reading reflection for 2/17

So, I posted a little bit of this in a response to Jack's blog, but I'll restate here just for the sake of flow.

I really responded to the Van DeWeghe article in ways I haven't responded to anything else so far.  We've had a few really practical and solid guides (the dornan text as a whole is incredibly practical, as an example), but none so immediate to me.

A few weeks ago, the English 9 group had to come in with 3-4 ideas for what they wanted to do their research papers on.  The general topic they had was simple: pick someone in your life who had to undergo a huge change of some kind.  document the social aspects.  some people chose medical crises, immigration, etc.  their primary sources are personal interviews.

My cooperating teacher had them all in groups of 3-4 and they each had a simple worksheet on which they'd document their peers' ideas and how "good" they thought said-ideas were.  while they were working, he came up to me and said, "it's a good idea to always do, but don't be surprised when they don't do the kind of critique you want."  So I asked him a little bit about why he did the group critiques/revisions, what he meant by different kind, etc.  He pretty much said, "you can give them very specific lenses to look through.  ask them to answer specific questions, etc.  but no matter what, they're going to default back to either saying 'i like it' or 'fix comma here, capitalize here, i like it!'"

That day, his third hour also had assigned groups for the same sort of thing.  11th grade honors, in this case.  same thing.  he said no matter how smart the kid is, what grade they're in, it doesn't matter.  only 1 in 20 will, in high school, be able to do it.  the rest will default to the more shallow stuff we often complain about, and Van DeWeghe comments on.  it's just, in my cooperating teacher's opinion, a matter of maturity, strength of ability/confidence as writers, and social dynamics.

Why do them?  That was my big question.  His response: "eventually they will be strong enough and mature enough to use them in a more productive way, without a teacher's intervention.  When that comes to them in a few years, they'll already be in the habit of doing it.  It'll be familiar to them and productive."

he combats this whole thing when it comes to actual draft revisions by using turnitin.com, which has a feature that will send out each student's essay, anonymously, to X amount of students (you tell it how many: in his case, it goes out to 3 others).  students are then required to comment on the papers...again, anonymously.  the website also has a feature in which, the teacher, plug in questions. when it turns around and sends out the anonymous papers to students, it attaches the questions in terms of a minor worksheet that they have to answer.  the anonymity helps for a bit more truthfulness.

I had a thought about a way to combat this, stolen wholesale from the girlfriend.

groups of four.  assign each person a role: this person praises, that person critiques.  another person looks specifically at grammar/spelling.  she apparently uses it a lot for draft revisions and it works well.

i have to admit, it's kind of interesting to look at the praises for "teaching higher level thinking" vs. the more pragmatic view that my cooperating teacher has.  but i do see a lot of abilities for common ground in there, especially when you take into account the idea that it models good habits that they'll hold onto and use more effectively at later points.

My link for the week:

this is a peer editing form.  I actually quite like the questions.  they're pointed, but open-ended.  I plan to use something similar in teaching the research paper to the 11th graders.