I’m feeling a lot less stressed now than I was this time last week. I got a lot accomplished over the weekend for both this class and my other grad class, so now it’s just a matter of final revisions, putting everything together, and writing final reflections.

For this class, my draft of my story is done, as well as my 3 sentence bio. I’ve created the website shell, and everyone has editing access. I started making some basic edits to Ariel’s page so that everyone could get an idea of what we can add, how we can format, etc. I input my remixed story in a text box, but will still make final edits. I also added a YouTube video of instrumental tracks from The Little Mermaid that people can play in the background while people read the story.

3-Sentence Bio: Theresa Chuntz is a high school English teacher by day and grad student by night, but she’s a bookworm 24/7. She loves creative writing and hopes to publish a novel one day. This is her first collaborative publication, and she has thoroughly enjoyed the process.

I’m looking forward to class tonight and getting the bulk of our project put together. (And snacks. I’m always looking forward to snacks!)

Now if only I could master Ariel’s iconic hair flip…

The article “Bi, Butch, and Bar Dyke: Pedagogical Performance of Class, Gender, and Sexuality” aims to critique and neutralize political aspects of identity performance in the form of three different narratives.

The first narrative, by Martha Marinara, discusses the problems that arise when one’s identity exists between two established “norms,” using the examples of straight/lesbian and professional/working class. One thing I really liked was the way that she explained how all storytelling inherently stems from autobiographical experiences in some way, with the difference being that fiction can have a “happily ever after,” whereas autobiographical writing is limited by reality. Marinara does a great job of identifying the main issue that arises when you exist “in between” established identities when she says that the end result is an identity that never feels comfortable, believable, or authentic. She goes on to say that when you move from one binary identity to another, you no longer have an identity in the space you left behind, as seen from visit to the grocery store where she worked in college. Her students especially feel like they need to “give up” parts of their lives to fit into their new identity as professionals. Ultimately, Marinara argues that identities which don’t exist at either polar end of the binary can be shaped by exploring the differences within the difference and embracing the friction that is caused by this exploration.

The second narrative, written by Deborah Meem, starts off with a really helpful definition and brief history of the terms “butch” and “femme.” Meem includes a chart of identities in her narrative, which is frequently used to identify the privileged and disadvantaged facets of people’s multiple identities. She then argues, using her own life stories as proof, that identities deemed as disadvantaged based on the chart can still hold a certain type of power over other people, and that the categories really should be seen as fluid, rather than fixed identities. One thing Meem said that stood out to me was that she feels she can create a multicultural awareness in her classroom just from being herself, as much as she could from having students read certain diverse texts. As a teacher, I feel this is an accurate assessment, since students are much more likely to be impacted by what they learn from a teacher directly, due to a good rapport that has been established, rather than from what they read, because there’s no personal connection there.

The final narrative, by Michelle Gibson, had me fuming on her behalf. She was right to be proud of the relationships she had cultivated with her students. The examples she included in her dossier showed that she valued all of her students’ experiences, that she cared about them as people, and that she wouldn’t write them off just because they weren’t “traditional” students. The fact that her administrators were more interested in seeing how Gibson could relate to other administrators rather than to her students shows how out-of-touch administrators become when they are no longer in the classroom on a daily basis. This is a problem that continues to persist today, especially in public school settings.

An update on my project process: I have finished the draft of my modern remixed version of The Little Mermaid. In this version, Ariel has traumatic mutism, caused by witnessing her mother’s death. Her father, afraid of losing his daughters as unexpectedly as he lost his wife, has become overprotective and doesn’t let them do anything he deems even remotely unsafe. With the help of her sisters, Ariel secretly joins the swim team, where she meets a new friend (Eric) and where another teammate (Ursula) tries to sabotage Ariel’s success as a swimmer.

Since this week’s reading is multiple mini-essays on the topic of writing, I’m going to address my thoughts about each one separately.

“You’re Going to Need this for College” by Andrew Hollinger

• Hollinger definitely understands the time constraints that teachers are up against, and I appreciate that he acknowledged that.
• He asserts that if you can’t answer the questions “Why do I need this?” or “Why are we doing this?” then maybe whatever it is needs to be reevaluated to determine if it should be used in the classroom. This is a helpful thought to keep in mind as I start revamping curriculum for the classes I’m teaching.
• Hollinger points out that students often see writing (and education in general) as simply a means to an end. The goal should be helping students realize that education is a personal endeavor that everyone should enjoy because it’s fulfilling. I would love some tips on how to help students realize this.

“Dual-Enrollment Writing Classes Should Always Be Pursued” by Caroline Wilkinson

• The school I teach at offers dual-enrollment courses with Middlesex County College, and I never really stopped to think about the potential drawbacks, so this was an interesting read.
• Wilkinson points out the many ways that dual-enrollment fails to prepare students for actual college classes, including the difference in high school and college atmospheres, less time for discussion, changes in course workload, lack of instructor experience, and the difficulties of conferencing with students one-on-one. Ultimately she argues that dual-enrollment courses don’t properly reflect college level classes, which is a detriment to the students.
• She does offer some possible solutions to the problems caused by dual-enrollment classes. These include the college sharing its objectives, curriculum, syllabi, schedules, and assignments with high schools, as well as giving proper training to the high school instructors who will teach the course.

“Secondary-School English Teachers Should Only Be Taught Literature” by Elizabethada A. Wright

• Wright thinks the issue of lack of writing preparation for first-year college students stems from lack of teacher preparation on how to teach writing. (Since I was an elementary ed major, I can’t speak to this from my own experience, but I can say without a doubt that current high school English curricula don’t include enough writing instruction. It’s something our district is currently trying to rectify.)
• She notes that literature classes are important and shouldn’t be replaced with writing courses, but that more writing courses need to be available, with specific focus on rhetorical writing strategies.
• I disagree with the claim that high school English teachers are using formulaic writing because they don’t have a solid enough understanding of rhetorical writing. Kerri explained the reasons teachers do this quite well in her presentation two weeks ago.

“Face-to-Face Courses are Superior to Online Courses” by Tiffany Bourelle and Andy Bourelle

• I have to assume the Bourelles are speaking solely about college courses when they make the claim that there’s “no significant difference between learning in online classes versus classes taught in f2f environments” because the two-year learning gap that we’re still dealing with due to the pandemic would beg to differ with that statement.
• The Bourelles point out that online courses integrate multimodal approaches to writing, which improves students’ 21st century communication skills, which is true. However, f2f classes also do this, so it’s inaccurate to say that it’s solely a benefit of online courses. In our district, we’ve been taking a multimodal approach for at least a decade, exposing students to videos, news broadcasts, websites, podcasts, etc. in conjunction with traditional novels, short stories, and poems.
• Given that this article was published way before the pandemic, it doesn’t address the biggest issue with online learning when you consider the differences between K-12 and college education. It comes down to this: College students, who presumably WANT to be taking the classes they’re taking, are going to learn better virtually because they have a vested interested in the course, whereas K-12 students who are forced to take classes based on the standards set forth by the state, will easily lose interest when not in f2f environments.

“Anyone Can Teach an Online Writing Course” by Beth L. Hewett

• I’d like to make a motion to permanently delete the words asynchronous, synchronous, and hybrid from the English language. If I never hear them again, it will be too soon.
• Hewett asserts that teaching writing online requires different skills than teaching it in person, in order be successful. This is absolutely true, and one of the reasons that virtual learning was so difficult is because most public school teachers had exactly 0 training before we had to use it.
• She does a good job of explaining the specific skills needed for instructors to successfully teach online writing.

Overall, it was interesting to see some different and controversial opinions about the teaching of writing, especially the ideas that I had never considered before.

I’ll admit that it was a little difficult for me to get into this text at first, possibly due the translation or the repetitive nature of the writing. This was one of the first pieces we’ve read this semester that wasn’t directly tied to writing or teaching, but its message is still incredibly relevant in those fields.

Paulo Freire starts off the first chapter of his book by explaining his main idea, which is that dehumanization of people is humanity’s biggest problem. This begs the question of whether true humanity, a world in which no one is oppressed by anyone else, is even a realistic possibility.

Freire asserts that there is definitely a need for humanity, as seen by the desire of oppressed groups to achieve freedom and justice from the exploitation and violence of oppressors. He assures readers that dehumanization is not humanity’s destiny just because it has happened so frequently in the past, and that is something that can be overcome.

Due to the inhumane practices that oppression results in, Freire claims that the oppressors themselves are also dehumanized, leaving the task of ending dehumanization and oppression to those who are oppressed. When the world has to rely on oppressed people to first recognize their oppression and then band together to solve it, it’s no wonder oppression has persisted for centuries, especially when you take into consideration the risks that oppressed people face when tackling this task. First, they obviously face retaliation from their oppressors, which could lead to even more violence against the oppressed. This could hinder the oppressed from perceiving their oppression as “a limiting situation which they can transform” (Freire 49). They also tend to distrust their own judgement due to their oppression, making recognizing the oppression even more difficult. Then there’s the risk of the oppressed turning into the oppressors because that’s the only model they have for how things work. And then even if the oppressed do manage to enact change, the former oppressors may feel oppressed because their “rights” have been taken away. (Which rights? Only their “right” to treat other people as subhuman.)

Freire acknowledges that sometimes oppressors can be made to recognize their power and become allies to the oppressed, but there are very specific markers of true solidarity that move beyond the “generous” type of oppressors who don’t see their own faults. Essentially this just boils down to the former oppressors seeing the oppressed people as humans rather than objects, as well as recognizing that throughout history, violence has never been initiated by the oppressed.

I think that Freire certainly understands the root causes of oppression and does a decent job explaining them. It all just seems pretty unfair that the responsibility of ending dehumanization and oppression lies solely on the shoulders of the oppressed. And yet, this fact rings true even today. It is constantly the oppressed groups bringing their oppression to the notice of the oppressors and bystanders, rather than the oppressors coming to the realization that they’re oppressing others. Whether oppression is based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or any other determining factor, it remains the oppressed groups themselves that are trying to enact change. This should bother more people, but centuries of oppression prove it doesn’t.

Hi all! Can’t wait to read your blogs & hear your thoughts on the pieces by bell hooks and April Baker-Bell.

Reaction Paper

Presentation

Once again I find that I’ve somehow come to expect too much from scholars who can’t seem to deliver on their promises.

Both “The Popularity of Formulaic Writing (And Why We Need to Resist)” by Mark Wiley and “Teaching Writing as a Process Not Product” by Donald M. Murray criticize formulaic writing, but then fail to provide a tangible alternative. Wiley contends that formulaic writing (like the Schaffer approach) can be one strategy among many used to teach writing, but never provides examples of these other strategies. And Murray straight up says, “None of these implications require a special schedule, exotic training…What they do require is a teacher who will respect and respond to his students…”. What an oversimplification of the process of teaching the writing process. Just listen to your students and they will magically learn to write! No other strategies needed!

While both readings fell short of my expectations, they each did so in different ways. Let’s explore how, shall we?

“The Popularity of Formulaic Writing (And Why We Need to Resist)” by Mark Wiley

Wiley starts off with an accurate description of all the challenges that teachers face, which led me to the false assumption that if he understood what we’re up against, he was going to provide viable solutions. He did not.

I definitely agreed with his critique of the Schaffer Approach, and I honestly cringed when reading about what it entails. Having students actually count words, sentences, and paragraphs is HUGE waste of time, there’s no mention of how to evaluate quality over quantity, and there’s no “next step” provided by the Schaffer Approach, rendering it basically useless unless what you actually want is for your students to become dependent on the only writing formula they think they’ll ever need. I was also surprised to find out that this approach was geared for 9th and 10th grades, because it’s description seems much more like an introductory writing method, suited perhaps for elementary or middle school students.

After he rightfully criticizes the Schaffer Approach, Wiley says that “students must develop a repertoire of strategies for dealing effectively with various writing tasks presented to them in different situations” and they must also “make choices about genre, content, structure, organization, and style.” He explains that students need procedural and conditional knowledge to question how to accomplish tasks and when to make particular choices. And then he gives exactly zero suggestions for how to teach students to do this.

“Teaching Writing as a Process Not Product” by Donald M. Murray

Murray starts off his essay with a pretty accurate metaphor of literature as something we conduct an autopsy on, making it impossible to produce live writing as an outcome. He also writes about writing in a rather poetic way, explaining that writing is the process through which we discover the world around us. And then he proceeds to disappoint me, just like Wiley.

I will say that one thing I appreciated was his breakdown of the writing process time frame. If you had asked me which of the three stages took the longest amount of time, I would have said either writing or rewriting. I was surprised at his claim that prewriting should account for 85% of the writing process, but his explanation of exactly what the prewriting step encompasses made me rethink my preconceptions about it. If the 85% is accurate, then most teachers and students don’t spend nearly enough time in the prewriting stage as we should.

However, Murray then fails to provide any concrete suggestions for how to accomplish the writing process in a non-formulaic way. He also contradicts himself in his list of implications by waffling back and forth on the writing timeline. First he claims there should be no timeline, then he says students must adhere to deadlines, and then he backtracks and says that the deadline should be the end of the marking period, which is absolutely ridiculous. The thought that students should only be working on one major writing assignments for the entire marking period is unrealistic, especially when Murray also says that drafts shouldn’t be graded. Most teachers are required to have a minimum number of assignments in their gradebooks each marking period, and they have to vary in weight. (Also, students will not complete work that isn’t graded.)

What I’m left with after reading both of these essays is a sense of frustration. Neither author provided solutions to the problem they identified, and what little advice they did provide isn’t applicable in the modern classroom.

Thoughts On “How Remix Culture Informs Student Writing & Creativity” by Antero Garcia

I found Antero Garcia’s article on remixing really interesting because I’ve always had mixed feelings about remixing in terms of authenticity and quality, and this text suggested a new way of looking at remixing, and also helped me figure out the reason for some of my hesitancy towards it. It also provided, in my opinion, a great definition of remixing (“the process of making something new from preexisting materials”) which I don’t know if I’ve ever seen stated so simply, yet effectively.

First off, I had never really considered fanfiction as a form of remixing, and after reading this article, I think that’s because I see a very distinct line between fanfiction and other forms of remixing, such as with music or retellings of classic literature, and that line is profit. Fanfiction holds a special place in my heart because the fanfiction community is drawn together by their shared love of something. They dedicated hours of their lives writing and reading stories based on their favorite characters for the pure fun of it. No one is in it for the money, because there isn’t any money in fanfiction writing. In a way, fanfiction is remixing in its purest form, because no one is doing it for profit.

But those exceptions are where I start to have mixed feelings about remixing, because that’s where the line between fanfiction and “real” fiction gets blurry. There are, of course, a few exceptions where fanfiction becomes “real” literature and turns a profit, such as Fifty Shades of Gray, which was originally Twilight fanfiction. But since this example in particular is so fraught with issues (poor writing, a dangerously inaccurate portrayal of the BDSM lifestyle and what consent should look like, a source material that romanticizes abusive teenage relationships, etc.), it should raise questions of authorial authenticity and what makes quality literature. But instead, it became hugely popular and led to an equally questionable movie franchise.

What it comes down to is this: I think people who create remixes assume that the general public is smart enough to recognize a remix and judge it on its own merit, but unfortunately, I’ve encountered way too many people who prove this isn’t true. For example, here’s an argument I had with my cousin Nicole’s aunt Toni last year, when we were brainstorming possible names for Nicole’s unborn baby girl. It went something like this:

Toni: I think you should name the baby Ophelia.

Me: You want Nicole to name her baby after a Shakespearean character who literally goes insane and then drowns herself?

Toni: No, she took a potion so it only looked like she drowned herself, but she was still alive.

Me: Are you confusing Ophelia with Juliet?

Toni: No! Ophelia drinks the poison and pretends to drown, and then escapes the castle and runs away and gives birth to Hamlet’s baby.

(At this point I start gaslighting myself, thinking Have I somehow misunderstood the entire plot of Hamlet?)

Me: That is not what happens at the end of Hamlet. Ophelia is dead. Almost everyone is dead.

Toni: No, you’re wrong! That’s how it happened in the show!

Me: Wait, what show?

Toni: Ophelia! On Nexflix!

Me: Have you…ever actually read Hamlet?

Toni: No, I just watched it on Netflix.

Me:

After I explained the actual plot of Hamlet, and that the Netflix show Ophelia is a reimagining of what could have happened in Hamlet (but very much did not), Toni said, “Well, they shouldn’t be able to do that. It should be illegal to change it and not tell anyone.” I told her the producers at Netflix probably assumed the general public was smart enough to realize it was a reimagining, and not just a movie version of the original. She obviously didn’t like the insinuation I made. (This was a proud moment for me because I’ve disliked her for years. She starts tons of unnecessary family drama and she’s the kind of person who never admits she’s wrong. It felt good to knock her down a peg in front of the whole family, and if that makes me a bad person, so be it.)

I want to clarify that personally, I love remixes. I’ll read any modern-day adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that I can get my hands on. Retellings of fairy tales like Cinderella Is Dead or Cinder are always on my TBR list. And I’ve seen some great student projects based on remixes, like a class of my 10th graders one year who, after reading Othello, filmed “modern” versions of specific scenes, including one that was a spoof of The Office and another that included gender-bending the main characters. Students love coming up with alternate or extended endings to the books we read, or rewriting scenes from a different character’s point of view.

I guess what it really comes down to in the end is that Garcia’s article helped me finally realize that it isn’t the remixes themselves that I have a problem with. Rather, my issue lies with people who cannot consume remixes responsibly. When it comes to our students, I think teachers do a great job of incorporating remixing into our writing curriculum, and I think the younger generation actually has a pretty firm grasp on remixes as a genre. It’s the adult population who needs a refresher course of Remixing 101.

Thoughts On “On Students’ Rights to Their Own Texts: A Model of Teacher Response” by Lil Brannon and C. H. Knoblauch

While I can certainly appreciate the point that Brannon and Knoblauch are making in this essay, I think it fell short because they didn’t offer enough viable solutions to the problem they identified. Their main argument is that in order for students to think their writing is being taken seriously and to give them the incentive to keep improving, teachers should focus more on how/if the students met their own writing goals, as opposed to the assignment set out by the teacher. It’s an interesting approach, but in today’s day and age, there’s more cons to this method than pros.

Pros

• Multi-draft writing opportunities – I do agree that more teachers should be using this method. This approach is the difference between being a writing instructor vs. a writing coach. An instructor just grades a single draft and is done with it; a coach offers feedback and opportunity for improvement.
• The suggestions for the types of questions a teacher can ask to help students realize where their work falls short are a good strategy.

Cons

• The authors suggest there is a “middle ground” between the conservative and liberal approaches to teachers grading writing that they describe, but they don’t do a good enough job of defining what that middle ground actually looks like.
• Poor examples – The authors use a sample student “essay” to illustrate their point, but I wouldn’t consider that an essay by today’s standards. Writing from the p.o.v. of the prosecutor would be more of a creative writing assignment, not an essay. This brings us to the next con…
• Written almost 50 years ago, the scenarios described here aren’t all applicable to a modern-day English class. Teachers are required to use detailed rubrics to grade student work. Failure to provide a rubric can result in low observation scores, as well as battles with parents and students over grading. Allowing the kind of writing described here, where students rather than teachers decide on the parameters of their writing, is a logistical nightmare, especially if students also become responsible for creating their own individual rubrics.
• Too many questions are left unanswered. How many drafts do you allow students to write? How do you grade a final submission that still fails to meet state standards and teacher expectations? And finally, since evaluation should only occur “after [the student has] decided that their writing is finished and ready to be evaluated,” what happens if a student never gets to that point? The confines of modern-day grading periods are simply not conducive to such a lengthy, potentially endless writing timeline.

And now for some poetry!

I (wrongly) assumed that Elbow’s “Voice in Writing Again: Embracing Contraries” would be about strategies for developing your own voice in writing, or maybe even strategies for teaching voice development to students. So, I was surprised to find that it started by questioning whether or not we should even focus on voice at all.

Elbow makes a convincing argument for his both/and approach to voice, and I found myself agreeing with some of his points, especially when it comes to creating an “authentic voice.” The comparison he makes to online writing is true: it’s very easy to create a voice for the person you want to be seen as, but that’s not necessarily the same as the person you are. I also liked his proposal of a “compromise” between the pro-voice/anti-voice scholars, where we accept that voice should be analyzed with the understanding that it might not reflect the true character of its author, and where we attempt to analyze writing through the two different lenses of text and voice, thereby focusing on two different possible interpretations of the writing.

The parts of this piece that resonated with me the most were the parts that focused on student writing and voice. Elbow makes some great observations that definitely ring true in the classroom. First, he points out that students who write with a problematic voice are more likely to reveal other weaknesses in their writing. As someone who as graded her fair share of unsuccessful writing, this is definitely true. And I think the reasons it’s true is directly related to another point he makes, that “some of the most ineffective and even tangled student writing comes from trying too hard to avoid a ‘regular voice’.” At some point in their academic career, someone led these kids to the incorrect assumption that ALL of the writing they do for school MUST sound academic. (I hope this person steps on Legos.) As a result, some students try so hard to sound “professional” that their writing becomes nonsensical because they litter it with unnecessary (and often incorrectly used) synonyms, or they blather on and repeat themselves in cyclical arguments when they could’ve easily said what they needed to say in one or two sentences. It also makes it difficult for them to write anything non-academic, whether creative or personal. Any time I teach a “fun” English elective like creative writing or journalism, I feel like I need to tell the students to forget every rule about writing they’ve ever learned in an English class before. And every September, when my students from last year ask if I’ll give them feedback on their college essay, my number one comment is always that they’re trying to sound too academic, so their essay sounds stuffy, and impersonal, and not at all like them.

Finally, I think the section of this piece that focused on reasons to not attend to voice in text had some good points, but I think it would’ve been better if Elbow had spent more time differentiating between times when writers should focus on developing voice in their writing, and times when voice should take a backseat instead. He briefly touches on this when he mentions how scientific writing is often purposely impersonal, but I would’ve liked to see a more concrete breakdown of types of writing where it’s more appropriate to develop voice versus types where doing so may actually be detrimental to the writing.

When it comes down to it, I think Elbow raised more questions than he answered in this piece, but it certainly gave me some things to think about.

So I know that most people have seen Chimimanda Adichie’s Ted Talk before, but this was my first time watching “The Danger of a Single Story,” and now I get what all the hype is about. Adichie is an amazing story teller, and her lecture really highlighted how ‘single story’ mentality can be damaging not only to young readers, but to adults, as well.

The first story she tells, about how she only read books about blue-eyed, white people when she was young, proves just how important authentic representation is. Last week, diversity in literature was the topic of our Writing Literature for Children and Young Adults class, and through our discussion we realized that most of us had not encountered diverse characters in children’s books when we were growing up. I realize how lucky I was to have seen people who looked like me in almost every book I read as a child. And while there’s definitely been an increase in the number of quality diverse children’s books available since I was learning to read almost 30 years ago, we’ve still got a long way to go.

Later in her speech, Adichie talks about how the ‘single story’ has lasting effects well into adulthood, such as with her college roommate, or the professor who told her that her stories weren’t authentically African. Even educated, well-meaning adults fall into the trap of the ‘single story,’ without even acknowledging the possibility that maybe the information they’ve been told for so long could be inaccurate. The story of Adichie’s professor especially stuck with me, and reminded me of another author who had a similar experience. During our memoir unit, my students read Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas, who was originally told that her stories didn’t reflect the “true” immigrant experience because there was too much humor and not enough violence and devastation. Like Adichie, it wasn’t that Dumas had never experienced any hardships or dangerous situations; she just chose not to make those the focus of her writing. Most of what students have to read at the high school level is quite dark and depressing, and it makes me wonder how many other books like Funny in Farsi we’re missing out on because publisher’s don’t feel they’re “authentic” enough.

What I appreciated most about Adichie’s speech is that she fully admitted to falling for the ‘single story’ narrative herself. She speaks of going to Mexico and the shame she felt when she realized that she had let the media coverage of immigration fool her into believing the ‘single story’ of Mexicans. The fact that someone who knew the dangers of the ‘single story’ of their own culture subconsciously developed a ‘single story’ of another culture proves that we’re all human, and no matter where we come from and what our experiences are, we have to actively learn how to not take everything we see/hear at face value. Adichie could have very easily not shared this story with us, but she chose to take ownership of her mistake, and learn from it, with the hopes that others would do the same.

I want to finish up by saying that this Ted Talk gave me a great idea for an exercise to incorporate into my multi-cultural unit. I’m going to share this video with my students, and invite them to share the damaging ‘single story’ that people believe about their cultures. I think it will make for a very enlightening class discussion.

I want to start by saying that both of the readings this week helped me identify ways in which my own feedback on student work is either lacking, or creating more work for me rather than the students. I appreciate the value that both of these pieces had for me as an English teacher, and I’m looking forward to incorporating some of Bean’s and Elbow’s suggestions into my own feedback practices.

Reading 1: “Writing Comments on Students’ Papers”

Bean reiterated something I’ve known about myself for a long time, and that’s the fact that I provide way more criticism on student work than positive reinforcement. It’s something I’ve been trying to improve over the past few years by playing around with different feedback techniques, but I feel like now I’ve got some strategies that may actually work. For one thing, I’ve never really thought about how the students feel when they’re reading my comments, and that really opened my eyes to the value of positive reinforcement. It also got me thinking about how I never really sit down with the students and explain what different comment on their papers might mean. I just assume that if they don’t know, they’ll ask, which I now realize is not always the case, especially with students who feel badly about the work they’ve produced.

The suggestion to not point out every single thing wrong with a paper reminded me of “focus areas,” a concept promoted by the Collins Writing Program, who ran a professional development session I attended about seven or eight years ago. Their idea was that by only grading students on a 2-3 “focus areas” per assignment, they wouldn’t get overwhelmed by trying to improve every skill at once. The goal was that eventually the first few “focus areas” would become second nature, and then students could always be held accountable for them. This made sense in theory, but not so much in practice. Students (and parents) would complain that since something wasn’t a “focus area” for that assignment, how could they lose points for getting it wrong? Instead of making students more accountable for a growing list of skills, it made them pick and choose which ones they would care about for any given assignment.

I like that Bean provided a hierarchy of questions to ask about a piece of writing, because it’s helpful for both teachers and students in terms of prioritizing what kind of attention needs to be given to the piece. I think that list can also be modified to use as a peer editing tool, where students have to go over the checklist with one or two classmates first, before even submitting a draft to the teacher. I also really liked the concept of the the “old/new contract,” which is something I’ve always seen students struggle with, but I never had the right wording to explain to them how something could be improved. This is definitely something I’m going to introduce in my classes this year.

As far as grammar and stylistic errors go, I like the idea of simply marking the line in which an error occurs, rather than circling all the errors on the draft. It holds the student much more accountable for not only fixing their mistakes, but not making the same ones on future assignments. I also think I need to have a discussion with my students about the difference between grammatical and stylistic errors, because I don’t think they know the difference.

One thing that surprised me with Bean’s method of feedback is just how long his end comments are. I tend to leave comments throughout a paper, so I rarely feel the need to leave more than 2-3 bullet point comments at the end to sum things up. He goes so in depth with this comments, it’s really impressive. However, it’s also not always practical, and that’s because of the age old dilemma: time. There is simply never enough of it. First off, most of my students’ assignments don’t go through a multi-draft writing process. I usually give them 2-3 days to compose their essay in class, followed by 1-2 days of peer editing, during which they can come to me with specific questions/concerns, but I don’t typically read all of their drafts. The other timing issue is with the actual grading timeline itself. Let’s turn it into a word problem:

Ms. Chuntz has 80 students’ essays to grade. Ms. Chuntz’s supervisor says all assignments have to be graded within one week of their due date. If Ms. Chuntz is trying to maintain a healthy work/life balance and not take any grading home with her, how many minutes per essay does she have if she only grades during her allotted 45 minute prep period?

5 prep periods x 45 minutes each = 225 minutes

225 minutes /80 essays = 2.81 minutes per essay

That’s not even enough time to read the first page. And so the real answer is that concessions have to be made, and the students (and teachers) suffer for it.

Reading 2: “Ranking, Evaluating, and Liking: Sorting out Three Forms of Judgement”

Where Bean neglected to take into account the lack of time present in a teacher’s day (and yes, I get that he was writing as a college professor who probably has fewer students, more prep time, and no soul-crushing responsibilities like lunch duty), Elbow’s suggestions are much more easily adaptable for a teacher who doesn’t even have enough time for a bathroom break most days.

The drawbacks he identified when it comes to ranking are absolutely true. It doesn’t matter how foolproof you think a rubric is, the following will always be true: 1.) Every student and teacher will interpret that rubric in a different way; and 2.) There will always be at least one student who screws up interprets the task in ways you could never have imagined, and therefore doesn’t fall into any box on the rubric. And yet the fact remains that it would be impossible to give up ranking without a total overhaul of the entire education system. (Although it is entertaining to imagining the looks on the faces of frantic students and overbearing parents if you told them traditional grades or GPA were no longer a thing.)

Some of Elbow’s ideas that I do think could be successfully incorporated into a high school English classroom are the minimal ranking (honors/unsatisfactory/satisfactory), the strong/okay/weak grid, and evaluation-free, or low stakes writing assignments. I think the grid and the minimal ranking would be helpful for shorter graded assignments and for drafts of longer assignments. Evaluation-free writing is something I’ve been trying to incorporate more in the last few years, through journals, quick writes, and do nows/bell ringers. One of the problems with that is many students simply won’t complete an assignment that they know isn’t graded, so even if I’m not grading it for content or correctness, I still have to hold students accountable by grading it for completion, even if it’s just 5-10 points.

The writing activity I really want to try is having students share more of their writing with peers, whether that’s out loud, or through comments left on their writing. This activity reminded me of my own 8th grade English class, where we would respond to a journal prompt every Friday, and then our teacher would collect our notebooks and randomly hand them back out to the class, so that we all got a chance to read and comment on someone else’s response. I’m not sure how receptive my students would be at first to someone they’re not close with reading their writing, but I think it’s something I can play around with during our memoir unit.

I want to end this blog post with a mostly unrelated observation about the randomness of word association and my brain. All week long I was thinking ‘bean and elbow, elbow and bean’ and my brain came to the only logical conclusion it could: soup. How, you may wonder? Well, Bean(s) + Elbow (macaroni) = pasta fagioli! So, that’s what I made for lunch this week!