Part of the Process Pedagogical belief involves peer revision, and that is the part I found myself focusing on. A student centered classroom is a big part of my personal high teaching pedagogy and a chunk of that belief involves peer revision. The problem I am having with all of the pedagogical approaches is that none of them help me in the practical sense. What do you do when a majority of your class is simply not in the position to provide solid feedback? And when I say "in the position" I mean they are either struggling too mightily on their own, or refuse to participate, or did not bring their own work in to be revised, making it difficult for the process to be meaningful.
I absolutely believe that the process of writing can be taught, and I believe that the process of writing is vitally important, and I believe in multiple drafts, and giving feedback on drafts, and allowing time to rewrites, but what happens when you have a classroom full of unmotivated students who do not believe those same things. This year I have encountered my roughest classes in my short teaching career, and as I have documented here previously, I have changed many aspects of my class this year, including process points. For every draft the students turn in, they get points. It has not helped much. For example, we are in a writing unit currently where the students got to choose any career and research it and write an informative paper, or they can write a comparative essay on two or three career, and I broke it down in the following way.
1st step: Brainstorm what types of things they should look at when thinking about a career
2nd step: Pick a topic and research it in class.
3rd step: share topic and 2 interesting initial research items learned
4th step: Do more research at home
5th step: Bring in a first draft for peer revision
6th step: Bring in a second draft for different peers to revise
7th step: Bring in third draft for me to grade
8th step: Hand back drafts with final due date 10 days away.
This is as step by step as a process can be, and at each step, they get points. By the time we reached the 7th step (today), I had less than 60% of students turning in this draft. No matter how much we go over the importance of drafts, or how often I show them my own drafts and how they change, they still do not see the value. I was hoping Anson would help me in that department. I know expecting 100% is silly, but I need more than 60%.
The struggle is real!!! I also have abysmal return rates on essays, even when the rough draft and peer review are done in class. One possible approach is to modify your grading policy so that any missing summative assignments result in an "I" in the class, which of course later turns into an "F" if students don't turn in the work. I've been too soft to enforce this kind of policy so far because I've wanted my students to graduate, but I wonder if I should get tougher. I read an article about a year ago that said minority students in particular need 1) high expectations and 2) high support in reaching those expectations. I wonder if I'm failing my students by keeping my expectations too low. Would you ever try a policy like that?
ReplyDeleteI really like your point! It's a tough call to make of what is "too strict" or "too demanding" and what is realistic. I've only worked with ESL students/minorities and yes, that is very true. They need high expectation to actually submit assignments but I would argue clarity is as crucial as support. Ive found that at times my students did not submit a writing "step" because they did not understand what I wanted of them, even though I provided examples and workshops leading to the deadline. I'm still working on being clear but expectations are tricky. I don't know how much "pushing: is too much. :(
DeleteI really worry about motivation and student burnout, too, and I'm not sure process is the thing to solve it. Or, if it is, I'm not sure how! I do think that giving students class time to work on drafts can help with that, but it's definitely not a silver bullet. On top of the challenges of actually teaching them to write, we're also working against personal/social issues like homelessness (as Michelle describes), unhealthy home lives, physical and emotional barriers, the demands of school athletics, etc. So, while I don't think 60% is good enough, I do think it's pretty darn good considering all of the aspects that impact student performance and success.
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