Assigning, Responding, Evaluating: A Writing Teacher’s Guide
The book was written in the new era of the teaching of writing as today there are a host of new modalities from the Internet social media to school e-platforms. The authors principally intended to provide a guide for teachers of college writing courses. Some thoughts on assigning writing, responding to student writing, and evaluating writing assignments and writing programs are available in the book.
“Writing like parenting” (p.49) quoted from the authors is a reminder for composition teachers who find their writing instruction arduous.
In the preface, the authors addressed how discussion of college writing instruction should worth more attention. “The teaching of writing and the work of teachers of writing will continue to develop and command more and more attention and resources as this century progresses, and we assume that the teachers of writing today and in the future will continue to affirm the importance of critical thinking and careful writing (thinking made visible) as central to the liberal arts and college education. (p.x)” Indeed, writing as a tool to sharpen students’ thinking is powerful. Particularly, the era of new technologies has brought innovation for composing ideas yet writing still serves as a crucial skill that helps people make their thinking visible.
Part I and II of the book presented effective writing assignments that bolster students’ need for revision that is viewed as an essential part of the writing process. Writing teachers can devise their assignments and incorporate discrete writing tasks into their courses. Also, students have to get the understanding of the genre when they write papers on complex topics. A series of discrete or smaller tasks throughout the course can help students grasp the idea of what is involved in the larger assignment. Students work through the sequence of tasks can apply the simliar approach when they construct their own essays in other courses. Another way that facilitates teachers in composition courses is to discuss writing assignments with students. It is worthwhile for teachers to elicite writing from students and explain an assignment during the class period. It not only promotes students’ effectiveness on discussion but also encourages students to connect their thinking productively through interactive talks in classroom.
To accomplish ESL learners’ goals of writing, teachers need to consider whether the assigned readings reflect the culturally relevant curriculum. Instead of tackling mere mechanics in the essays written by ESL learners, teachers might support their students by providing a safe space for academic discourse. Students who are comfortable with the language are more willing to explore the possibilities of writing in a new context.
It is interesting to note that “since most teachers of writing have received advanced degrees in some field other than writing, they are likely to be tempted to design a course focused on the content of those fields instead of writing instruction, particularly when they have had little or no training in rhetoric and think that writing instruction is a limited or even remedial activity.” (p.21) This point of view could be problematic when teaching ESL students. Since reading should be used to support the teaching of writing rather than substituting for the teaching of writing. Composition teachers need to bear in mind that writing courses are supposed to enliven students’ thoughts on the writing conventions. The writing assignments, therefore, are supposed to guide the students through the the writing process.
With the advanced technology, composition teachers can make use of the digital scholarly databases such as JSTOR, Academic Search Premier, and Google Scholar to give guided instruction in their class period. It is helpful to let students explore a topic in the databases and notice different disciplinary approaches and methods to find out their interested topics.
One of the actual practice is to create a digital style assignment: Twitter &/as Platonic Dialogue (p.40). This assignment aims to help students critically synthesize viewpoints and engage in dialogues with the others. They will approach the digital genres and style. Here’s the writing instruction that illustrates how it works:
“Review the annotations you made for your sources on your topic. What is the main point or argument of each source? Write these down in the margins of your annotations. Now, imagine the authors of these sources conversing over Twitter. Assign each source a Twitter handle (name) and begin putting your sources into conversation, using tweets of no more than 140 characters, and no more than 20 total tweets (or roughly 4 tweets per source). Remember to model stylistic conventions of Twitter - hashtags, irony, rhetorical questions, concision.” (p.41)
Never give puzzling abbreviations that are abstruse to students. Additionally, vague positive feedback might not be helpful if students do not what they did well. “Writers (like all learners) improve when they can internalize evaluation - when they can themselves see what needs to be changed and how to make those changes.” (p.50) Composition teachers should avoid obscure directions as well as mysterious judgment as their responses to students may be deemed as a waste of time. Revision should be taught as a practical task of writing but not as a remedial step.
The role of composition teachers should be operated to proactively connect their students’ background knowledge about writing to discovery of writing practices. “But students will not learn much about writing if they are merely passive recipients of the teacher’s knowledge.” (p.53) Composition teachers need not to take control or exercise authority on their students’ papers because those students in the writing class have to think their own thoughts, invent, process, and revise. Let the students express what they personally delight in the writing process.
In Evaluation part, the authors clearly distinguished holistic scoring guide and analytic rubric. It could be helpful to use scoring guides as part of teachng writing and to foster self-assessment. The chapter (p.70) offered a summary of a multitude of methods for handling the grading load.
- Require student writin logs, whic you can skim and respond to without editing or grading through simple checkoffs.
- Design writing assignments with care, present them in written form, and distribute samples of excellent responses.
- Include assessment criteria along with assignments.
- Use student writing groups to give responses to early drafts or even to grade later drafts.
- Assign writing - such as journal entries, five-minute writes, or freewriters- that you will not need to read.
-Resist overmarking, proofreading, editing, and red-marking, particularly on drafts.
- Use scoring guides and class discussion of sample papers to develop student self-assessment and reduce the need for extensive comments on individual papers.
-Focus written comments on papers to a few main points, raising questions rather than proposing solutions and locating some passages for praise.
- Designate a limited number of papers for presentation level and grading.
