Online Tools for Writing Instruction
Presented by Mark Sursavage, Assistant Director of the Writing Center
The University of Houston Writing Center
- Meet individually with students
- Partner with departments for specific classes & projects
- Conduct workshops, orientations & writing institutes
- Provide teaching & training for students, TA's & faculty
Involvement with Online Writing Instruction (OWI)
- Synchronous, online one-on-one consultations
- Asynchronous support of classes & programs
- TA training for online writing studio groups
- Training & mentoring for instructors of fully online classes
Addressing the limitations & affordances of writing online
Opportunities of writing online:
Complications of writing online:
- Allows time to further develop ideas through asynchronous communication
- Limits accuracy of expression when students' writing is not as advanced as their thinking
- Provides easy access to numerous resources while students compose
- Means that students' understanding of material is largely based on their reading skills
- Increases the amount that students write
- Allows for greater instructor control of when information is presented to students
- Adds responsibilities for the instructor: clarity & design of instructions, course/assignment layout, more to read & more responses to make
- Makes quiet students' voices louder
Our objective: make the most of the opportunities
and limit the complications
Scaffolding & sequencing assignments to teach writing
Discussion Board Options
Using specific online tools to teach writing
Why are options particularly important for discussion boards?
Use tools with a specific purpose and make that apparent to students
- Often the main area of interaction in online components of classes
High stakes vs. low stakes writing
Scaffolding
- Building assignments to use prior activities & knowledge to reflect a process of thinking & writing
- How a task is structured affects students' ability to take risks & to learn (Wood, et al; Vygotsky)
- Much easier if tools are being used for specific, overt purposes
- "Low stakes writing is often informal and tends to be graded informally" (Elbow)
- Can be scaffolded with other tools very effectively because of their flexibility
- Not actually a (synchronous, auditory) discussion
- High stakes writing is needed to "reflect whether students actually understand what we want them to understand" and can "articulate in writing what they have learned"
- The discussion board is not actually where discussion happens, it's where writing happens: Different relationship to time - asynchronous Different medium - digital writing
Public vs. private writing
- Some types of writing are composed for a broad audience or purpose, some for a very specific group or purpose
Sequencing
- Breaking major assignments into multiple smaller assignments that can be assembled to form a cohesive whole
- Writing instructions that overtly addresses students' processes is effective (Baker, et al; Collins; Lacina & Block)
- Much easier if major assignments are constructed with the multiple steps of writing processes in mind
Because just as writing assignments are used for different purposes, the function of the discussion board should shift, and this should be made apparent to students
- Assignments "which do not incorporate peer readership appear to compel students to take more personal risks and engage in emotional labor to process assigned materials." Those that do incorporate peer readership "enable students to take more intellectual risks and engage in logical mental endeavors." (Foster, emphasis in the original)
Identify the purpose of your discussion board
Brainstorming or developing ideas
- You could construct an open-ended prompt that begins in your course material & moves to students' own ideas
Making connections
- You could require students to compare & contrast two or more ideas or texts that you've been teaching
What that might mean for your class:
An example of scaffolding:
Demonstrating expertise
- You could require a student to make an argument & provide documented support
Private, low stakes writing in a journal
- Students are given a major assignment
Drafting a paper
- You could ask students to provide drafts or parts of paper as they write
- Full class discussion board used for brainstorming
Reflecting on a paper or assignment
- You could request that students make observations or self-assessments regarding a recently completed task
- Group discussion board used to peer review sources
The best assignments combine scaffolding & sequencing
- Blog used to preview a paper's thesis
Identify your role in the discussion board
Public, low stakes writing in a blog
- Final draft submitted to Turnitin
Consider Week 12 of the previous assignment:
Relevance of findings presented to classmates & feedback contributes to "Discussion"
You can interact with students:
- To respond directly to a question
- To model types of thinking or writing
- Private journal entry responds to instructor's feedback & sets goals for the next paper
- To summarize a conversation or make connections
- To extend the discussion, perhaps even beyond the discussion board
(adapted from Scott Warnock)
Make the purpose of the discussion board clear to students and you're able to adjust your role to fit it
An example of sequencing:
Multimodal presentation for public, high stakes writing
How could this be scaffolded?
- Week 11: Students share their results & tentative significance in a group discussion board post, peers respond with connections & other possibilities
- Week 12: Writer selects most pertinent points & submits them to instructor
- Week 13: Instructor checks for completions & identifies the one main change needed
- Week 14: Student journal identifies how the change will be addressed & the student's plan for combining the parts into the final draft
A class in the social sciences has one major paper that worth 50% of the semester grade
Identify the criteria of the discussion board
Provide clear expectations beforehand
A traditional essay for private, high stakes writing
Broken down to reflect the multiple steps in the writing process, it might look something like this:
- Week 4: Students select topics for approval for a completion grade
- Week 6: Literature reviews undergo peer review & are then submitted to the instructor for 5% of the course grade
- Week 9: Methodology identified in mock IRB review for 5% of the grade
- Week 12: Relevance of findings presented in peer review, written up and submitted as "Discussion" for a completion grade
- Exams: Revised version of the whole paper with introduction added is submitted for 40% of the course grade
Provide clear expectations for grading
Examples from Scott Warnock's Teaching Writing Online
Objective: Students work on drafts of their papers, revise & understand their writing as a process with many stages
Objective: Students learn to navigate audiences & genres simultaneously,
& being overt with these parameters encourages metacognition
Objective: Students learn that writing is context-specific by
adjusting to the purpose and criteria of the assignment
How the Writing Center can help
- Consult & provide feedback on paper prompts & writing assignment design, including using online tools, scaffolding & sequencing assignments
- Set up project-based support with Writing Center consultants meeting with students at crucial steps in the writing process
- Arrange for Writing Center consultants to interact with your students online to discuss writing or interact with your students & their drafts
Additional Resources
My contact info:
Mark Sursavage
mdsursav@central.uh.edu
743.3017
217 Classroom & Business Building
Scott Warnock Teaching Writing Online Beth Hewett The Online Writing Conference
& Reading to Learn & Writing to Teach
CCCC's Position Statement on Online
Writing Instruction