Writing Teachers Gather Round

[lunabee34]

I know a lot of my flist is in academia, and zulu and I have been talking about teaching and teaching writing specifically, and I decided to host a post about teaching writing.

So, if you teach or have taught writing at any age level, what are some of the strategies you use? Specific assignments? General thoughts about writing instruction?

If you have ever been a student of writing, what are some things your teachers did that worked? Failed abysmally? General thoughts about learning/teaching writing?

Recs for books, essays, or websites also appreciated.

Please feel free to share this around.

I'll put my thoughts in comments rather than the top-level post.

Comments

Peer Review

[lunabee34]

I pretty much have nixed peer review from my writing instruction. I used to do a lot of it and have gradually decreased until I have almost entirely eliminated it. I do it maybe once a semester.

Most students just blow it off. It's a wasted class period.

I'd love to hear from anyone who is using it effectively.

Re: Peer Review

[zulu]

Yeah, so true. Even when students are willing and engaged and giving comments, the ones listening either take it badly, or take it in good faith but have no idea what to do with the information (if it's even good/relevant information in the first place).

Any attempt at workshopping first years' creative writing is even more like pulling teeth.

Yet I think it's a valuable skill. I wonder how to teach it without doing it? Probably demonstration--like, either me critiquing something or having a colleague come in and critique me? Hm. Maybe if I wrote an example introduction paragraph and then went through exactly what catches my eye? Except it'd be more authentic if it was an actual first paragraph a student had written.

Re: Peer Review

[lunabee34]

I mostly encounter students who rush through the exercise in ten minutes and then want to leave. LOL

But you're right; it is a really useful and important skill. I have done things where I put up a sample essay, either an essay from past semesters with identifying info stripped out or an essay from online, and we critique it together as a group.

Re: Peer Review

[the_rck]

I found peer critique frustrating in high school because the people who looked at my 'write-a-fairy-tale' assignment thought I had made up the word 'lass' and couldn't figure out what it meant from context.

Re: Peer Review

[lunabee34]

Ha! Yes. That is always the problem with peer reviewing. Some students are terrible peer reviewers.

In an ideal world, the way this is supposed to work is that weak peer reviewers are supposed to benefit from the example of stronger ones and that weak ones are supposed to get better with practice. In the real world, that just doesn't happen.

Re: Peer Review

[lyr]

I've never been able to make it work, but I plan to try again someday. I think it would be easier and more valuable in upper division and grad courses, but at the freshman level it's like the blind leading the blind. I feel like it theoretically might help them at least figure out what to look for so they can see their own writing more clearly, but I think I would have to make it a much more structured, guided process with a specific set of steps to follow and questions to answer as part of the review process. One of these breaks I'll try to plan that out and experiment with it.

Re: Peer Review

[lunabee34]

I've experimented with having different worksheets with specific things they have to look for which helps. I had a colleague who used to have a lot of success with peer review, and she had them do a specific checklist and then they had to write it up and then the reviewee had to respond and etc. She's gone now, but I wish I had gotten her exact process from her before she left.