"Practice is perfection." Writing and revising is practice, and it is important. It is annoying the first few times you are on the receiving end of criticism and suggested revision, but with a few lashings and some trust in those dealing them out, criticism and revision are lovely. Convincing students of this will take some time, as will teaching students to constructively criticize, and I liked the different suggestions that our readings offered.
When I first read about teachers offering their own writing for student revision I did not like the idea. I thought to myself, "How will this help them? Teachers are (should be) good writers. Show that to students and they won't have any revisions to suggest." I thought longer and harder about this and eventually changed my mind. I thought of a scenario exactly like the one I predicted happening, but I saw the beneficial side of it. If a teacher shows their writing to their students, it could be difficult for the students to follow. The criticism could begin there: who is the author's audience? If the author is going over their audience's head, shouldn't they simplify their writing? From there the students could offer revisions about confusing sentences, unnecessarily large words, and other cocky things that good writers usually incorporate. Once the students have had their go at the teacher’s writing, they will be more prepared to revise each others, but the process may take a while to run smoothly.
Atwell’s clear guidelines for conferences were refreshing, like a teacher’s jellybeans: take the ones you want and toss the ones you don’t. Guideline #1 suggests that teachers begin with very short conferences looking for just content and craft. Also, Atwell suggest short conferences because long conferences can create dependency for the students; the exact opposite of what we are trying to do.
Finally, long conferences only allow teachers to meet with a few students. It will take me some time for me to do this well because I have always thought of editing papers as needing to be long detailed processes. I got to break that habit.
Dornan’s “Higher Order Concerns and Lower Order Concerns,” were a flashback to freshman year of college, when I actually learned to edit papers. I had an amazing freshman composition professor who required us to have five 4.0 papers by the end of the semester, no matter how many revisions it took. The fewest number it took me was 4; the most it took me was 9. The most exciting part of his revisions were the “Close,” “Very close,” and “Damn close!” at the top of your paper before you received one that said “Finished.” The first revisions were all higher order concerns; he wouldn’t even touch our grammar. As we clarified and strengthened our arguments, then he would begin tacking on the “awks,” “wc,” “pt,” and all of the other grammar-correction tidbits. Revising student papers in this fashion is good for the students revising, the teachers, and the writers themselves because it prioritizes the revision process.
As with Atwell's guidelines, VanDeWeghe's "Techniques to Teach Response," are helpful and concise.
The following website is dedicated to creative writing. It has several tips and tools as well as writing contests, book reviews, and author interviews. Pretty extensive, but quality stuff.
http://www.creative-writing-help.com/
Hot grits, Fable. I never thought about using the teacher’s paper as a way to introduce the topic of “intended audience.” Considering it’s an extremely important of part of writing, using your own work would be a great way to introduce this part of the editing process. I think it would also help the students to correct the teacher’s work because it would show the students that it’s ok to make mistakes. You could even show them a pre-edited version of a paper you had written in college if you still had one. Considering the intellectual giants we be, however, this may be a hard task (I’d like to point out that it took me three attempts to spell intellectual).
ReplyDeleteI, too, have problems with managing conference time. I get so wrapped up in helping one student, it affects the interactions I have with the other students who need help because my brain is still on the first student’s paper. Short conferences that gives the students just enough to answer their questions also guards against writing the student’s paper for them. It’s our job as teachers to push students to push themselves, which is a hard line to walk when the students are getting frustrated and you just want to help them get through it. You’ve gotta be tough, like your freshman comp professor, who sounds like a pro. I can’t wait for the day to be comfortable enough in my practice to have the moxie to have those requirements. Can ya feel me?