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

Re: Rubrics

[lunabee34]

No. LOL

I do have a rubric I put up in all of my classes, but it's one of those huge, unwieldy rubrics that have this is what an A paper is like, etc, not one that has points on it.

I have found that using a rubric for writing becomes really limited because a rubric is easiest to use for quantifiable stuff (like grammar, punctuation, spelling, formatting) rather than more subjective stuff like sentence quality and depth of idea. Every time I've tried to use a rubric, it's always resulted in horrible grades for students because they get dinged, dinged, dinged for SPAG.

I will be sitting on this thread hoping someone has an idea.

Re: Rubrics

[zulu]

That rubric sounds really good--this is what an A paper does and so on. Right now I have a 5x6 grid for a total of 30 points. But it's difficult for me to justify each and every box. It's a feeling not a measurement, and boy the students know it. They're like, "But why?" And when I'm grading, I decide on the grade the paper deserves and then tick the boxes, otherwise exactly like you say, they lose all their marks on the unimportant stuff and I have to re-do it anyway.

Re: Rubrics

[the_rck]

I have a vague memory of high school teachers who gave each paper two or three different scores. So many points for grammar/spelling. So many points for logical structure/convincing arguments. So much for... I have no idea. Possibly research and citations? Possibly complexity of expression? Possibly both?

Re: Rubrics

[zulu]

Yes, that sort is what I have. I really don't like it but it seems to reassure some of my first-year students? I want to be able to clearly communicate what an assignment requires and what shows they've achieved that standard, but I don't think this is working as it stands.

Re: Rubrics

[lunabee34]

Check out lyr's rubric below.

Re: Rubrics

[lunabee34]

Yep. This is exactly the problem I encounter. I will try to remind myself to send you the rubric that has no points but just shows what a good paper is at each grade level. You might can adjust it to be what you want.