Sample Responses to Peers’ Demonstrations
Our Summer Institute was composed of some of the most creative, talented, humorous and persistent teachers I have ever met. All of us presented a demonstration of an approach to teaching writing across the curriculum. The demonstrations were marvelous. As a group we responded to each of the demonstrations. Below are some of the responses I wrote for our group.
Ryan’s demonstration involved initiating a pen pal relationship via blogging between his AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) students and university students currently enrolled in an English methods course. Dan had his students use wikis in his demonstration lesson in a collaborative manner to build vocabulary skills at the secondary level.
Response to Ryan’s Demonstration
This approach would be motivating for students as it involves technology. It is also concrete and relates to his students as individuals. Ryan was very clear in his presentation and had obviously thought about the best way to present this in his classroom. He did a good job of addressing the needs of his students who are at risk. When safety issues were brought up, Ryan shared that he considered this and was very open to suggestions, such as teacher oversight and cautiously initially matching the college and high school students. Our group strongly feels that parents should have access to their student’s writing and therefore a password is necessary.
We love that Ryan will be able to follow these students for four years and will be able to get to know them well. Tiffany noted an analogy to the Freedom Writers, 9th grade students at risk for dropping out who were given experiences they would not otherwise have had. The relationship that these students and teacher developed was very powerful and supportive of success. Hopefully, Ryan will be able to help foster similar relationships between his AVID students and college mentors.
Many of us, including Ryan, were concerned about having students use a blog; however, our group also discussed an advantage of blogging. In her book, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott described how devastated she was by poor reviews, comments over the phone or communication in person. Anne described dramatic reactions and taking comments very personally. It helped her to have some time to privately process the negative comments. Later, she was better able to accept constructive criticism and more likely to profit from the suggestions. An advantage to blogging is that it is less personal. You check the blog on your time and you can rant and rave privately, give yourself time to process, and possibly be more receptive to what was (hopefully) intended from it – i.e. constructive feedback.
The use of blogging enables people from diverse cultures to interact and get to know each other, possibly with less preconceived notions. Our group was concerned about students who might have less or no access to the internet at home due to lifestyle or accessibility to the internet.
Questions: How do you deal with minimal or nonparticipation in the blogging process- particularly on the college student’s part? How would you ensure that the college student actually does the job? And if he/she doesn’t, who deals with this?
Response to Dan’s Demonstration
Dan’s demonstration lesson was collaborative and fun for the students. Using wikis can be less threatening than other modes of learning vocabulary and the lesson was devised so that everyone participated. As an interactive approach, Dan’s lesson appealed to a variety of learning styles including visual, literal and intrepretive. This type of lesson was more authentic in that this type of writing is actually needed in the workplace and college. The collaborative interaction was also more authentic for real world projects.
Dan’s lesson utilized collaboration and valued the process of learning – not just coming up with “the answer”. Critical skills and interpretive skills were encouraged. We also noted that this approach gave the teacher an opportunity to demonstrate and teach respect when utilizing technology. The teacher modeled using respectful words and actions when adjusting the students’ previous work. This was another example of skills (correcting/adjusting/adding to another’s work) important for college and the eventual workplace. We also liked the way the lesson built on each others’ knowledge to teach vocabulary.
This lesson addressed language arts standards on many levels – from writing for a purpose to understanding readings from a wide range of texts. Students will “apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts”. They can “draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features” to figure out the meanings of the selected vocabulary terms.
It is important for the teacher to clearly communicate the specific purpose for this lesson both for themselves and for their students. Additionally, the expectations for the use of the technology should be made explicit.
As an extension, students can come up with their own words or this can be used with regularly scheduled dictionary words. To encourage leadership skills, students can choose words and lead the activity. This can be particularly beneficial for students who crave attention/ “air time” . It can provide them with appropriate attention from their classmates.
Questions: How do you set up the lesson to prevent and/or deal with students who are “mean” to others? How does the teacher deal with difficult issues? – maybe make those a “live” discussion? How much do you monitor? How do you deal with so much writing? What do you assess? Do you give expectations for quality (and specify areas you are looking for) ahead of time? Do you assess for knowledge of the book, use of technology, quantitative amount of writing and/or quality of writing? We also talked about the use of hedge words and I-messages and the importance of clear feedback by the teacher to lead the students to more critical thinking on their own.
