Flipping Feedback: Revising Peer Review

For several years in middle and secondary, along with the last year or so with freshman composition, I have held onto the belief that someone besides me needed to be the first eyes on a student's paper.  After all, students can read for clarity and expression, saving me the initial roughness that is the rough draft.  I have tried to create a writing environment that organically developed beyond what the peer review worksheets could do. Even though we would discuss feedback protocol and how to respond to each other's writing and what it looked like/sounded like,   

peer review sessions always fell flat.  

I did not realize what needed to change.  But then in the midst of reflecting on the fall semester and its false starts and mediocre ends I read "Teaching Writing as Journey, Not Destination" by Paul Thomas.  In this post, Thomas discusses student feedback from his composition courses.  Notably, his students wanted instructor comments on essays before working with peers.  Because I was in the beginning stages of planning spring's Composition II, the timing was right for rethinking draft due dates, turnaround times, peer feedback, and final papers.  

And now it was time for the first essay.  Instead of students bringing drafts to class for a peer review workshop, students printed their essays to turn in to me, an adjustment to my usual digital submission requirement.  I had thought about how students would access my comments the following week and discuss them with partners.  With the likelihood that some students would not have their laptops, I decided hand-written margin comments on hard copies would provide a tangible anchor for peer conversations. 

The next class, I began with a writing prompt asking students to tell about their previous experiences with peer feedback.  Predictably, they wrote about its ineffectiveness.  As I walked the room, I could see comments such as "waste of time." One student wrote, "My experiences with peer review is not telling them what the teacher can tell them."  

Students only trusted the person who assigned and graded their essays.

Another student commented, "I'm not a fan of peer review because I'm not good at giving feedback when reading an essay."  

Students did not trust others or themselves to be effective readers and responders.

After this opening activity, we discussed what they hoped to gain from the workshop and developed a peer feedback protocol.  Honesty topped the list.  Students desired honest feedback, which demonstrated they really wanted to improve their writing.  They also listed "praise," "offer ideas," "suggestions for revision/corrections," and "ask questions."  One student suggested the acronym TAG: Tell something good, Ask questions, and Give suggestions, which is similar to the Praise-Question-Polish protocol introduced to me in the Louisville Writing Project (an affiliate site of the National Writing Project).

Students read my comments and then reviewed these comments with peers while using the peer feedback protocol.  I heard conversations.  A few students did not turn in rough drafts the previous week; however, they either helped others with feedback or did as this student who said, "Although I didn't have commentary on my paper due to me not submitting my draft, I sat and listened to the others who did receive feedback and got a lot of help from that."  I learned from feedback at the end of class that, for the most part, students' experiences of peer reviews were both helpful and positive.  For the most part.  Yes, we still have a ways to go, but I feel confident that I made the right move for this first essay.  

Thank you to the many mentors out there who constantly help me re-envision my teaching.  

Missing the Leap: Removing Scaffolding too Quickly

For our first assignment in my freshman composition course, I wanted them to select an article of their interest and choosing to use for their discourse analysis.  After reading and discussing The Declaration of Independence the previous class, last week (our fourth class meeting together) students wrote a response to "What do you think the founding fathers intended the American Creed to be?" After a brief discussion and a too brief introduction to Padlet where we could capture our ideas, I asked my students to search for an article that connects to the themes we had identified in the historic document (e.g. equality, liberty, pursuit of happiness).

And the plan collapsed.

I watched my students attempt their (figurative) leap from incomplete scaffolding to grasp a crumbling ledge.  Students' hands popped up with questions in some parts of the room while elsewhere they sat gazing into their computers for answers.  The supplemental instructor and I visited students one on one, working our way around the room to coax students in the directions we had begun to travel the previous class period: topics such as free trade and the collapse of agreements, equality and the current questions about equal pay or discrimination, and freedom and the discussion of immigration and DACA. 

After bailing water the second half of class, I asked students to complete an exit slip with their topic of interest and the questions they had at that point. 

It was obvious to me that I needed to repair the scaffolding for this new group of students, but I was so stuck in what went wrong that I had difficulty focusing beyond the stack of slips with students' topics and questions.  Fortunately, chapter 7 of The Innovator's Mindset by George Couros (@gcouros) gave substance to my work.  His description of the eight things to look for in today's classroom gave me pause as I considered how I was creating opportunities for voice, choice, time for reflection, opportunities for innovation, critical thinking, problem solving, self-assessment, and connected learning. 

I wanted these characteristics in my classroom, but having already planned the end of the semester, I was missing the incremental steps of establishing the classroom culture that warmly invited students into these conversations and periods of reflection.  My intentions steamed ahead of community.  I attempted choice and critical thinking without building solid foundations that would make students' voices and connected learning meaningful.  Though it was mid-year for K-12 students and teachers, and a second semester continuation for my pre-service candidates, it was a new course and a fresh start for me and these freshman composition students.  I needed to know where they were so I could meet them there, something at this point in the year in my previous teaching positions I have not had to do.

The exit slips indicated that students needed much more assistance with finding articles.  I located ten articles that I hoped would honor students' interests while providing for rich analysis.  Categorized into general themes of liberty, equality, and pursuit of happiness with topics ranging from discrimination of people with disabilities to wage gaps to DACA to opportunities for happiness, articles would provide choice but in a way that kept this first assignment manageable.

This teaching mis-experience sank my spirits and no amount of positive interactions that day changed this feeling until I worked on a solution.  The bigger lesson from that day was this:  In the deepest part of me I want to be a good teacher, but more importantly I need to really see and know my students in order to do so.  Only then can we build a classroom in which we can solve these problems together.

Welcoming the Spring Semester

Welcome 2018!  

This new year and new semester prompted me to consider what I want to be and do in 2018.  Determined to be more and better in this year than I was in 2017, I began January 1 with reading, reflecting, and enjoying family time.  Each day is an opportunity to shape who I am and want to be.  My new and improved routine did not begin on January 2.  Some weeks into 2018 and the first week of spring classes, I'm still figuring out how to get up in time to stretch or have coffee, wake up children, read a news blog, make lunch, get ready for the day, and leave the house to drop off the high schooler before work.  After a few days of saying, "I think I need to start my day earlier," I reset my alarm.  Baby steps.

Many things stay the same when you work within an academic calendar.  I have ongoing projects with accreditation, research, and writing that stretch along the August-July continuum rather than the calendar year.  Yet, new classes in the spring semester revitalize me with opportunities for curricular revision.  And this semester, two pathways to enhance my understanding of students and partnerships have presented themselves in very different settings.  One is within my freshman composition course; the other is in my secondary English methods course.

The second semester Writing Studies delves into discourse communities, and in my particular learning community cohort the focus is civic engagement.  I began planning for this course in November while attending the National Writing Project Annual Meeting.  At that time, I was introduced to the PBS documentary American Creed and worked with instructors who had previewed the film and developed resources.  It was with even more good fortune that I learned the director of freshman composition at my university had received a grant for including service learning in the Writing Studies courses.  My course will analyze historical discourse, which will unfold as an exploration of today's discourse and the needs in our local communities.

My affiliation with the Illinois Writing Project and my participation with the National Writing Project College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP) placed tools in my hands that will deepen this exploration of discourses in the composition class.  These argument-writing resources provide a framework for putting texts in conversation with one another and a foothold for students to engage in these conversations with each other.  Being present, being open, and being responsive allowed me to make the connections necessary to plan this semester.  I hope that what the freshmen experience within the class is as meaningful as planning for them has been.

In my secondary English methods course, five teacher candidates are continuing their program that began last fall.  We weathered some obstacles in the fall course, including my attempt to add writing and research layers to an already packed schedule.  We tried writing personal pieces with little time to develop them.  We recorded teaching episodes but did not fully take advantage of the feedback feature that was available in the technology platform.  After experimentation that resulted in marginal (if any) success, I should have been hesitant to try anything new this spring.  However, I want to enrich the candidates' experiences in the program, and have prepared myself for the setbacks that might occur. 

It has been a dream of mine to recreate my graduate research assistant experience of assisting a middle grades methods course taught in a middle school, often utilizing technology for backchannel discussions about classroom observations.  At the least, I hoped for my candidates to observe in a school together at the same time so that we could unpack the observations in our weekly class sessions.  Though possibly more than I should have hoped for, I also wanted a classroom space within a high school.  I am thrilled that our new partnership with a local high school opens doors for that dream to become a reality.  We meet in our high school classroom next week.  As we discuss candidates' observations and unpack the assigned readings, it will feel different from our university campus space.  I want it to feel different.  High school is where they have chosen to be, and it is my responsibility to prepare them.  Surrounding ourselves with the high school culture is only the first step.

Baby steps.

Longing for Writing Space as an Early Career Researcher Professor

I woke this morning with the longing to write, the need to carve time for creativity, to voice the thoughts swirling around in the ether.  Simultaneously, university course work tugged at the coattails of a writing desire that has become more and more elusive over the past several weeks.  I wobbled against its weight.  The pull of grading, of announcements to students clarifying their questions, and of emails to colleagues scheduling meetings worked to stifle what I know to be true: if I do not write, I cannot teach writing, nor can I teach future teachers how to teach writing.

Attending the Illinois Reading Council (#IRC2016) reminded me of the passion I need to reignite: writing to discover new ideas and to nourish the ideas that have had little time to take root.  A small group of professors with the College Instructors of Reading Professionals answered questions, and more importantly offered much-needed encouragement in my pursuit of what fills me as a professional.  Anne Gregory with NIU said it best when describing how early she rises each morning to workout: "I deserve this . . . and you deserve the time for your passion." Deserve.  I deserve the time to write.  That one word shifted my thinking profoundly.

But it did not shift my ability.

In a late afternoon session yesterday, Ralph Fletcher showed us poetry and encouraged us to draft a few lines ourselves.  I stumbled.  My phrases were lackluster.  The poem ended awkwardly with no connection to Fletcher proposed be our final two lines.  And how I needed that punch to generate an image, an idea about a memory long past.  I could then, and now, feel the rusty spigot creaking little by little with each word.  No pressure except for the words pressing themselves against the narrow faucet opening.

When Kelly Gallagher spoke in his session about voluminous writing in the classroom, I nodded agreement.  How can students improve their writing and enhance idea generation, organization, and detail development without constant opportunities to experiment with craft and improve writing stamina?  His strategies for engaging students in low-pressure writing without increasing the grading workload should be easy to implement in any grade level.  In fact, I am eager to add his Reading Reasons to my collection of professional resources to become as well-referenced as so many other reading and writing experts.

But then, let's flip the voluminous writing concept back to us.

Are we creating the space--time and place--for low-pressure writing in our own professional and personal settings?  In a sense, everything I have written in the past several weeks has been for a "grade."  Grading students' essays and communicating with colleagues or partner schools via email are higher-pressure writings that become evaluated by the people who read them.  Likewise, reports, course syllabi, and students' degree study plans cannot receive failing grades.  I like having a job.

Blogging is that release for me.  Writing in this space solidifies the ethereal thoughts, giving them legs to stand on . . . and hands to shake loose whatever weight might be hanging onto the tails of this new coat I am trying on.

So tell me, how do you create the space for writing?  What do you recommend for early-career researchers and professors?  What helps you reignite writing when other weighty obligations begin to take over?

Being a Student Again

As a recent graduate, I have pondered my journey to completion and what it actually took to get here.  Even though the Louisville Writing Project Invitational Summer Institute hours applied toward my coursework, my official entrance into the doctoral program came the fall of 2011 with a seminar course.  For many students, I can imagine, their initial experiences in a program can determine their trajectory for the remainder of their studies.

This seminar introduction to deciphering qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods; writing literature reviews; and developing a path for research was akin to mental Olympics.  I felt pushed, pulled, and stretched in new, very demanding directions.  For the first time in a very long time, my brain felt out of shape.  For over seven years I had attended professional development, created innovative lessons, crunched impossible amounts of data, and learned how to be a more effective teacher, but none of these experiences trained me to run this marathon.

During that first semester, I remember wondering if I would ever learn it all.  Would or could I learn enough to earn a doctorate?  Fortunately, our professor named our fears and welcomed them.  He encouraged us to wrangle literature and make sense of published data.  My brain hurt.  I felt, well, dumb, and may have said as much to my classmates (and professor).  By the end of the semester, though more knowledgeable, we all had glazed eyes with expressions of "what the hell have I gotten myself into?!" plastered on our faces.

When I think about some of my attempts with data collection and analysis even closer to the end of my coursework a few years ago, I realize now the incredible patience my professors must have had.  For instance, only experienced researchers should attempt to record and analyze unstructured interview conversations and try to make sense of their contextual significance or explain that significance in class.  Thankfully, I learned from these experiences.  With guidance and understanding (surely everyone has early researcher mistake stories), my professors modeled what I hoped to become.

Being a student influenced my teacher lens in my middle school classroom.  I hope I became more sensitive to students' struggles, more flexible with my instructional approaches, clearer in my expectations.  At the minimum, I hope I found ways to stretch my students' brains.  For that reason, I encourage teachers to pursue higher education--a master's degree, endorsement or certification, or doctorate.  Enroll in MOOCs or a study group to which you are accountable in some way.  Be a student again.  Yes, we have well over eighteen years under our belts as students, but (sigh) that is the same argument we hear with members of legislature.  Becoming a student after being a teacher revealed insights I never would have discovered otherwise.  I promise it was worth it.

Terminal Degree as the Beginning

As I listened to Ashley Miller speak at the doctoral hooding ceremony about her fears of not graduating, of that dreaded email requiring one more course or one more draft, I realized how real my own fears had become.  The time-line of defending my dissertation at the end of March, addressing the committee's recommendations in early April, sending the revised draft to my adviser soon afterwards, submitting the final dissertation to the graduate school before April 22, and the ceremony on May 13, intensified these fears rather than relieved them.  And when I was in line to step onto the stage, I held back the urge to look inside the cardboard tube with the University of Louisville seal to see if anything was inside.

The ceremony marked the transition to "Doctor" as one to be taken with great responsibility.  Dr. Beth Boehm, vice provost for graduate affairs, assured our families that a terminal degree meant "the end"--no more coursework or dissertation drafts.  Yet, this journey is just beginning.  As doctoral students, we learned how to create new knowledge.  Through our doctoral programs, we discovered the needs within our communities.  Our new terminal degrees have positioned us as researchers, creators, and problem solvers.

Through courses in education and literacy theory, teaching writing, cognitive coaching, and qualitative research design and methods, I discovered the need for "small data."  I am prepared to analyze trends, identify learning gaps, and further disaggregate data as tiny lenses into education; yet, more exists to be seen and heard.  My dissertation research study narrated the stories of a teacher leadership team and the liaisons across the country who developed and implemented a Literacy Design Collaborative professional development workshop called Assignments Matter.  Narratives such as these show us effective ways into big data.  Teacher and student narratives help us see the faces behind the numbers.

Inspired by the speakers' encouraging words, my adviser Dr. Penny Howell's vote of confidence, and my professor Dr. Lori Norton-Meier's special congratulations, I enter the next phase of my education.  Empowered with the knowledge of how to create new knowledge, I attend to the literacy and professional development needs within education through organizations such the Illinois Writing Project.  And although I hesitated to add "Ph.D." to my C.V. until it was official, I now have a signed parchment that no one can take away from me--I'd like to see them try.

Career Crossroads with a Ph.D.

When I started the Ph.D. program nearly five years ago it was because I needed to know about literacy instruction, how it affected my middle school students, and how to do it better.  Fast forward four and a half years and see how the direction has shifted ever so slightly.  But a few degrees on the compass changes everything.

My dissertation, successfully defended on March 28, 2016, documented a narrative inquiry study about planning professional development.  Interest in literacy instruction and student motivation led to studying those topics, but this interest also led to presenting at conferences, co-facilitating institutes, and planning large-scale professional development to be implemented across the country.  My friend and colleague in the National Writing Project who I worked with in the most recent planning adventure has often said that teaching her high school students fills her.  That is partially true of me, too.  But more so, being with other teachers as we plan, work through school demands, and become smarter together fills me.

Knowing I belong in a professional development or adult-learning career, I have applied to various universities within the metro area.  I also keep my eyes open for curriculum positions.  So today I come to a crossroads in my career.  As I consider my family and the ages of my children, the idea of commuting to a university in downtown Chicago makes me queasy.  I continue to apply for positions at these institutions of higher learning because I am passionate about teaching pre- and in-service teachers.  However, commuting to satellite campuses and teaching online courses are my best family-friendly options.  Unfortunately, a newly-minted Ph.D. cannot (or should not?) make demands such as these.

Nervous and scared of the unknown, I began applying to the local school districts when junior high language arts position openings started appearing.  After teaching 8th grade in Kentucky for ten years, this feels safe to me.  No matter what I tell myself about needing some Illinois classroom experience or getting known in a school district, it is safe. Period.  My whole family would continue comfortably within my comfort zone (and theirs, too) if I return to the middle school/junior high classroom.

A few degrees on my compass has changed my direction and now I'm facing risks, a scary unknown.  I realize now that I should embrace the words spoken by the director of national programs at the National Writing Project during our recent initiative:

You know it's scary but you keep having these experiences where you walk up to that scariness and then you do it and then you're on the other side of it and you realize you can do things you didn't know you could do.

Am I ready to walk up this new pathway?  Is my family ready for the scariness of possible commutes, irregular hours, unpredictable pay?

It's time to decide.  My next interview is in just a few hours and I need to prepare my answer if offered a position.