Advice on College Writing Expectations from a Secondary Teacher

As I’ve simply been a disembodied voice for the past semester courtesy of the CETL blog, you should know that before I decided to attend graduate school full time this past year I worked as a middle school English teacher.  During my time as a secondary teacher in a low income school district, I was faced with the predicament of providing adequate classroom instruction on topics that were geared towards the Common Core Standards.  I learned quickly that this meant following a curriculum geared towards standardized test scores, which took away from the time I would have liked to be spending on developing the important writing skills I knew my students would be needing in their high school, college, and career experiences later on in life.

In turn, I took a lot of time to consider what sort of questions students would be required to answer on standardized tests so that I could prepare them in the best ways for the problem-solving required to adequately work their way through problems of vocabulary and reading comprehension.  I wasn’t surprised to notice that nearly all of the standardized exams that students took were multiple choice, as they were cheaper to develop, administer, and score than tests that included essay responses.* 

 

The repercussions of these purely choice-driven testing elements are extreme, and are often noticed among college instructors when papers or written exams are assigned.  College teachers tend to have a resounding collective complaint that their college students “can’t write.”  And they aren’t just talking about incoming college freshman.  The poor writing skills that instructors are flustered over are sometimes carried with students all the way through receiving their bachelor’s degrees and beyond.

Why does this happen?  

Some of these struggles are widely due to the nature of K-12 education and its transformation into an exam-based structure of learning since No Child Left Behind went into effect for the 2002-2003 school year.  It’s no question that due to these extreme changes in the ways that America’s public schools have been operating under since then, there has been a substantial decrease in emphasis on writing for assessments or other work outside of an English classroom.

In fact, despite the repetitive quality of common “literary standards” across all disciplines in public K-12 schools, many teachers are struggling to implement writing-based practices for their students, and mostly rely on English teachers within their building to be the sole providers for these skills.  Often times, this idea is mirrored in college when instructors expect students to move directly from an intro to writing course into becoming a developed and grammatically affluent writer.  This is not the case.

What can be done?

Take writing for your classroom into your own hands.  Different instructors have different expectations for writing within their courses, so it’s significant to point out that while you may expect a traditionally structured, multiple-drafted, grammatically flawless piece of writing, other instructors may be placing a broader emphasis on getting thoughts out on paper with a looser, more casual style.  Make your expectations clear and provide examples for your students to look to when they are writing their own papers.  Yes, this could mean going through citations for APA format, discussing how paragraphs should be structured for optimum readability, or discussing the difference between a narrative and research voice throughout.

If you find that students in your class are performing substantially below your writing standards, provide them with some resources they can utilize to improve their writing.  Suggest (or even require) that students make appointments at the Center for Writing Excellence on campus to review their written work with a trained writing tutor before handing in their work.  (They can even make appointments online!)  Or, you might require a first draft to be written as part of their assignment.  Then provide a rubric for what you’ll be specifically looking for in their final drafts and pair students up for an in-depth peer review session during class.

*It should be noted that within the last year, this form of testing has been re-evaluated, and new testing forms have been implemented for middle and elementary school students that require them to work through their ideas via short answer responses.  Although a slightly better idea than the multiple-choice heavy testing we're used to, this format does not require students to develop ideas into formulated responses over a few sentences in length.  Thus, not helping them to develop writing skills that are relative to longer assessments.

Tip Provided By: Jessica Moser

Active Learning Activities - Debbie Ernie, English

While this seems like a prime moment for me to engage in the whimsical rhetoric my writing typically includes, I will spare you from some bizarre analogy or tangential introduction and instead let you immediately get to a better piece of rhetoric: Professor Debbie Ernie’s active learning activity focused on (you guessed it) rhetoric.

Setting: Activity implemented in multiple sections of same 100-level course; activity takes about 20 minutes in active learning classroom (5 pods with 4 students per pod) but time varies in traditional classrooms due to prep and transition time for class sharing (see extended discussion below)

Purpose of the activity: For the Blugold Seminar in Critical Reading and Writing, we place a large emphasis on rhetoric as a way for students to transfer knowledge learned in the seminar to other classes or writing they will do on their chosen career paths. A good entry point for many students is through advertisements and social media, examples of rhetoric they come into contact with regularly, examples that might have more obvious elements of rhetoric. For this activity, done both in an active learning and traditional classroom, my students were identifying rhetorical choices made in advertisements. The goal here was to review concepts we had been discussing in their own words and through their own analyses of use of the term.

Setup for the activity + how the activity unfolded in the classroom: This activity would come toward the beginning of a discussion of the elements of rhetoric, but after having done some work/reading as an entire class on these elements. This activity is thus a bit of review/testing student knowledge, as well as a chance for students to begin to play with these devices themselves. This activity took place in both an active learning room and traditional classrooms. I will discuss the procedure for the active learning version. Then, I will discuss the differences when placed in a traditional space.

Active Learning Procedure: Before the students arrived, I wrote one element of rhetoric we had been discussing on each whiteboard (near each pod). We had one extra whiteboard. On that board, I listed some options –print advertisement, YouTube video, meme, etc. Once students had taken their respective seats, I discussed the activity:

1. As a group, find or create a strong example of use of your board's element.
2. This example can take any of the forms listed on the extra board.
3. Be prepared to share with the class. You will need to define your element in your own words (review) and explain your example's use of said element. Why is this a strong example? How is your concept at work here.

Students took time searching and/or creating as a pod-group using the computers at each pod. I walked around to answer questions and comment on their finds. All groups sought out several examples and then voted on the best use of their given element, which I was pleased to see! This is why I allowed for some wiggle room as far as time. Once each group had made their final choice (two created something, three found something), we shared. I displayed images from each pod to all of the other pods and projector screens as groups discussed.

Traditional Classroom Comparison: This was a fairly simple but effective use of our technology. Just how effective this was came into play when attempting similar activities in my more traditional classrooms. Because of a lack of pods, a more traditional classroom has certain limitations that lead to needed prep work by the instructor or students. Some options: I bring magazines into the classroom, this of course limits options for discovery; students are asked to bring in advertisements, this is an issue for coordinating group work on this small of an activity, as well as the issue that many students print in black and white, which plays into rhetorical concerns; students bring in laptops; or I instruct students the day-of to make up their own advertisement or meme (could do so with scratch paper or laptops). Even in making these decisions, the small activity becomes more complicated. Because I teach several sections, I tried a few variations. I brought in magazines, a wide variety, but felt students spent less time analyzing multiple options, and rather just picked one at almost-random (NOT a goal of this activity). I also asked students to choose their own advertisements before class, as well as bringing in laptops. With the choosing of individual ads, students were given assigned elements ahead of time.

The group work once in the classroom felt limited with the group search aspect removed. I certainly could not assess their searching and critical thinking involved in person. We also had to waste some time moving into groups, no matter the prep chosen, especially in a classroom filled with rows of desks. While the project got them reviewing rhetoric, and while I would not necessarily cut it from future classes in more traditional rooms, these versions certainly presented more challenges. Lastly, sharing could be done one of two ways –groups coming up to the front to display their ad/meme, or small groups sharing with another nearby group. Again, a little more finagling required and time-wasted.

After the activity: The assessment was tied into the sharing portion of the activity, both the review and analysis of the use of the concept for each group. Assessing their work and knowledge was certainly more easily observable in situations where they were searching while in the room.

Additional comments from the instructor: On a scale of 1 to 5 (with 5 = high success), I would rate this activity as a 3-4 for a traditional classroom. It requires more prep from the teacher and/or students and makes the group aspect and sharing of the activity less accessible. If I were to rate this in an active learning setting, however, I would give it a 4-5. This activity runs smoothly in these classrooms, and is an easy and fun way to utilize our technology.

Tip provided by: Debbie Ernie
Write up by: Jon Pumper

Dr. Jan Stirm on Word Paragraphs

As a learning tool, writing gives students practice in organizing and articulating ideas, fundamental communication skills necessary in all disciplines. Dr. Jan Stirm, Department of English, discusses how she uses frequent, low-stakes, writing assignments to give her students opportunities to develop their composition and critical thinking skills:

In my Shakespeare or Chaucer classes, I ask students to write what I call a “word paragraph” on a short passage in the text. They choose one word from the reading, and explain why they've chosen that word and why it is important in the text. The key is that it is a low stakes, fairly easy, and short (it’s only a paragraph, so it’s not very scary) assignment, and I give them lots of opportunities to do it. I like these because it allows students to learn through writing, getting them to critically think about the text as they read. As a result, I often notice a big change in in how fully a student can develop their ideas about the text over the course of a semester. I try not to worry as much about grammar or proofreading: the important piece is whether or not the student can assert an idea and helpfully support it with evidence from the text.  

Interview by: Jon Pumper

Dr. Sean Ford on Self-Discovery

There is perhaps no more depressing of a phrase in the English language than "learning from your mistakes." Invariably, one only encounters this expression when they are on the ground openly sobbing - due to falling after a failed unicycle attempt - and some well-intentioned, yet horribly unsympathetic person tries to bandage up their gaping wound with the fact that they "learned" when all they really need is some gauze and a double-scoop ice cream cone. Nevertheless, the "mistake" has taught valuable lessons throughout the years and is wildly regarded as the guru of educational practices.  Dr. Sean Ford, Department of English, employs this teacher and shares how he gets his students to discover and learn from their own mistakes:

One thing I started doing is assigning low-risk writings with three components that encourage students to give initial impressions or response to a literary work. They then go back and look at the work more closely, describing and analyzing it, and then they interrogate how their impressions have changed. Some things they’ll have right, many things will be modified significantly, and some things they have to reject as completely off. It is more meaningful that they discover it themselves, with emphasis on the process of discovery, than to merely be told they have missed the mark.

Interviewed by: Jon Pumper

Teaching Tip: Dr. Sean Ford on Worthwhile Purpose

Students stress out immensely over getting the right grade. Dr. Sean Ford, Department of English, emphasizes the importance of providing students with perspective:

I always encourage students to not write for a grade. Students need to be aware that there are objectives and requirements to fulfill, but if I can encourage them to discover and shoot for a worthwhile purpose each time, then the grade will come. I think for students coming right out of high school –who may be more accustomed to more prescriptive prompts–this is a new concept: allowing space for inquiry, for discovery, for achieving, and accomplishing things yourself, rather than strictly adhering to a rubric.  

Interviewed by: Jon Pumper