Writing whether it is for an academic paper or a creative writing piece, can be a difficult thing to share with others. It may be awkward or nerve racking for some individuals (including myself) therefore it is crucial to have purposeful strategies when encouraging students to share and provide feedback for each others work. After reading Elbow and Belanoff, "Sharing and Responding" I really enjoyed the way they laid out the many different strategies to brainstorm, give feedback, ask questions, etc. Some of the strategies that really resonated for me was the "summary and sayback". Using this strategy allows you to really reflect on your writing to see if what you are actually trying to say is clearly being received by the reader. Using your own words allows the writer to see if the main points are concise enough to pinpoint after reading. I tend to do this with a friend before submitting a paper because I find it reassuring if they are able to tell me what my main points and purpose of writing the paper before I have to explain anything regarding the paper. It tells me that the paper did the talking and I constructed my argument clearly. Another great strategy was the "believing and doubting". Doing this in pairs allows students to play the devils advocate as well as bring new information to the table. It reminds me of my First Year Writing course of "introducing the naysayer" lesson that refers to adding a counter argument into your paper which then you prove to either not have sufficient evidence or provide other evidence as to why this claim is irrelevant to your argument. Both I find to be very affective and strategies that I have used with friends when attempting to edit/revise a paper. It creates a low stakes, collaborative environment to share ideas and give constructive criticism without feeling attacked or negatively judged on your writing.
Hi Bianca,
ReplyDeleteI also find it awkward giving feedback to others and receiving it myself. It is vulnerable to put your writing out there. I also really liked the "summery and say back" technique! I know you practice this because I have been one of those friends :) It is something that I should certainly do more of, as in giving my writing to a friend to see if my points come across clearly. Sometimes when I am spending a good deal of time writing a paper I become too familiar with what I am trying to say and I forget to make sure that I said it clearly. Does that make sense? As in, I know what I am trying to say but it may not be totally clear to someone who doesn't already know what is on my mind. I think you are so right, the "summery and say back" is a really great technique for all writers!
Also, I really liked your photo up top!
Bianca,
ReplyDeleteI can totally relate to the feeling of awkward giving feedback to others and receiving it because English is my second language and your first language is English like everyone else. After reading the article, I realize I am able to avoid what I am not comfortable with and focus what I am best at. This way, I could give a good feedback on what content one is missing or look for more information rather than focus on grammar structure itself.
I love the quote you set up first before you write something. It is an excellent hook!
Hey teaching buddy,
ReplyDeleteSorry I didn't get to you yesterday before class like I did with Lila and Maddy, but I ran out of time and I wanted to make sure that my response was really helpful and not just saying things to say them.
I liked how you talked about getting your friends to help you look over your papers before you hand them in. It's a really effective low-stakes way of getting feedback from a peer that won't devastate you and make you feel like your writing can never improve. This was primarily the way I learned to give feedback on papers because my friend I shared a lot of classes with in high school would outsource me a lot because she knew that was my strong suit. I would help bring her anxiety level down and it also taught me to do no harm because I didn't want to hurt her feelings if I asked her to change something. Helping her was one of the ways I measured myself to judge on whether or not I would be a good teacher. I was able to learn her style and to watch out for comma usage (both not using them where appropriate and having too many). She still asks for my help with writing even when it's small things like an email or an important text. Right now she's applying to get her Master's in occupational therapy so she can be a full OT and we've been slogging through that together.
The only thing that's tricky about that is because they're your friends, their natural inclination may be to not want to say certain things that they know you're sensitive about or they will only give positive feedback. The other thing to be cautious of is using them too much because it's easy to get too comfortable when reading the same person's work all the time. Getting fresh perspectives is very helpful because a new person will see the work very differently from someone who knows you well and will automatically connect the dots if you write something that's not 100% clear.
Keep up the good work.
B, I like that you called sharing and editing nerve-wracking and awkward. As someone who loves to give and receive feedback on writing, I can't help but feel that way most of the time. Usually it's because I'm so nervous that they are going to hate my writing, or hate my editing. Sometimes, I get so into editing someone's piece and I have to remind myself that it's NOT MY PIECE and what I like or think may work may not be what they envisioned. I think that's something thats important for educators to remember- but not always easy to actually do.
ReplyDeleteI love editing my sister's work. She's brilliant in the fields of math and science, but sucks at anything English. I like editing her work because it's mostly grammatical issues. Content editing is a whole different thing- I love t, but it's awkward!
Thanks for your post.