Compare and contrast the advice given in the two readings, “Chapter 4: Successful Writing Assignments” and “Designing and Assessing Effective Classroom Writing Assignments.” How helpful is each? Which one is more user friendly? Which one helps you the most in your particular context? Comment on one or two specific guidelines that you think are particularly useful. Finally, reflect on how something that you learned from the readings might make you rethink a previous assignment that you have given (or, if you have never taught, comment on an assignment that you have been given during your time as a student).
I consider that both reading are extremely pertinent to the context which I am in right now, which is Ingl 3103. I agree a lot with Reid and Kroll, in that for students, “the purpose of the writing assignments is to demonstrate understanding of the assignment in ways that the teacher-reader already anticipates.” As teachers, we do have standards in terms of what we expect out of an assignment or prompt, and it is very hard to get students away from the mentality of what we are expecting from them, and to play a type of character and invent an imaginary audience which really does not exist. So, I believe that instead of focusing so much on audience and that you want them to write for the president or something like that, we should focus on the prompt that we give, and how these can contribute and work to build on previous knowledge, in order for them to improve their writing and not just write random assignments for a class. We could also look for sources which can take from their time and read student’s work, and have a special project to write and send the material to a real-live audience aside from the teacher. Also, both readings are based on writing assignments, and how to construct them, but we have a more structural approach in chapter 14, which offers us specific things we have to evaluate in terms of context, content, language, task, rhetorical forms etc.; while chapter 4 gives us specifications of things to consider when we are assigning a task based on literature, internet, or oral modes. So, more than comparing and contrasting, they complement each other.
One of the best writing tasks I found, which I believe is something my students would be interested in, is the one on chapter 14, page 265, “Women’s/Men’s Roles”. I think is something that my students would be interested in doing, and it is a good way of emphasizing audience awareness, due to the fact that it is directed to a classmate, and not to fulfill the expectations of the teacher. The guideline questions given are also good specifics for what they have to consider when doing the assignment. These two chapters have also made me go over some prompt which I was on the process of editing for the next essay assignment for my students. At least I am glad of the fact that my rhetorical modes were set in the same order that is suggested in chapter 4 by Glenn and Goldthwaite, who mention that the best way to divide the modes of discourse, according to Alexander Bain, are to first discuss Narration and Description, which build upon previous knowledge and deal with the student’s observations and experiences, and then go into Exposition and Argumentation, which are more of new topics and abstract ideas (90-1). Now I have to rethink my strategies in terms of the assignments and make them fit, even more than before, to things they have done in the past, and things they will do in the future in the class.
The article Successful Writing Assignments contained a series of patterns and techniques to guide us as educators to give an effective pedagogical approach to teaching writing taking into considerations a variety of examples within contexts that will be used for teaching the class with students from different majors. The onset of the arguments presented dealt with how a teacher should approach the questions that the students have in their background to become reading and writing students dealing with a clear organization of points relevant in the writing environment.
Such other criteria that the article presents is the accountability to work with literature in the writing course without teaching a literature in the writing environment. This is a problem since it drifts from the purpose of the class and might affect the efficiency of the students who are not English majors, teaching around this criteria is of the essential nature to the teacher and helps to develop the students techniques in writing and understanding information without distancing themselves from their major.
The distinctions of good assignments and not good assignments is something that might be a trouble for the teachers of any writing course due to the ineffectual pretense of correcting the papers given and the criteria that you as an educator is looking for. It shouldn’t drift from the main purpose that the topic is presented and developed and it should not distance the students from their own research as it is placed on the paper before you.
In Designing and Assessing Effective Classroom Writing Assignments” the sentiment is there for a critical exploration and evaluation of written work handed in by the students. Some of the key terms that were presented in the article were establishing the parameters of effective writing as an evaluation of the course’s content and the application of the student’s knowledge on the factors taken at hand. With a series of teaching prompts the article only focuses on the evaluation of the students performance on the grounds of their major and other ventures of academic writing depending on the course. And diverse techniques to create students as reading writers is far distant to a secluded less productive environment of creating in one set frame of mind depending on the course that they are taking.
The feeling that I got from the selection in the St. Martin’s Guide to Teaching Writing was more diverse in areas of interest to my teaching discourse whereas the Second Language Writing in the Composition Classroom selection focused on one method of interest to me which were diverse aspects to teaching writing to students with different majors.
In teaching students, my technique to a broad topic as it states in the St. Martin’s guide might have it’s bad side since they are all about having a direction towards a goal not beat around the bush, as the saying goes, but it is concise that they follow through the topic and development of the topic.
In the end the information proved to be effective in designating strategies and other types of guidelines to writing teachers in their environment.
A teacher expects students demonstrate an assignment encourages students to explore their ideas about an aspect of the class. The students always think in the frequency than the importance of a task provides. The teacher had the responsibility to create interesting assignments to emphasize the importance of this practice in the class.
The results of this writing practice as the students will be reflected as the students perform it. It is easy to identify according to the contain and the application of instructions. With an appropriate instruction a task can become successful. Across writing there are authentic topics so that teacher can be base on, as in chapter four explains. Being sensitive to the norms of students, to create a particular assignment it must be accessible for them. For instance where they can find information without troubles. I like assignments base on literature because students must identify, definite, draw images with their minds. In almost of assignments, students find their favorites, they do not want complex works, they want to be good in their writings.
Definitely, a teacher realizes when an assignment is unsuccessfully, it becomes boring for students, maybe they felt pressured , or the topic does not gain confidence to write. Other types of assignments such as incorporate social topics or experiences to reflect abut them, because students positioned in beliefs and convictions.
Of course, students think always in the grade. Could a teacher chance this mind? The alternative form is the feedback it is a systematic manner, due to this intervention must be reasonable and motivating for students. They anxiously wait for their papers be returned, they expect a good recognition of their writings; an appropriate feedback makes feel them enjoy my class with interest, further a teacher must realize every paper represents a person and inside he or she one style.
For me, a good feedback is when students understand the way to explore between two languages, and when there are unsatisfying faces, sometimes teachers think if was it fair or not? So the teacher must think in the contribution with one student and in “real life” a
student must assume the best way to learn another language is taking risks. I had a unforgettable instructor who told me always” if you do not write because of your mistakes you have to wait for another chance to born” So from my experience I will indicate my students encourages second language in a natural way. To look for one student be satisfied with an assignment I learned a principle from the second article “ writing assignments can influence the lives of students”(261).
The process of creating assignments is an integral part of the course development. Assignments help us as educators to know that students are putting in practice the knowledge acquired in the classroom. Both readings give us certain important elements that we should consider when we create prompts for assignments or tests. Chapter 4 reading, “Successful Writing Assignments” categorizes the different types of assignments; and it also gives us examples on how we can choose, refine or design our purpose based on the type of assignment we want to create. It also includes in detail what defines a good assignment from a bad assignment, which I found very helpful since the elements of how to make a good assignment that the reading give us are not enough without the examples given in this section. The last thing I found very useful in the reading is that it talks about the revision process as a process that can actually improve student-teacher relationship since students see the teacher as a helper rather that a specific audience who is going to judge the work as if it were imperfect. In the other reading, “Designing and Assessing Effective Classroom Writing Assignments” in addition to give us the “contextual considerations in assigning writing” it is also helpful the description of these considerations, since in Chapter 4 of SMG, these elements are not explained in detail. This reading focuses more on the guidelines we should use if we have different contexts in one classroom. It’s also very useful the idea of showing examples of instructors’ assignments from different colleges and how those assignments were successful or unsuccessful and why.
These two articles are useful, but one is more specific than the other. For matters of the course I’m teaching I like the idea mentioned in both articles, but more specifically in the SMG, that “every response to an assignment is an act of the student writer “inventing the university”, evolving a way of imagining and fitting into the academic community…It is important that our assignments provide them with a life jacket, a way of using their personal experience and ability to keep them afloat as they gain new information, knowledge and ability” (91). This reminded me of John’s article which clearly states that students need to use their local knowledge, background knowledge and life experiences to approach a writing piece. In 3103 I give my students the opportunity to use their experiences in life to grasp and focus more on the multicultural issue presented on the essay, and then I center more on the type of essay they need to do. These two readings helped me realize that I have to pay more attention to the assignments I select, because I feel that I do make them sometimes too broad and sometimes too general. I realize that I do this when the majority of students don’t give me back the work that I expected. I believe that the SLW article will help me with the creation of these assignments.
Both readings are quite similar in terms of discussing writing tasks and the creation of prompts. However, what makes each one quite different from the other is the way in which they were constructed, the language that they employ and the examples used.
Reid and Kroll’s article is helpful when creating prompts. It provides the steps that should be done and the categories or criteria that should be considered before creating a prompt. However, I believe that their article was choppy and not as relevant as chapter four. It followed a tedious strategy of showing a prompt and then saying “this is what is wrong”, as if we would have not been able to identify its flaw by ourselves. It also talks about prompts made for courses that I did not even bother to examine in detail I mean the book is for L2 writing in a composition classroom, what do I care about astronauts and Hitler? On the other hand, chapter 4 from Glenn et al was more user friendly and even more useful I dare to say. It referred to good assignments with clear and concise examples in a less structured and more meaningful manner; one that was varied and directly related to my context.
A guideline from Reid and Kroll that I found to be particularly enlightening was that most academic writing as “a form of testing” needs to be designed with care (278). In the case of my courses, most of the times these are composition courses and there is so little that I can evaluate using a test that I just never give one; my tests are the essays. As time passes by, I have proven that this assertion made by Reid and Kroll is correct, the more time you dedicate to design a prompt and explain it to your students the better outcome the writing task will have. The essays in my class have the weigh of a test and so I take great time and put much effort in making sure that the students understand what is expected from them.
A useful guideline from chapter four is that of assigning sequenced writing tasks. Teachers have a tendency of preparing isolated writing tasks that only assess what was given in a class that specific day. If instead of doing this we took the time to organize our courses and the writing tasks we give our students in a logical and meaningful way these could benefit more from the writing that takes place in the classroom. They will also see that you do prepare for your classes and take time to organize what is happening during the whole semester.
If I were to choose an aspect of these two readings that made me reflect on a writing task carried out wrong I would mention chapter four’s subtopic on Assignments Based on Literature; “…teaching a writing course using literature is very different from teaching a literature course” (93). Last semester, I had the opportunity to teach INGL 3104; those of you who have taught this course know that the textbook is a literature anthology, a course that I loved for I was able to use literature. Now, when I reflect on that course and how different I am teaching the first part of that same course nowadays I realize that I could have done so much more. I put so much effort in making my students understand the different literary genres that I set writing aside; I ended up using the composition course to teach literature instead of the other way around. As said in the chapter what I was supposed to do was “…limit your teaching of new material so that students can focus on applying what they’re learning to their writing” (94).
The readings for this week were very useful materials. These articles gave us some helpful strategies to design effective writing assignments that will help the students understand and express their ideas in a clearly way.
As cited on page 89, “I want to be specific enough so that students understand the assignment itself… But I also want to make sure that I’m not too specific…so they can still be creative…” I think this quote is the key that every teacher should look for in every writing assignment. Both articles deal with the fact that teachers must establish a purpose and intention before giving the assignment.
In chapter four, page 96, we can see that the author included web assignments and compared them as “moving beyond traditional writing”. So these are excellent ideas for teachers that are computer friendly and want to do something innovative. I think that chapter 4 was very helpful on the fact that it mentioned all the possible assignment and general guidelines that can be applied in our everyday classes. These guidelines deal with the reality of the students and lead the teacher to a successful writing assignment. I also like the part that defines what is a “good assignment or not?” and how we can explain them to the students in a language that they can understand.
Chapter 14 page 271, the author talked about some unsuccessful prompts that caused major problems for the students. Thanks to this information, we have an idea about what a teacher should do in order to have a carefully design writing assignment. As I was reading these two articles, I went to check the writing exercises that I give in class and I noticed that although the instructions were short and simple, the context was missing something.
When I was in high school, my English teacher showed us “how to write an English composition”. She had a pamphlet that showed us step by step on how a composition should look like. We began working with the titles for example: Beaches I like.
Then we had to write or choose ten titles. With the help of the titles we chose three subdivisions:
Title: Beaches I like
1. Playa Santa 2. Boqueron
3. Cana Gorda
After that, it was time to work on the introductory sentence, but we needed to write something from the title or the whole title.
Example: I like many beaches from Puerto Rico.
We worked with the introductory paragraph for at least three weeks.
I found a teacher that still has the pamphlet and she gave it to me. If we have time on Monday I would like the opportunity to talk about it with all of you in class. It was very mechanical, there was no creativity involved and also the majority of the students hated that assignment.
It’s been a hit or miss when I attempt to create a successful writing assignment. Sometimes I feel that it’s been more of a miss than a hit with my students. I don’t think my assignments are all that bad nor are they perfect, but I seem to notice that students aren’t really enthusiastic about writing nor reading at all which makes my job a lot more difficult that it already is. The two articles that we read for the week is a good place to start and look back at the assignments that I’ve assigned and determine what was wrong and can be changed so that I can create better assignment.
I would like to start out by discussing chapter 4 from SMG. The chapter focuses on the various elements that can influence the writing assignments that we create for our students. One of the most interesting topic that was brought up in this chapter is “assignments based on literature.” I must confess that when I taught 3104 I focused a lot more on literature than on writing. I actually fell into temptation which is a condition that the chapter warned us of. Somehow my background as a literature major took over my conscious and I forgot my duties as a writing instructor. Another detail that the chapter pointed out is that literature should be easy for students to understand. Unfortunately, we live in Puerto Rico where English is a second language for a large majority of the people and having our students read literature and expect them to react to it is unrealistic. I guess if I ever get the opportunity to teach 3104 again, I would focus more on writing than on literature.
Chapter 4 from SMG gave us various tips as to what to avoid when creating assignments and what makes a good assignment. The article by Reid and Kroll takes another approach to helping us develop effective writing assignments. They focused a lot on what makes a good and bad prompt. This approach is a way for us to look at the mistakes other instructors have done and points out what to avoid.
One example that I found particularly interesting is located on page 272 under the “freshman political science course”. The authors pointed out a flaw that ch 4 of smg also pointed out when creating prompts. An instructor should not create “the most global prompt possible and then to assess the resulting paper arbitrarily.” This is very similar to when we ask our students to write a thesis that is concise and not to broad. Somehow we’re being hypocrites and are doing the same thing we’re asking them not to do. This all lies to the fact that we assume that they know the necessary skills to be able to accomplish such task. Based on personal experience, one should never assume as you might be completely wrong and the decisions you make based on assumption can create many problem… problems that can make my life and my students life miserable.
The written assignments that we give our students need to provide us not only with student progress information but also with information on how to manage the course. Learning is an active and dynamic process, therefore it would be extremely improper to use a static structure in our courses without taking in consideration the feedback that we are receiving from our students. Creating a written assignment sounds very easy and we often take their importance lightly. We usually think that a good written assignment is the one that makes the student reflect on a topic that they like or that promotes their creativity. Even when both of these elements are important they are not the only criteria that we should consider when we are creating our written assignments. In both of the readings that we had for this week the discussion of what elements make an effective written assignments are discussed. The reading “Designing and Assessing Effective Classroom Writing Assignments” I believe was very helpful for me because it gave me a broader view of the concept “contextualized writing”. Before reading this article I always thought that students should use their previous knowledge or cultural background as building blocks to improve their language acquisition but this article presents a broader image of this concept. Students should not only use their immediate context but also the previous knowledge that they have of the language that they are learning. For example if I am planning to give my 3101 students a written assignment I should have in mind that they already took the Pre-Basic course. Therefore I should study or at least have a superficial idea of the goals that the Pre-Basic course established for the students to reach at the end of the semester. This exercise will help me construct an assignment that integrate skills that the students are already familiar with. Chapter four was easier to read because it gave examples instead of using a lot of words to describe the elements that make a good prompt. I like to visualize or see concrete examples because in practice is that we see where we failed. The other problem that is exposed in the readings is how we should evaluate our students because sometimes we give assignments that are related to a literary work or article and this creates the dilemma of content vs… structure. As teacher we have to be fair with our students and we should not just randomly give them a grade without establishing first the grading methods that we are going to use. If I was teaching a writing course I would always create a rubric to let my students know before hand what is expected from them.After reading these articles I reevaluated a written assignment that I gave to my 3101 course. The exercise consisted in reading three articles that I gave them about the death of Rudolph Hess. These three articles supported different theories about the death of this Nazi personage. I told my students that after reading the three articles they should support one of these theories or they could make their own. This response had to be handed inn as a written assignment. When I graded their work I encountered my problems because I was not sure on how I was going to evaluate them. Many of their papers reflected that they had read the articles but they lacked personal opinion. Other papers were centered on personal opinion without any reading backup to support their ideas. I thought that I had been very specific in the guidelines but apparently I was not because most of them choose one method over the other instead of integrating both of them. If I would give this assignment again I would establish first establish an effective grading method that fills all of the gaps that I encountered.
Both readings give excellent suggestions, resources and ideas on how to create good writing assignments, how to grade them and how to organize a composition class. In chapter four the author mentions “The Bain sequence”. This is a way that composition teacher may organize the major written assignment they will give during the semester. This is a sequence based on the “modes of discourse” and it goes like this: narration, description, exposition and argumentation.
When studying my bachelor’s degree her in UPRM I took a composition class that was based on this sequence. From my personal experience this sequencing worked. It helped me go step by step in the writing process and helped me develop various writing modes, from easy to more complex. The first two essays I wrote were easier because it was based on my personal experience. These essays gave me the change to focus more on the technical part of the writing process. The last two essays I wrote were a bit more difficult because they required more thought and research in a sense that I had to look for information that I did not have at hand. I believe that this sequencing helped me develop my writing skills in an orderly fashion.
This suggestion of sequencing is what I am doing with my 3201 students. I am not using the exact sequence of Alexander Bain, but a modified version. It is modified to suit the time frame I have this semester, the level of writing proficiency of my students and the time I know I have available to appropriately attend my students needs. The first essay they are writing is the narrative essay. I thought that by giving this first essay I could focus and guide them more thoroughly through the writing process. I did this taking into consideration that they do not have to look for external sources in order to write the essay because it is solely based on persona experience. The second paper they will work on is the research paper. By giving this paper the will learn to look for outside sources and as well can focus on their writing process. The third paper they will write is the persuasive paper. By leaving this paper at the end they can apply three things they have been doing all semester. They will have to apply the writing process, they will have to depend on their experience, since it is about a topic that is important to them, and they will have to look for outside sources, since they have to back up what they personally believe.
Now, in the article by Reid and Kroll there is something that rally caught my attention and it is their statement that “writing is essentially a social act.” This is what I personally believe to be precisely the main purpose of any type of writing. Now, what makes me think is that if in these courses we actually give our students to write as a real social act. I mean, they are not writing because they want to, but because they have to. This is a controversy discussed at length in the article, providing a real social context for our students to write. I must acknowledge here the project that one of our fellow TA’s does in his class. Wi Hong has his students write and create in their own blogs. I believe that this gives them a change to write as real social act.
In conclusion, both articles give great suggestion on how to develop a composition course and how to develop good reading assignments. What focus we give our coursed and assignment depends on many factors, but there is a way with working with each of them.
These two articles give advice to us that we already know but actually in my case never reflected upon because I am not a TA nor am I teaching in anyway. Something that I was supposed to do in my practice and I forgot to do was to demonstrate the exercise that I gave to my students; this is suggested in chapter 14. This has to be very delicately handled because it can be used both ways. Students can use it very effectively but students can also use it incorrectly by imitating it too closely. So as teachers we need to be cautious in what written examples we use and how we presented because we don’t want students relying on our examples to make their essay that way to get it right.
The second article (Chapter 4) is a more in depth article on written assignments that has some similarities with things said in chapter 14. Good writing has a purpose, this goes with the pint on writing has to be contextualized and authentic. This says that the assignment has to have a, Why?, that the students understand and are able to answer. The assignments have to be meaningful for their life and interest. They both say that the instructions for the assignments should be given in writing, something that I saw here in the university by few professors. Professor Joselyn Geliga always gave us her assignments in a hand out very clearly typed and she also did everything that the articles says, such as discussing it as a group and answering any doubts that we should have. She would also write down exactly how she was going to evaluate us so we knew what she was expecting of us. All of these advices she would do and we would try to do it as best as we could. We would be sure to include visuals if it was required and anything we say that she was going to evaluate. If something we had wrong it was because we didn’t look at the handout she gave us.
Something that is a very good advice is what we were supposed to learn in our “Prepa” English courses or intermediate courses. We are supposed to write drafts and do peer review. I was taught this and I never liked it but this article lets us see that peer review or revision can also be done by the teacher. It also tells a way that we can correct our students, a way that I always thought. The article says that we should only mark the errors not correct them so the students can identify them and correct them so that way they can learn from their errors. These articles, as I said, refreshes and explain to us things that we knew and it actually explains the science behind it; it tells us why we do what we do.