After reading “The Red Pencil Blues” by Susan Tchudi and Stephen Tchudi, I have began to question the feedback I have been giving my students. It is my goal as a teacher to make my students better writers. In doing this, I stress the importance of the revision process to them. As the Tchudi’s mention in “The Red Pencil Blues”, many students to not understand the difference between revision and correcting. High School students typically think of revision as fixing grammar mistakes and changing words that have been spelled wrong. However, this is not the case. Revision involves looking at the content of writing and adjusting the paper based on that.
One suggestion that the Tchudis make to get students to present their writing for feedback is to put them into writing groups. I love this idea, it is something that I am currently doing with my ENGL 1000 students, as I believe that students learn a lot from one another, possibly just as much if not more than they can learn from me. While I love the suggestion of students in writing groups, I was not fond of the suggestion to allow for students to pick the groups themselves. While some students may do great in a group with their friends, others may not. It is possible that students get off task easily or not take their peer’s writing seriously. I also fear that not all students will be welcomed into a group. Those who do not find a group as easily could feel like they are simply an add on and not feel comfortable talking about their writing in the group. This may not be as applicable to my ENGL 1000 class because they did not know one another previously, but could be very applicable in a high school classroom.
There is also another suggestion made by the Tchudis about teachers responding to student writing. I have spent hours giving students feedback on drafts but give little to no feedback when I give students their final grade. I do this for the reason that I have said all that I need to say about their paper in the previous comments I have left on their drafts. Mr. and Mrs. Tchudi present the idea to allow for students to tell the teacher the kind of feedback they are looking for on their drafts. Meaning that students can say they want their paper read but they would not like any feedback about it. I do understand that feedback can be hard for some student’s to take but it is a disservice to a student to not help them improve their writing. It is important to pay attention to the student you are giving feedback to and recognize what kind of feedback they will be able to handle, but allowing them to ask for no feedback is ridiculous to me.
It definitely is hard to walk the line between pushing students to do better and discouraging them from writing at all.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're thinking about the implications of group-choosing and other issues involved in group work. It's important to weigh it out, and sometimes what works in one class (picking their own groups) doesn't work in your next class. The personalities of students can definitely dictate how you conduct group work, and those are important details to consider :)
ReplyDeleteAlthough I get the idea that sometimes students may just want you to read, I think feedback on any writing assignment where multiple drafts will be written is needed. Read and no feedback on a quickwrite might be okay?
I think that you bring up some good points about students picking their groups and as a teacher we need to be cautious of letting them do that. We can maybe let them but we need to let them know that if we see it isn't working or they aren't being productive then the group will be split up. I think that is awesome that you already have so much experience with teaching and can see how these readings connect with what you are doing in your classes
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