Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Teaching Students How To Give And Receive Peer Review Feedback, Megan Heise

Journal of Response to Writing

This teaching tip build on scholarship around the disconnect between teacher expectations and student experiences of peer review (Ahmed, 2021). In particular, it frames writers' feedback preferences through Elbow and Belanoff's (2000) "kinds of responses," and encourages reviewers to hit the "sweet spot" of constructive and supportive feedback after reading DePeter (2020). This framing helps scaffold the "asks" of peer review for students in a situation that is often fraught, challenging, and/or confusing, providing teachers with an opportunity to effectively teach an important and relevant transferable skill.

Teaching Students To Close Read Feedback, Kristen Starkowski

Journal of Response to Writing

This article describes an exercise that can be implemented in a range of writing classrooms in order to help students unpack and craft a revision plan based on instructor or peer feedback that they received on their writing.

A Pen, A Pencil, Or A Keyboard: Writing Center Tutors’ Perceptions, Mirta Ramirez-Espinola

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

A Pen, A Pencil, or a Keyboard: Online Writing Center Tutors’ Perceptions

Author, Adjunct Faculty, Grand Canyon University

Abstract

Writing can be challenging for some students, even those who have graduated high school and are moving forward to higher learning. Thus, an idea about students and writing support led to a study about writing centers and the individuals responsible for supporting struggling writers. This qualitative case study explored the tutors’ perceptions of online writing tutoring and investigated how tutors perceive their work using both asynchronous and synchronous online tutoring modes at a 4-year university. Though the writing center participating in …

Responding To High Stakes Writing: When Six Colleagues Read One Cover Letter, Sarah Snyder, Mark Blaauw-Hara, Cristyn Elder, Joseph Janangelo, Michael Pemberton, Staci Perryman-Clark, Irwin Weiser

Journal of Response to Writing

As preparation for the rhetoric and composition job market becomes more readily available through multiple sources, some cover letter writers may find themselves confused by the well-meaning, but perhaps conflicting, responses to writing given by mentors from differing backgrounds, statuses, and epistemes. This article seeks to illuminate the rhetorical situation behind the cover letter with simulated writing responses to a genuine cover letter by five reader archetypes: a supportive reader, a critical reader, an outside reader, a teaching-centric reader, and a research-centric reader. Through this exercise, cover letter writers are shown how to weigh writing advice through the juxtaposition of …

Feedback Conversations: An Activity To Initiate Instructor-Student Dialogues About Writing Development, Sarah M. Lacy

Journal of Response to Writing

In this essay I discuss the pedagogical implications of a classroom activity in which students work reflectively with instructor feedback provided to their writing. Using the comments feature in Google Docs, these “Feedback Conversations” create a dialogue between student and instructor using feedback as the exigence for collaboration in developing a student’s writing process. This activity addresses the work of Anthony Edgington (2020) and Pamela Gay (1998), by offering an exercise which allows instructors to remain reflective on their feedback practices, while also instigating a “conversation” between student and instructor. By offering a virtual space to house this conversational exercise, …

Feedback Practices In Hybrid Writing Courses: Instructor Choices About Modality And Timing, Ariel M. Goldenthal, Jessica Matthews, Courtney Adams Wooten, Brian Fitzpatrick, Lourdes Fernandez

Journal of Response to Writing

Despite a wealth of research on feedback practices in synchronous and asynchronous courses, little has been done to investigate such practices in hybrid writing pedagogy. How do instructors make choices about providing feedback when both instructional modes are operating in a course?

A qualitative study conducted with fourteen instructors who teach hybrid writing courses at a large state university reveals how they navigate a series of choices about providing feedback on student writing. This study shows that instructional modality, use of the LMS, and labor conditions influence the decisions instructors make about how and when to provide feedback, especially on …

Ungrading In Art History: Grade Inflation, Student Engagement, And Social Equity, Lauren Disalvo, Nancy Ross

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

Traditional academic pedagogies require that professors assign students grades in a system that creates hierarchies of power of professor over student. This system assumes that grades serve as an intrinsic motivator for students to improve in an academic setting. Many studies suggest that professor-assigned grades do not function as assumed. This article explores one alternative to the traditional system, known as ungrading, a practice whereby students assign themselves grades after a semester of frequent feedback and reflective assignments. This study offers a thematic literature review of ungrading in many disciplines and a small study of ungrading in upper-division art history …

Language Learning Through Interaction: Online And In The Classroom, Andrew J. Demil, Rachel Kozikowski

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Online language teaching has become a popular alternative to classroom learning (Liu et al; Warschauer and Meskill). This led to research comparing the two learning environments (Young). Regardless of the learning environment, in order to be effective, the second language classroom must be designed to lead learners to acquisition. Studies suggest that collaborative tasks that push learners to negotiate meaning lead to acquisition (Leeser; Loewen and Erlam; Mackey and Philp; Stafford, Bowden, Sanz). Participants in this study were in two environments; a second language classroom in the typical in person classroom format, and a language learning course in an online …

Uptake Processes In Academic Genres: The Socialization Of An Advanced Academic Writer Through Feedback Activities, Shakil Rabbi

Journal of Response to Writing

Academic socialization has been a common framework in writing studies for decades. Recent scholarship on rhetorical genre studies and feedback on writing can develop this paradigm in generative ways. In particular, examining how writers take up feedback as they write in genres can inform how writing pedagogy understands such activities. This study examines and interprets the case of a graduate student as she works with in-person and textually mediated feedback in research group meetings and reviewers’ letters. Approaching graduate students as advanced academic writers—simultaneously performing the role of expert and learning the content needed to be a full member of …

Building Defender Nation Through The Alumni Council, Alicia Bowar

The Voice

No abstract provided.

Self-Reflective Practices: Application Among Sign Language Interpreters, Stephanie Sowa, Campbell Mcdermid

International Journal of Interpreter Education

This study examined self-reflective techniques used by English–American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters. While the literature on service industries suggests that self-reflective practices are beneficial(Goswell, 2012; Musolino, 2006), little empirical evidence of those benefits is found in the field of sign language interpreting(Dangerfield & Napier, 2016; Russell & Winston, 2014). Six interpreters were asked to complete an interpretation from American Sign Language into English. They then utilized a retrospective think-aloud protocol to assess their recorded target texts. The three novices focused on specific signs and errors while the three experts talked about the speaker’s goal. This reflects Russell and Winston’s(2014)findings in …

A Conversational Approach: Using Writing Center Pedagogy In Commenting For Transfer In The Classroom, Elizabeth Busekrus

Journal of Response to Writing

While some studies suggest that teachers’ written comments help students transfer writing skills across contexts (Wardle, 2007), the literature on feedback’s role in the transfer process has yet to be fully explored. Research has indicated that feedback that is intentional, specific, and reflective benefits students’ writing growth and the transfer process. To rethink this process of providing feedback, this article discusses how writing center principles can be applied to commenting for transfer in first-year composition and writing-intensive courses. Writing centers offer an individualized, student-centered, conversational approach to learning. Universities have incorporated the writing center into the classroom through writing fellows …

Creating The Climate And Space For Peer Review Within The Writing Classroom, Helen Dixon, Eleanor Hawe

Journal of Response to Writing

Substantive and ongoing critique of the quality of one’s writing is necessary if students are to experience writing as a recursive process. However, students’ willingness to critique their texts and those of others is dependent upon the creation of a trusting and mutually supportive learning environment. Using the naturalistic setting of an elementary school writing classroom, attention is drawn to the ways in which two teachers nurtured competence and communication trust (Reina & Reina, 2006) between themselves and students, and among students. Consideration is also paid to teachers’ creation and use of public and private spaces to promote interactions that …

Teachers’ (Formative) Feedback Practices In Efl Writing Classes In Norway, Drita Saliu-Abdulahi, Glenn Ole Hellekjær, Frøydis Hertzberg

Journal of Response to Writing

This qualitative study reports on teachers’ (formative) feedback practices in writing instruction. Observations and interviews were used to collect data from 10 upper-secondary school teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing classes in Norway. The findings indicate that while the teachers attempt to comply with the requirements of the national curriculum regarding formative assessment, and acknowledge the pivotal role of feedback in that pedagogy, the dominant tendency is still to deliver feedback to a finished text. As such, there is limited use of feedback for that text and no resubmission of the text for new assessment, while feedforward …

Audiovisual Commentary As A Way To Reduce Transactional Distance And Increase Teaching Presence In Online Writing Instruction: Student Perceptions And Preferences, Anna Grigoryan

Journal of Response to Writing

The rapid increase in online learning programs has led to an increase in the number of students taking composition courses online. As a result, there is a need to develop teaching practices and approaches to feedback designed specifically for online learning environments, which serve a largely nontraditional student population. Addressing a current gap in the literature regarding approaches to feedback that meet the needs of nontraditional students, this quasi-experimental study used a process model of composition and post-positivist and social constructivist epistemological orientations to measure student perceptions and preferences when provided with text-only feedback or a combination of textual and …

“I Could Express Feeling Completely”: Inviting L2 Writers To Use L1 In Peer Responses, Bee Chamcharatsri

Journal of Response to Writing

Peer response is one of the most important activities in writing classrooms because it provides a sense of audience to students. At the same time, students also receive feedback for revision. Asking L2 writers to use their L1s in providing feedback to their L1-speaking peers helps them gain confidence in peer response activities, which in turn gives them self-confidence in their writing proficiency. In this small-scale pilot project, L2 students were asked to reflect on their use of L1s providing both oral and written feedback. They reported that students felt they could express their feedback in a more meaningful way. …

“It’S A Two-Way Street”: Giving Feedback In A Teacher Writing Group, Lochran C. Fallon, Anne Elrod Whitney

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

Abstract: A consistent feature of teacher writing groups is the giving and receiving of feedback on writing. While there have been several studies that have explored the effects of receiving feedback on one's own writing, there have only been a few that explored the effects of providing feedback to others can have on a teacher’s own work. Drawing on interviews with teacher-writers who work together in a writing group, we conclude that giving feedback transforms the writing lives of all participants involved in the feedback process through experiences of reciprocity, involving claiming authority within a community of writers, developing …

The Role Of Collaboration And Feedback In Advancing Student Learning In Media Literacy And Video Production, Carl M. Casinghino

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Educators can learn many lessons as they implement collaborative project strategies, manage appropriate feedback, and measure communicative skill development in the media literacy classroom. This article examines case studies and learning outcomes in a high school digital production classroom taught by a veteran media literacy educator.

Living Out The Christian Faith In The Writing Classroom, Icy Lee

International Journal of Christianity and English Language Teaching

This article addresses three questions from the perspective of a Christian writing teacher educator: (1) How can we live out our Christian faith and values in the teaching of writing? (2) How can we help students become more aware of issues of spirituality and develop God-given abilities through writing? (3) How can we encourage students to write in ways that are pleasing to God? To address the first question, I draw mainly upon my own research on feedback and classroom writing assessment in L2 writing, as well as my experience as a writing teacher educator in Hong Kong, and address …