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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

Major Assignment

  • Often the main area of interaction in online components of classes

Assignment 4

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

Assignment 3

  • "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

Assignment 2

  • Not actually a (synchronous, auditory) discussion

Assignment 1

  • 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

Final Paper

  • 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

Paper 2

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)

Paper 1

Paper 3

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 raise a question
  • To respond directly to a question
  • To state a position
  • To model types of thinking or writing
  • Private journal entry responds to instructor's feedback & sets goals for the next paper
  • To offer a correction
  • 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

Major Paper

An example of sequencing:

Multimodal presentation for public, high stakes writing

Intro

Exams

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

Methods

Week 9

A class in the social sciences has one major paper that worth 50% of the semester grade

Lit

Review

Week 6

Discussion

Week 12

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

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