Writing Partnerships

By providing feedback the pupils will see more clearly what they need to do next and how to improve on their work if needed, examples of feedback could be questions in a group or a through a whole class discussion.

Students are instructed on how to develop and organize their writing by developing a plan or out line to follow. Teachers should discuss with their students how to effectively plan out their writing strategy. Students need to be taught to question themselves about the purpose of their writing. Questions like; “Who am I writing for?” or “How will I organize my thoughts?” are two general examples. Gersten mentions the importance and purpose of the first draft and how it provides a concrete reminder for where the writing is going. The plan and its draft provide a common language for teacher and students to share making communication easier. He also speaks of the strengths of the revision process. Gersten illustrates how peer-editing can be a useful tool to employ during writing.

In 1984, Stephen North penned a landmark essay, “The Idea of a Writing Center.” In it, he wrote about writing centers’ struggles to be understood and emphasized the transactional, synchronous conversation about writing that most writing centers focus on as their mission. Current writing center scholarship still cites this article regularly. Its content has withstood the test of time, and the writing center experiences North transcribed are still relevant today. We work with many students who are well prepared for a writing center session, and of course, we have our regular clientele who clearly find value in our assistance. But we also frequently work with students who don’t understand what we do. Here at Union Institute & University, students send us brief emails, simply attaching a paper. Some include a note; some don’t. Sometimes students ask us to edit their papers or they’ll ask us to correct an essay and return it. Sometimes they tell us who they are;

Feedback can be formal, such as after marking an assignment or observing practice, or given informally during a lesson (Gravells, 2012.) It can also be written or verbal. Written feedback

“Both tutor and tutee benefit from the non-hierarchical, complementary relationship that enables both partners to refine and expand their writing and communication skills” (Jones 3). Writing centers are providing further opportunities not normally found within traditional classroom. Clarence Sherran, who was a coordinator for the writing center at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa, declares that, “[People] often assume that [the] ways of knowing, and learning, talking, reading and writing about knowledge, are transparent and easily acquired by students if they have met the required standards” (136). Having writing centers offers a greater boost of learning for students by the use of collaborating with one another, which I believe gives a positive edge and the main motivation to keep writing centers in

The first practice I am going to discuss is creating a classroom community of writers. Writing is often ignored, and when it is brought up in the classroom the students view it as a daunting task. Therefore, it is up to the teacher to change this environment into a positive experience. In the article, Writing in the ESL Classroom:

At USD, I am part of the Collaborate LLC. One of the benefits of this community is the opportunity to sit in on a class called ‘Civic Engagement in the US and South Africa’. Both this class and my own LLC class are focused on the concept of collaboration. This central theme was evident in the topics being taught, as well as the teaching style. The instructor fostered a very personal, yet difficult conversation with the students by asking follow up questions. He encouraged students to expand on their answers and often these answers lead to additional questions that the student continued to discuss. He encouraged other students to make comments, question other students and even ask questions of their own. This led to an open and welcoming

At UConn, there are programs available for these students to participate in workshops in order to improve their own writing abilities. During their time here, they are exposed to the writing center and its benefits. Through this program, younger students are able to become interested in writing and the process of peer tutoring. This technique applied by UConn helps their writing center because it creates opportunities for students to become interested with being a possible tutor which will ultimately benefit their writing center. However, if younger students did not attend UConn, they would still manage to carry this information to another college and possible establish a writing center there. This would expand and “[...]enrich a school culture where writing and revision are valued” (Uconn) just how the University of Connecticut does with its writing center. This approach could be applied to Berlin High School by creating a Summer course for eighth grade students at McGee where they are presented with what the writing center does and how it works. This would possibly encourage or inspire some students to become writing center tutors in the future or use the center as a tutee. Similar to Uconn, Berlin High School could offer a partial credit for students who partake in this learning opportunity. After

As I considered which of the partnering principles were the most critical as an instructional leader, it was difficult to pick one specifically over the others. Even though it seems as if all of these principals need to be present in order to become an Impact School, I believe reflection is the most critical in creating a positive building culture.

I had the opportunity to attend the SPEAK convention that was held in Levis this year. During the convention, there were many interesting workshops I wanted to attend. I chose subjects that were different from my pedagogy classes to discover new things. In addition, the speakers were so enthusiastic that it felt contagious. As a beginner in my teaching career, it is reassuring to see how many teachers are willing to share their ideas and teaching tricks. Especially that they were found efficient in the student's’ learning experience. I discovered new applications to use with the students for collaborative writing such as Padlet. The teacher showed how she incorporated this tool in her class. She added that it scored high on motivating the

5/ Prompt, specific and constructive feedback on student performance and adapting instruction to meet identified needs: “Feedback or knowledge of results is the lifeblood of learning.” (Derek Rowntree) Timely and effective feedback is necessary to help students evaluate their work and identify what or how to improve. The feedback “should relate to the learning objective, pointing out success and improvement needs. It should offer clear guidance on how work can be improved, the next step in learning and how pupils can take them” (http://www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk/resourcesandcpd/research/summaries/rsassessment.asp) Providing immediate verbal feedback or brief written comments, can help to promote more effective learning as it is informative,

The rhetorical situation for Kalish, Heinert, and Pilmaier is that they are all either composition instructors, former writing center tutors, or former writing center directors (30). Their essay is an excerpt from a book titled “Collaborative Learning and Writing: Essays on Using Small Groups in Teaching English and Composition”. Just from the title of the book it is clear that the purpose for these authors is to offer their insight on how to

The first step in the interactive writing process is to provide active learning experiences. Because students share countless mutual experiences at school, there’s a lot to choose from to write about during interactive writing. Reading and responding to a story the teacher has read is another way to share a learning experience. Lastly, allowing students to share personal experiences from their home life and community initiates a writing experience. Whatever way a teacher decides to start a writing experience, it’s imperative that students are engaged in the process and that the teacher is pulling from students’ prior knowledge of an experience they shared together. Establishing the topic comes next in the interactive writing process. The topic for the interactive writing activity comes by way of the students’ joint common experience. Teachers facilitate a discussion with students around their shared experience as they form sentences they will later put on paper. During this time, the teacher emboldens students to express themselves in ways that implicitly capture their experience. Composing the text, or negotiating, follows establishing the topic in the interactive writing experience. During this step, the teachers and students decide how they will say what they want to write. The wording and phrasing is a ‘coconstructuve’ effort between the teacher and students. As always, the teacher facilitates a discussion to develop a story or a sentence. Once a collective decision is made, the teacher has the students repeat what they will write numerous times before beginning to write. This is done so the students remember the sentences and can predict the following word when it comes time to write. Writing the text, or constructing, is the fourth step of the interactive writing process. While writing, the teacher and

During my practicum placement at Shelley Public School provided me the opportunity to demonstrate the importance and understanding of the purpose of timely and appropriate feedback. I began to understand the effect that timely and appropriate feedback had on students written work. I provided students with written feedback when marking their work but when possible I roamed around the classroom while students were on task and I assessed their learning and provided immediate feedback one-to-one. My verbal feedback that provided encouragement and engagement throughout the lesson. I ensured that my feedback was personal and relevant to the individual students work rather than generic. By providing students with verbal feedback throughout the lesson

We spent a whole Wednesday few afternoons meeting combing through different writing pieces from different grades and trying to place them somewhere on the scale. I found this PD day to me very interesting because it showed collaboration between every one of the teachers in the school. The final product of the writing continuum would be posted in classrooms once it is complete. One of the things that I took away from this very informative information session was if you have to put up a piece of blank paper to be recognized as the start then that it okay. Students need to have a blank page to transition to a page with their name in it then so be it. The one thing I found really interesting to watch was the teachers try to come up with “children friendly” language so they can understand what the teacher is asking them on their writing. Trying to find appropriate words reminded me that teachers with jobs are just like us, still learning along the way as they continue to improve their style as a