talking is hished so I cant pick any of it out, or really tell whether it is class-related. I think I might have heard, "I need a cigarette."

3rd student leaves, male, 9 minutes early. Then a female considers. She looks at teacher's desk, over at me, wondering if it is safe to leave. The educational mores are strong and she decides to stay a bit longer, until the end, I suppose.

The class ends a few minutes early. Students restart cpu's, grab books, head for the door.

Teaching is Telling . . . NOT!

Gloria Ladson-Billings (1994)details her observations of four different teachers. Three of the teachers are experienced, and demonstrate the culturally relevant teaching practices she argues for in her article, and, the other, a student-teacher, does not.

Ladson-Billings' research is completed within the much larger context of literacy education. The literacy of which we speak here is not limited to simple reading and writing skills. When the author speaks of literacy, she is talking about the knowing, understand, and developing an ability to negotiate the complex cultural waters of formal education, the kind that is required by law -- educational literacy.

Teaching is not Telling

In the end, Ladson-Billings concludes teaching someone something, fostering literacy to the greatest degree, is not the same as telling someone something. This is such a simple observation, but one that is full of implications. Telling someone something activates a very specific paradigm, one in which the authority rests solely with the teller. They are the knower, professing their knowledge to the uninitiated, ignorant masses.

Such a stance creates an almost antagonistic relationship between the teacher and student, as well as between student and subject matter. Ladson-Billings argues that teaching means extending, moving "students to newer learning after establishing what they know and are able to do" (p. 125). Walsh, the student teacher the author observes, makes the mistake of not connecting the material he is attempting to teach to his students' prior knowledge, and because of this, the students refuse to invest themselves in the process, and, in fact, openly rebel against the process as it is presented to them by listening to headphones during instruction, looking out the window, or poking one another with pencils.

In teaching students to read, one of Ladson-Billings' participants, asks students "what they thought the text meant and what connections they could make between the text and their own lives" (p. 124). Such a question, and a paradigm for instruction, moves the authority for the text and the material learned beyond the teacher herself, and grants student authority over the meaning being made during the lesson. Students are gifted with authority, and this gift compels them to invest themselves in the activity.

Ladson-Billings also addresses the atmosphere in a culturally relevant classroom. She argues the "focus of the classroom must be instructional" (p. 124). She argues that student must come to understand the dynamic AND serious nature of the learning process, where "instruction is foremost" (p. 124). The experienced teachers in Ladson-Billings's study use a number of methods to send this message to students. For Rossi, her high-energy, fast-paced classroom leave little time or opportunity for off-task behaviors. Lewis turns necessary reprimands into teachable moments, while Devereaux insists that the reading period is "sancrosanct." In each of these cases, a serious message is sent to student regarding the expectations placed upon them in a learning environment.

Ladson-Billings approaches her research from a critical stance. She addresses issues of power, knowledge, and politics in her research, and argues forcefully for legitimizing students' own knowledge in her assessment of culturally-relevant teaching. In fact, she finds: (1) "when students are treated as competent, they are likely to demonstrate compentence" (p. 124); (2)when students are scaffolded, they can "move from what they know to what they need to know" (p. 125). Both of these findings ask educators to reevaluate their conceptions of student knowledge, and who, ultimately, owns the keys to a mastery of knowledge and skills.

Mini-Ethnography Fieldnotes 1

Thinking about this is terms of rhetoric, what does that statement say about rhetoric?

Taking attendance.
Two fans, room is warm, and very humid.

Extra credit.

Various students speaking - I have . . . Did you . . . I'm so tired.

"Let's move away from the cpu's and around our tables."

Webct kicked me off -- I can't get to Comment at my house --
Troubleshooting issues

If working within webct, write it out using word and paste

Evolution of drafts -- How does this essay evolve, change, from draft to draft.
How did she use the input from her classmates to make changes?

Alright . . . what ya think Lynne?
I think the 1st draft, she did put, the one she thought, but there was no emotion. On the 2nd draft, sher tried to put more meotion, more detail, stuff like that.
The 3rd, she put all that. She included the spankings, school,

s4

Beg, wasnt developed at all. The last draft, the story, made the whole thing

s3

1st, she chose her point, and no other details.

s2 - Deb

I was agreeing, how she like listened to what she say, She put a lot more into it.

How about the 2nd draft?

What did it include?

S1 - she includes the family

T -- reader-based prose vs writer-based prose.
something i was looking at in the 2nd draft, started on pg 236, it's shorter, she took some things out. I thought in the 2nd draft, she took some good thigns out.

What else?

This is a slam-dunk 101.

Lou, you mentioned abnout style?

s4 - she used 1 sentence paragraphs . . . .

T -- what is the rhetorical effect of that?

s4 -- brings attention to it.

Students are attentive, listening. This is in contrast to my classes. My students are bored. They would be surfing the web, and so on.

s5 I was taught about dialogue in school that whenever someone new speaks, a new line.

T -- be free to experiment, be creative! Use dialogue. Add anecdotes.

Lydia is our analysis person - she always brings this out (teacher gives role to student, making them engaged?? Must be.

Anything else anyone wants to say about it?

She found her voice.

Dropping lots of rhetorical terms -- voice, stylistic flourishes, analysis, drafts (1st, 2nd, 3rd), dialogue, anecdotes.

T -- Brian, did I get to you the other day?
s6 -- No, I've only gotten one comment; it's because I'm the only guy! That's exactly it.
T -- Okay Brian, then I will get to yours first.

T -- Consider the comments and see what you can do? Add little stories, add stylistic flourishes, add details.

s4 -- Comment's not letting me on. Well, it's slow, but it's working.

Teacher refers to students by first name. Respectful and energetic and attentive.

A mix of ethnicity -- hispanic woman, mid-30's, maybe 40. Young man, Brian, maybe 20.

1st Pod: 3 black women, older than average, sitting in same pod, together, with the additional of one other 40-something white woman. Seems like the room is segregrated by age, gender, race -- I wonder if there are other dyanmics at play?

2nd Pod: 4 women. 1 hispanic (mentioned above), 1 younger asian, 2 white young women, maybe 20's.

3rd Pod: Brian, only male remaining in the class.

Students are working with Comment, a peer response program. Their is a final draft due on Monday, and students are asked to revise that draft, and compose submission notes for the draft. All of the students are working. This is amazing to me.

The class begins somewhat chaotically, students anxiety showing through. Did they get the assignment right. Did they correctly understand what they were supposed to do? Are they all on the same page? It seems, and I'm not sure about this, but maybe, it seems like there is extreme pressure to conform, to be like the others, to not stand out from the crowd. Not sure about this.

I wonder if there were any responses from the black women in the group. I'm not sure, but it seemed like the discussion was maintained by 3 or 4 respondents, but my head was down as I was typing, so I couldn't really see who was speaking.

Technology seems to be an issue. Problems with webct, with comment, with saving work to MS Word -- I wonder how large a barrier, or how great a benefit, technology is to these students as they elarn to write. They seem comfortable with it, for the most part, but unable to problem-solve when something does come up.

Student approaches teacher, "Mrs. Hatch, can i Have some of your tissue?"

"Of course."

"Thank you" and student exits room to blow nose.

I'm impressed with the manners, the politeness.

Fans are blowing, and we can hear the baritone drone of a teacher down the hall. The room is muddled with technology. Computer towers on desk, plus flat screen monitor, keuboards, mice, and wires make for a messy appearance.

Two tables for conferencing sit in the middle of the room with a few chairs strewn around them. When the class met for discussion, the students moved away from the computers, I suppose, to prevent students from dividing their attentions between discussion and computer.

Students are working on drafts. Silent. No talking. Teacher is responding within Comment to students' papers, alerting them when their feedback is ready.

Lydia has dark hair, well below her shoulders. She is older than average, hispanic, peering intently at her computer screen, no typing, just thinking. She scrolls through a document, reviewing, reflecting, quite engaged. What is she thinking? What is she looking at?

She's typing now, after having had a chance to think about what she wants to say. Her fingers move purposefully.

Writing Workshop

I. Cognition and Context

We've known for many years, based on research into cognition and achievement, that students have a difficult time with transference, that is, generalizing the skills that we learn in one context to another. At this point, a new piece to the puzzle is being added as researchers look more closely at the connections between thinking and the context in which the thinking occurs.

What researchers are discovering is that even seasoned writers, graduate students and professionals, have a very difficult time adapting themselves to a different context. So, for example, graduate students who generally report feeling comfort and confidence in their writing, feel frustration and confusion when confronted with writing a dissertation, and, this from students who are experts in their own field of discourse. Moreover, corporsate writers discover that the rules change within the big business context, and, in fact, writing completed in that context should contain no surprises. Essentially, the writing completed is supposed to the simple reiteration of what has already been decided orally and in conference with others.

A transference of knowledge from one context to another requires the ability to generalize, and we all know our students have a difficult time with this in general, let alone when asked to do so from one domain to another.

What this all adds up to is the realization that there is no ONE THING that is writing, but the activity, the skill and art of writing, is fundamentally changed as we move from one context to another, and that makes anyone who assigns writing, a teacher of writing for students within that discipline.

II. Critical Thinking in Writing

Every four years, the National Assessment of Educational Progress is conducted by the Office for Educational Research and Improvement, a government agency. It's no surprise, in 1984, the study found that "students at all grade levels are deficient in higher-orer thinking skills." The researchers attribute this lack to a lack of emphasis in all areas of higher order, analytic thinking skills, and because writing and thinking are so deeply intertwined, they maintain that appropriate writing assignments, in all disciplines, be an effective way to address this deficiency.

The NAEP study is really part and parcel to the entire WAC movement, and the previous paragraph simply reiterates the purpose of such a movement. WAC matters because it helps students to learn, and learn more.

III. Writing as Learning

Nancy Sommers.