I have to admit that writing assessment is not actually my cup of tea (for now). It's not that I am not interested in the issue; however, I have not had any chances to work on any projects with assessment framework in mind. This week's readings are interesting and mainly discuss the issue of peer response and placement writing. Let's hear some personal stories regarding how I assess students' writings.
Junior hi-school students in Creative Writing Course:
When I taught high school students a creative writing course, students always (read ALWAYS) came up to me and asked about how I graded their writings. Their writing assignments were poems, short stories, comic strips, and a newspaper as a group project (editorial, news articles, movie reviews, etc.). What I did in assessing their writings was to create a rubric with them. I asked students, "If you want to assess one's writings, what criteria would you use?" Since I had more freedom to teach this course, it was appropriate for my students and I to come up with the grading criteria.
Senior year, English major in Research Writing Course:
I also had a chance to teach a Research Writing course for a college in Bangkok, Thailand. Students were asked to do peer response with multiple drafts. Since students were trained to do peer response, I did not have to spend much time explaining and modeling the response process. However, I still need to come up with assessment criteria for their research papers, which they came up with their research topics (15 pages excluding references). I came up with grading criteria as followed: Format, organization, grammar, content. You might be wonder how I came up with this criteria; I used my own past experience when I was graded for my paper in college as well.
As an undergraduate student, I was trained to do multiple drafts and peer reviews. I was not my friend's favorite because I usually gave my friend's so many comments that they did not enjoy revising at all. I gave respond to both global and local concerns. I sometimes underlined awkward or confusing sentences with some suggestions for future revisions.
Peer response has gained its attention and popularity over the last decade. The most important issue in using this approach is the trust between students. Teachers need to make sure that students will not perceive that teachers will be the only person who will read and grade their papers. We educators need to make sure that we incorporate students' peer responses into account so that students will take the peer response responsibly. Some students might think that critiquing others' works is not appropriate. I think if we explain to students the purpose of doing this activity, it might help students to be more aware of the activity. Teachers need to model the process as well so that teachers and students will be on the same page.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Connecting Speaking and Writing
The connection between speaking and writing is crucial to learning a second language. I think that literacy educators never really pay much attention to these two interconnected skills because of the fact that it has been coined as one-on-one conferencing. Also, we have not realized of how much we can write after we discuss our ideas and/or concepts with other people.
As Williams has discussed in her Chapter 1, writing center is a site that this research can certainly grow and will, I believe, play an important role in the future. Writing centers always try to find out how much tutors can help students in revising their writing and helping with their papers when they come to the centers.
However, I still think that writing and speaking skills are incomparable in term of language production. We cannot expect students, especially L2 learners, to experiment new forms in writing if we still use grammatical drills or textbooks with writing formats. In those contexts, students will always think writing as rigid rules because they will think that writing they produce need to be grammatically correct. Though the attempt has been made to encourage these L2 students to be less worried about this issue as grammatical issue can be dealt with in the last draft, they still insist (and sometimes resist) to the idea. This is the reason why I think that creative writing is a great start for L2 students to produce because the form is literally ignored (i.e. in poetry writing).
Another interesting connection between speaking and writing is the concept of intertextuality. Intertextuality is the use of other people's words, ideas, and concepts to build our own credibility to our claims in speaking and writing. This skill is crucial for doctoral students simply because they need to conduct their professionalism in the future through research and publications--conferences and journals. They need to think about how to enter into the conversation and this intertextuality is the key for doctoral students to do so.
It is interesting to see students' interactions through online comments and discussion in Seloni's chapter. These students are in the quest of negotiation to add their own voices in their writings. By adding their voices, they want to add their own ideas and thoughts into the writing, which in a sense it is legitimate to do so. There are two strategies in doing so, which I think they are useful for the future as well. First, these students need to read widely on the topic they are working on. By knowing the literature, students will be able to see gaps that they can add their voices in. Second, they also need to develop their own authority by start publishing. I believe these two strategies will certainly be the start to add multiple voices into the literature.
As Williams has discussed in her Chapter 1, writing center is a site that this research can certainly grow and will, I believe, play an important role in the future. Writing centers always try to find out how much tutors can help students in revising their writing and helping with their papers when they come to the centers.
However, I still think that writing and speaking skills are incomparable in term of language production. We cannot expect students, especially L2 learners, to experiment new forms in writing if we still use grammatical drills or textbooks with writing formats. In those contexts, students will always think writing as rigid rules because they will think that writing they produce need to be grammatically correct. Though the attempt has been made to encourage these L2 students to be less worried about this issue as grammatical issue can be dealt with in the last draft, they still insist (and sometimes resist) to the idea. This is the reason why I think that creative writing is a great start for L2 students to produce because the form is literally ignored (i.e. in poetry writing).
Another interesting connection between speaking and writing is the concept of intertextuality. Intertextuality is the use of other people's words, ideas, and concepts to build our own credibility to our claims in speaking and writing. This skill is crucial for doctoral students simply because they need to conduct their professionalism in the future through research and publications--conferences and journals. They need to think about how to enter into the conversation and this intertextuality is the key for doctoral students to do so.
It is interesting to see students' interactions through online comments and discussion in Seloni's chapter. These students are in the quest of negotiation to add their own voices in their writings. By adding their voices, they want to add their own ideas and thoughts into the writing, which in a sense it is legitimate to do so. There are two strategies in doing so, which I think they are useful for the future as well. First, these students need to read widely on the topic they are working on. By knowing the literature, students will be able to see gaps that they can add their voices in. Second, they also need to develop their own authority by start publishing. I believe these two strategies will certainly be the start to add multiple voices into the literature.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Negotiating Identity from Autoethnography
Paper Presented at Symposium on Second Language Writing 2009, ASU, Tempe, Arizona, Click here for full access to published article
Negotiating Identity from Autoethnography
View more presentations from pisarn.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Which comes first: Reading or Writing?
So which comes first, reading or writing? I do not think that we can actually separate these two. Personally speaking, both reading and writing have been playing in my life as far as I know. I always find my time to do volunteer reading in Thai. I read all the time. I need to have books, magazines, newspapers with me wherever I go. I also have to have a diary when I travel so that I can keep my travel journals.
After reading these two chapters, I remember myself as a student working on summary paragraphs, annotated bibliographies, reading and writing (as I am working on my writing assignments and citing the sources), reading before I write (as the way to gain more information on the topic), and writing before I read (as a freewriting approach relating to the topic I will write about). I think that reading makes me a better writer. Personally I love books. I have many books both at home and in the US. I buy so many books that my parents, especially my mom, need to tell me to stop buying because there is no place to store them. She also says that she will build a library for me after I go back home.
I also believe in the connections between reading and writing. I always tell my students to read, read, and read if they ask me about writing. Sometimes my students would ask me about how to be a good writer, my answer is always related to reading. At the moment, I write papers, I will re-read those articles in the beginner's mind. I actually notice that I underline or interact with texts in different parts of the articles depending on the topic/issue I am working on.
I personally like the writerly reader approach. Though I have not tried this, I think that it is a fun and valuable one for me. By thinking as the author, I can read and analyze critically on the writing itself. I will also gain more vocabulary repertoire because I will guess the terms the authors use comparing to the terms I think. This way I can learn both rhetorical moves and vocabulary use. I also think that it will challenge students to do this because they will be more aware of the similarity and difference the authors as well as the way they compose. I can adapt this approach by giving students the paraphrased version of the sentence. Then let them see and work on the cut-into-pieces original articles to form a sentence in which it gives the same meaning as the paraphrased one.
I think that using reading and writing can help students to gain both "ear" and "eye" learning skills because we can shuttle our focus to either on reading or writing lessons. For myself, I used to be an "eye" learner because I need to read and see what it is written down to be sully understood. After working at the writing center, I also become an "ear" learner because I need to listen to students' writings and give them respond. I think this can be done too in the classroom settings where students can do first reading peer response by students reading their papers out loud while other students write down what they think their friend's paper is about, how to improve it, what part they like. The next class we can ask students to read and respond to their friends' drafts.
After reading these two chapters, I remember myself as a student working on summary paragraphs, annotated bibliographies, reading and writing (as I am working on my writing assignments and citing the sources), reading before I write (as the way to gain more information on the topic), and writing before I read (as a freewriting approach relating to the topic I will write about). I think that reading makes me a better writer. Personally I love books. I have many books both at home and in the US. I buy so many books that my parents, especially my mom, need to tell me to stop buying because there is no place to store them. She also says that she will build a library for me after I go back home.
I also believe in the connections between reading and writing. I always tell my students to read, read, and read if they ask me about writing. Sometimes my students would ask me about how to be a good writer, my answer is always related to reading. At the moment, I write papers, I will re-read those articles in the beginner's mind. I actually notice that I underline or interact with texts in different parts of the articles depending on the topic/issue I am working on.
I personally like the writerly reader approach. Though I have not tried this, I think that it is a fun and valuable one for me. By thinking as the author, I can read and analyze critically on the writing itself. I will also gain more vocabulary repertoire because I will guess the terms the authors use comparing to the terms I think. This way I can learn both rhetorical moves and vocabulary use. I also think that it will challenge students to do this because they will be more aware of the similarity and difference the authors as well as the way they compose. I can adapt this approach by giving students the paraphrased version of the sentence. Then let them see and work on the cut-into-pieces original articles to form a sentence in which it gives the same meaning as the paraphrased one.
I think that using reading and writing can help students to gain both "ear" and "eye" learning skills because we can shuttle our focus to either on reading or writing lessons. For myself, I used to be an "eye" learner because I need to read and see what it is written down to be sully understood. After working at the writing center, I also become an "ear" learner because I need to listen to students' writings and give them respond. I think this can be done too in the classroom settings where students can do first reading peer response by students reading their papers out loud while other students write down what they think their friend's paper is about, how to improve it, what part they like. The next class we can ask students to read and respond to their friends' drafts.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Reading-Writing Connections
While reading Hirvela's book on reading-writing connections, the flashback of my undergraduate classes came to mind. I had taken classes such as Listening and Speaking I and II, while Reading and Writing courses are taught seperately. However, I think that reading and writing are inter-related skills that students need to acquire if they want to be successful in their academic lives.
In the chapters, Hirvela discusses the connections between reading and writing skills in students' first language that might enhance learning in L2. Personally, I read widely (mostly novels) in both Thai (L1) and English (L2). This is because I did my BA in an international college where English is used as a mode of instruction. I feel comfortable composing in English because I have been trained and educated in that contexts. I have never written any academic papers in Thai, though I read some of them. Even now, I still think that I might not be albe to compose any Thai academic paper because I do not know formal written form in Thai language. I was also discouraged when I wrote in Thai because that person gave me this comment when reading my Thai composition:
A: Have you educated abroad?
B: No, I answered.
A: Because your Thai structure has lots of "milk and butter" in it. (I think that person might mean that my written Thai employs English structure, word order, sound informal, etc. Since I did not ask what it meant to that person by that phrase, I never know what it meant as well.)
As a language teacher, I always tell my students that if they want to be writers, they need to read a lot. I personally think that reading and writing skills are connected. This might also reflect on how I create my own reading and writing skills. Many colleagues ask me questions: "How many hours do I spend in reading?" "How many pages approximately do I read each day?" I think these are interesting questions because I have never thought about those questions before. However, I always tell people that whenever I write, I usually read until I think that I have something to think and write about. Then the act of writing begins. This is where the notion of by Bloome's and Hirvela's reading and writing as social process means. I interact and interpret meanings of texts. I create meaning among texts while reading and recreate meaning texts while writing.
I also think that Hirvela's approach in teaching reading is meaningful because his approach did not focus on the texts itself, but on the meta-awareness of students' reading skills. It can also give teachers some literacy backgrounds of students, how they learn, interact, and interpret texts from their perspectives.
In the chapters, Hirvela discusses the connections between reading and writing skills in students' first language that might enhance learning in L2. Personally, I read widely (mostly novels) in both Thai (L1) and English (L2). This is because I did my BA in an international college where English is used as a mode of instruction. I feel comfortable composing in English because I have been trained and educated in that contexts. I have never written any academic papers in Thai, though I read some of them. Even now, I still think that I might not be albe to compose any Thai academic paper because I do not know formal written form in Thai language. I was also discouraged when I wrote in Thai because that person gave me this comment when reading my Thai composition:
A: Have you educated abroad?
B: No, I answered.
A: Because your Thai structure has lots of "milk and butter" in it. (I think that person might mean that my written Thai employs English structure, word order, sound informal, etc. Since I did not ask what it meant to that person by that phrase, I never know what it meant as well.)
As a language teacher, I always tell my students that if they want to be writers, they need to read a lot. I personally think that reading and writing skills are connected. This might also reflect on how I create my own reading and writing skills. Many colleagues ask me questions: "How many hours do I spend in reading?" "How many pages approximately do I read each day?" I think these are interesting questions because I have never thought about those questions before. However, I always tell people that whenever I write, I usually read until I think that I have something to think and write about. Then the act of writing begins. This is where the notion of by Bloome's and Hirvela's reading and writing as social process means. I interact and interpret meanings of texts. I create meaning among texts while reading and recreate meaning texts while writing.
I also think that Hirvela's approach in teaching reading is meaningful because his approach did not focus on the texts itself, but on the meta-awareness of students' reading skills. It can also give teachers some literacy backgrounds of students, how they learn, interact, and interpret texts from their perspectives.
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