where legends are made

Pedagogy, Practices, Principles

The FWP has a set of ‘outcomes’ shown on all syllabi (that is, these are baked in). An outcome is a result, or in this case, a set of desired results. By the end of each semester, we hope that our First-Year Writing students will have achieved the following:

  • Develop a repertoire of diverse rhetorical strategies that will enable them to assess and appropriately respond to each assignment’s genre, audience, and purpose;
  • Demonstrate in writing a strong command of critical thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, interpretation, and evaluation;
  • Compose essays by working through multiple drafts; by participating in opportunities for peer and instructor feedback; by applying that feedback in revisions; and, in general, treating the composition of any written text as a deliberate and recursive process;
  • Employ language, formatting, and citation conventions in a manner appropriate to assignment and genre; and
  • Reflect, in writing, on their development as writers.
  • EN 102, 103 and 104 also include the following outcomes:
  • Locate assignment-appropriate sources in the library and online; and
  • Synthesize ethically summarized, paraphrased, and quoted source material into academic arguments.

These outcomes should be familiar to you, because you practice them on a regular basis, even if you don’t use the above language to describe them. You write in different ways for different purposes for different audiences: That’s ‘diverse rhetorical strategies,’ and that’s why our program spans several genres, ranging from creative to academic. You write thoughtfully (‘critical thinking’). You revise, over and over. You consider sentence-level practices, or what some folks like to call conventions or standards. That is to say, you might not capitalize in a poem or text, but you will in a formal letter of application. But that’s just the beginning. As Horner et al note,

We can and should teach standards, but precisely as historical, variable, and negotiable. This will help to demystify (and lessen confusion among students about) what these standards are, and will make students feel a greater sense of responsibility, as writers, for the writing practices they engage in. (See Horner et al, “Language Difference in Writing”).

And you’re always, always, always thinking about what you’ve written, and how it measures up, or doesn’t measure up, and how that reflects your own growth and development as a writer.

So in teaching First-Year Writing, you are—conceptually, at least—formalizing much of your current practices as a writer. And you are sharing those practices with your students, and in so doing helping them understand not only how college-level writing works, but also how they function as writers. They may not understand that right now. They may claim to loathe and despise writing. But that’s just where you come in. You are helping them begin to identify, however tentatively, and often for the first time, as writers.

Let’s unpack that—not in the spirit of making things more complicated, but just the opposite. To achieve these outcomes, you’ll put five key classroom practices into play:

  • a caring and supportive classroom environment,
  • the use of student texts as primary texts,
  • discussion,
  • drafting,
  • and ongoing reflection.

These are not very complicated moves—and you’ll find yourself repeating them, day in, day out.  These moves privilege the daily give-and-take of a working classroom, regardless of configuration; they construct the writing classroom as a space for writers, as a site of care and craft and conversation, of support and challenge, of messiness, discovery, and innovation. I think it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of these simple, familiar truths that dwell at the very heart of the teaching profession.

Our program devotes the first semester to forms of personal narrative (such as memoir and literacy narratives), research-based creative nonfiction (profiles), and research-based argument (evaluations). Second semester is given over to inquiry-based research projects, in which students articulate their own interests and develop research strategies to explore those interests.

Why this assignment sequence? In 101, we wish to help students become more comfortable and confident writing in the first person and in genres that may be unfamiliar to them. In 102, we wish to help students draw links between their own interests and how those interests might be leveraged to inform research projects. In both semesters, we wish to position the students as authors so that they can identify as writers, and in so doing carry with them several writerly skills that will serve them well: an awareness of ever-shifting rhetorical contingencies, the courage to create, the ability to give and receive constructive criticism, and above all, attention to their own writing processes.

On to practices!

 

A classroom is a special place, walled off in a sense from the rest of the world, yet very much attuned to it, a product of it. A classroom isn’t just dedicated space with desks and whiteboards, or a set of digital affordances. It’s people, you, and your students, working through myriad processes in order to accomplish certain goals. And people are complicated, messy, frustrating, fun; they bring joy, pain, brilliance and lassitude. They make us laugh and worry; they bring us down to earth; they challenge us; they make all the difference. The more we remember that we are working with people, first and foremost, the more enriching, engaging, educative experience we’ll have as teachers.

To begin: We learn from those we trust. Whether online or face-to-face, students thrive in accessible, inclusive classroom environments in which they feel trust because they are supported, affirmed, and included. You can build an accessible, inclusive classroom environment from day one—from before day one. First-Year Writing has included many inclusive policies on its standard syllabi, and you are encouraged to consult the following materials to help frame your classroom environment and teaching practice in terms of diversity, access, and inclusion (DEI).

Communications. Provide your students with a letter introducing yourself and the course on day one. Talk about course goals and practices (ie, regular in-class writing); mention your own writing; and share a few things that you are comfortable sharing about yourself (a hobby, favorite authors, music). Ask them to write back to you, and model their letters on yours. Indicate that they should share only what they are comfortable sharing. And learn your students’ names as quickly as possible by having them sit in the same seats every day, at least for the first couple of weeks of class. Create a seating chart, and call on them by name.

See https://uateachingacademy.ua.edu/teaching-topics/ for useful resources.

Remember that as you draft your syllabus, you are helping build your classroom environment. So:

Watch your language. There’s a world of difference in moving from the second and third person (‘you,’ ‘student’) to the first (‘I,’ ‘we’). Second and third person pronouns distance you from your students; first person pronouns begin to bring you together in a professional relationship, in a ‘with’ relationship, a ‘common’ sense.

For a philosophical take on intersubjectivity, please watch this video by Philosophy Channel Ph.

Pay attention to policies. Many of these are shared by the program, and as such are hard baked into your OIRA syllabus (attendance is one example). Others are not. One of these is the ‘hard baked’ policies is the attendance policy, as shown below.

Availability/Office Hours. Work out your availability outside of class (which is a must; students will often have questions they won’t ask in class, but will ask you one-to-one): Where and when? How will you phrase/present this information? Does ‘office hours’ convey what you wish it to convey? Students highly value instructor accessibility outside of regular class time.

The FWP does not require you to hold office hours for a certain number of hours.

We’ve found that if you indicate that you are available ‘by appointment,’ that’s usually enough. Often we find that students fail to take advantage of office hours when they could really benefit. Don’t hesitate to make at least one round of student-teacher conferences mandatory (and in lieu of regular class). Students may learn the benefit of one-to-one work through this requirement, and henceforth may be intrinsically motivated to make their own appointments with you.

For more on intrinsic motivation: https://www.developgoodhabits.com/intrinsic-motivation-examples/

Classroom etiquette. Work out a collectively authored class etiquette statement. This makes civility and respect a shared responsibility.

Disability statement. The following can be added to the standard disability statement:

My course is intended to be inclusive for all University of Alabama students.  If you have any kind of disability, whether apparent or non-apparent, learning, emotional, physical, or cognitive, and you need accommodations or alternatives to lectures, assignments, or exams, please feel free to contact me to discuss reasonable accommodations for your access needs.  If, at any point in the term, you find yourself not able to fully access the space, content, and experience of this course you are welcome to contact me by email, phone, or during office hours to discuss your specific needs.

I also encourage you to contact the Office of Disability Services (Office of Disability Services, 1000 Houser Hall; 205 348-4285; 205-348-3081 – TTY; ods@ua.edu).  If you have a diagnosis, ODS can help you document your needs and create an accommodation plan. By making a plan through ODS you can ensure appropriate accommodations without disclosing your condition or diagnosis to course instructors.

Diversity statement. We ask that you add a diversity statement, such as the one shown below, to your syllabus:

One of the University of Alabama’s greatest strengths is our diverse student body.  Together we represent regional, international, racial, gender, physical, cognitive, socio-economic, cultural, and religious diversity; bringing these diverse perspectives together in the classroom is a valuable resource and opportunity for us to understand and learn from our campus community.  To ensure that all perspectives/identities/worldviews are respected and valued in class, please note the following:

Please let me know if something said or done in the classroom, by either myself or others, causes offense or discomfort. Likewise, please let me know if something outside of class is preventing you from fully engaging with the course.

Please offer your viewpoints!  If you have a question or concern, chances are another student in the class is having a similar experience.  By speaking up (either in class, privately via email or office hours, or anonymously) you are potentially helping your classmates.  If you do not feel comfortable discussing the issue with me, please notify your advisor, a trusted faculty member, or a peer.  I encourage you to advocate for an inclusive experience at the University of Alabama.

Should you need assistance in acquiring or accessing course materials (technology and books, for example) please speak with me privately.  I am happy to provide assistance so that all students have access to required materials.

Basic needs statement. Please include the following as well:

If you are facing challenges securing food or housing and believe this will affect your performance, please speak with me privately, and I’ll direct you to resources.

 

When we think of a model in a writing classroom, we’re usually thinking of a model text, an aspirational piece of writing that gives students a sense of what to aim for as they write.

That’s a really important aspect of teaching, to be sure, but in light of current events I want you to first think first of yourselves as models of listening, empathy, and support. You are teaching in difficult times, so position yourself as someone who is empathetic, listening, available: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/crisis/

Next, use model texts—texts that in some way demonstrate the features that you are trying to teach. Begin with your assignment sheet—you’ll see assignment templates, one for each unit, in the standard syllabus, available at www.fwp.english.ua.edu/instructors/syllabus.

On the assignment sheet, locate the key features you’ll be teaching. For example, if you’re teaching a memoir, you may wish to emphasize vivid detail, a well-told story, and clear significance. These will be your focal points for the coming unit. Next, find an example of a memoir that exemplifies these qualities. There are several in the collection of student writing in Wavelength. (A bonus for using these: students respond better to each other’s writing than they do to professionally authored works).

As you prepare, find examples of vivid detail, significance, and a well-told story in the memoir you’ve chosen. It would be all very well and good for you to lecture your students on these key features, and you certainly could; but you will want to up the floor to discussion (which we’ll detail shortly). But for a more active learning strategy, you might consider pairing up your students and encouraging them to find clear examples of good detail, significance, and the narrative elements that make an essay like ‘Hide and Seek’ (see the ‘Students’ tab) such a strong read. Give each group time to work and discuss—not too much time; five minutes or so—and then bring everyone back together. Go around the room. Hear from each group. Write their contributions on the board. Note trends, patterns, similarities, linkages between their responses. Spend time discussing what makes a memoir (or a work in any genre) an example or manifestation of that specific genre. What are the ‘rules’ of the genre? How do we acknowledge, negotiate, extend, even violate those rules in order to accomplish our purpose as writers?

And this is a discussion you can revisit periodically throughout the semester.

Derive or distill assessment criteria for each assignment from those discussions, use it on your assignment sheets and in your grading, and apply those criteria to ‘Hide and Seek’ or any piece of writing you come across this semester. You’ll be surprised at how much students bring to that discussion. Ask them: Why these criteria, and not those? Where does writing sample ‘x’ meet these criteria, and to what extent? What could the writer have done to have better fulfilled those criteria? And: What of the labor a writer invests in their work? Should that count, and how should it? Be prepared to let these criteria evolve, breathe, throughout the semester, as your students become increasingly invested in the course.

Then, and this is big: Ask them to think about these features within their own memoirs. What details will help them tell their story? Why do they want to tell their stories (other than for the sake of a grade on a college paper)? How will they tell their stories? Form follows function.

Let’s think more broadly and name what we’re actually doing here: We are talking about assessment, and we are inviting our students into that conversation. Assessment should not be something only you do. This places you and only you in the position of judge and jury, which maybe accounts for some of the discomfort (if not opprobrium) we very often feel when we switch from ‘teaching’ to ‘grading’ mode. Assessment, and I cannot make this point strongly enough, should be a shared endeavor, shared labor, something everyone in your class does, something that’s not at all mysterious, something that is a completely open and transparent process.

This is to say: Your students should be involved in the work of determining assessment criteria. By giving them a stake in the assessment process, you are helping them better understand how best to examine and understand and critique their own work. This in turn means that they will be better positioned to craft their work in a manner informed by collectively agreed upon practices. This is not to say I’m letting you off the hook for determining grades (at the same time, I’m going to be encouraging contract grading, which will I hope remove a lot of this pressure; more on this below). But because assessment is so vital, so integral to the daily and ongoing work of writers, I am encouraging you to hard bake it into your curriculum. Your students, in short, should be assessing their work on a continual and ongoing basis—in the same way that when you write, you are assessing your work. In this manner, again, students gain agency as composers and critics. Asao Inoue’s work is instrumental to this discussion; I encourage you to take a look at his work, as noted below.

Use time in class for writing—set your students loose on building, say, a specific scene within their memoirs. Give twenty minutes or so. Ask for volunteers to share their work. Ask all listening to just listen, without judgement, just to hear, to get a sense of the kind of ideas that are in circulation. You’ll often find that students need to hear each other’s work so that they get a sense of how the assignment is being interpreted and acted upon. They find this very reassuring; it helps build their confidence and creativity, and as per my discussion of assessment, above, moments like this can contribute to that conversation.

Repeat this exercise as often as possible: Identify the criteria you want to teach, find it in a text (preferably written by a student), ask students to discuss it, have students write in the same vein, ask volunteers to share their work, ask everyone else to listen, let the young writers in your class be inspired, and so forth.

Additional resource:  Whitaker—‘Best Practices in Teaching Writing’ 

 

To build on much of what I’ve already noted in the ‘Modeling’ section, I’m going to ask you to think of yourself as a facilitator of active learning, someone who, instead of trying to have all the answers, helps students become active agents in their own learning. Here’s what we mean by ‘active learning’: You’re helping your students develop skills, and engage in work that helps them think, and, at the end of the day, come out of your class with a surer, more confident sense of themselves as writers. Active learning is ‘doing’ learning. Contrast this with a lecture-based model, in which you are spending hours preparing notes and reading them in a room full of young people who probably aren’t even listening.

To learn more, visit https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/active-learning/

And to learn more about how to set up a classroom in which active learning can more naturally occur, visit https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/20-ways-to-setup-a-classroom-to-help-your-students-think/ and https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/learning-spaces/

As you work to develop active learning teaching strategies, consider a few of these.

And these:  ‘Interactive Techniques’

And these: “The Dreaded Discussion.”

Note that while some of the content is a little out of date, the techniques stand the test of time.

Discussion also occurs in three additional settings: instructor conferences, peer reviews, and in-class writing workshops. Let’s go one at a time, beginning with…

Instructor Conferences

Take a week for a round of conferences, and plan on one round of conferences per unit. Conferences should take the place of class, and should be mandatory. Be sure that your students understand that class is not canceled during conference week. Class will instead take a different form—one-to-one instruction, which is one of the most powerful forms of teaching there is.

Take care to meet only during weekdays (no weekends), and only on campus, and only in public areas (if you’re Zooming, of course, this is a moot point). I say ‘mandatory’ because many students will not come visit you otherwise. Again, that’s not you; you’ll find that many of your students don’t yet understand the value of speaking with their instructors outside of class. I hope that after visiting with you and experiencing firsthand the value of such an exchange, students will clamor for appointments!

Your student should bring a draft (I ask for something manageable, something I can get through quickly, something in the neighborhood of 250-500 words) and any question she has about it.  You’ll skim her draft, and use your reading to answer her question. She’ll respond to you. This should take no more than ten minutes per student.

A variation: You might break students into groups of two or three, and have small conferences with each group. I’ve found that this strategy really helps students learn to talk about writing with each other in a low-stakes environment. You can do this during regular class time as well.

Whatever conference format you choose, the time you spend with your students should not be an extensive editing session, but, instead, a way for you and your students to begin building your working relationship—which is to say, you are going to be learning how communicate with, and ultimately trust, each other. This may also be the first time your student has been asked to talk about her written work, and it may be the first time you’ve been asked to offer oral feedback on written work. (This may look like no big deal, but in reality, it is a pretty big deal!).

I should note, too, that conferences actually save you considerable time when grading, as you will be giving feedback in process, when the student is motivated to create the strongest possible draft—not when the draft is complete. Along these lines, conferencing helps ensure that the papers you do grade will be much stronger. Additionally, conferences can help you identify issues in your students’ work, such as struggles with synthesizing information and citation format. This may help cut down on issues with unintentional or intentional plagiarism.

Conferences will be vital if you’re using grading contracts, because in that model, these moments become a primary mode of teaching. With grading contracts, in other words, you de-emphasize/defer the grade and instead emphasize the opportunities for ongoing, instructive discussion that conferences can provide.

For some more information about holding productive conferences, please see ‘The Listening Eye’

This resource from the National Council of Teachers of English is also useful.

Peer Review

Peer review is a powerful tool for teaching writing, as it gives students practice in listening and responding critically to each other’s work. As you know, this sort of critical acumen is vital to any writer’s growth: which is to say, learning to critique makes us better creators. Peer review helps us better understand what works and what doesn’t in any given piece of writing. Peer review makes us more attuned to how other writers think. Peer review compels us to reflect on our own practices.

A good peer reviewer, in sum, contributes to knowledge: knowledge of a written work, as well as how writers work.

If you’d like to dig deeper into how peer review can function as a form of formative assessment, the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning at University of Indiana provides this resource.

A problem with peer review, however, is that many students don’t trust it; they feel that responding to their work is your job, not their classmates. And they have a point, as many peer reviews (and here I encourage you to read the articles referenced below) lack structure, clear outcomes, and a sense of strategy. With the articles shown below, I suggest making the goals of each peer review session abundantly clear, and I suggest you ask each peer reviewer to summarize their session in writing.

I like to start small, with the assumption that most students have not had positive past experiences with peer reviews. I group students into twos, and ask each student to read her draft to her peer. That’s all for session one. I want them to experience the work of sharing the same words (out loud) at the same time. And I want them to listen without prejudice, without comment—again, just to get the experience of sharing words with each other.

In a subsequent session, often in the very next period, I’ll ask them to share drafts again, but this time I’ll ask them to indicate just one thing, one specific thing, they like about their peer’s work. Specificity is key. They can’t just say ‘I liked it.’ They have to indicate what they liked, and where they liked is on the page, and why they liked it.

In the next session, I’ll ask them to read aloud to each other (note that I am saying ‘read aloud,’ and note that I am not saying ‘exchange drafts’—they need to hear each other’s words, and they need to focus solely on one draft at a time), and then to indicate a like, and where, and why, and then ask a question: about something that happened, something that was unclear, something that didn’t quite seem to work, etc., and indicate, again, what, where, why. And so on.

As you move forward, you’ll find your students gaining more confidence in this process, and you’ll find that they know their own drafts, and each other’s drafts, quite well. You should in turn build peer reviews around the very material you’re teaching, so go back to your assignment sheet and work out just what it is you’re teaching in this unit, and adapt your peer review to that. (This probably won’t happen until at least unit two, because don’t forget: You’re teaching not only ‘peer review’ but the process of peer review, and that takes time and patience).

Also see:

Brammer and Rees, ‘Peer Review from the Student’s Perspective’
Nilson, ‘Improving Student Peer Feedback’

Workshops

The purpose of a workshop is to use student work in progress to model, comment upon, and emphasize/constructively critique writing practice.  Share portions of 2-3 student drafts with the class. You will have students who will want to share—you will. The key is how you ask. You can ask for volunteers in front of the whole class, but that may not always work. You may wish to consider approaching students individually, before or after class, during the week before your next workshop, and gauge their interest. You might do this during conferences—often students who are making good progress, and sometimes those who are struggling, will welcome this opportunity to receive peer feedback.

At the start of workshop, ask each student, in turn, to comment on her vision and process, and ask each student, in turn, to raise any questions about her work for the rest of the class to discuss (ie, ‘How can I make it ‘flow’ better?’ ‘Can you understand the what I’m trying to convey here?’). Read that portion of the student’s work aloud, and ask the rest of the class for feedback (this may be a good time to talk about what constructive criticism is). Have your students short writing prompt at the end of the activity, indicating their takeaways. You’ll find that all students benefit. Those who’ve shared their work will have some obvious takeaways, but those who haven’t shared will also leave class with a stronger sense of you, their teacher, as a reading audience—your preferences, your idiosyncrasies. And all will have a better sense of what it means to talk about written work in progress.

For concrete, actionable workshop strategies, you may wish to consult: https://performingineducation.com/how-to-run-a-successful-writers-workshop/

I recognize that the author of the above piece works with a different age group, but the workshop principles the author discusses transfer easily to college writing classrooms: mini lessons, independent work, sharing work, more independent work, and wrap-up. Repeat so that students become comfortable with and even anticipate this process.

 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t begin this section with Donald Murray, who along with Peter Elbow has been instrumental to my own pedagogy. Murray asks us to remember that writing is a process, a truism to which we might say, ‘So what?’ Yet Murray breaks that process down in a manner that is easy to understand and, to an extent, easy to teach. I say ‘to an extent’ because teaching as per Murray means we need to remove a lot of the preconceptions we may have about how teachers, students, and classrooms actually function—or ‘particularly’ function, within the context of writing instruction.

Murray reminds us that writing is a process that we need to be present to at all times. This sounds simple, but it isn’t. Writers need to write—each and every period—and teachers need to understand that that writing can and will be messy, experimental, searching. It’s not linear, and it often has a mind of its own. And that’s OK. Our job is to support our student-writers as they begin making their way into college-level discourse communities. We need to plunge recklessly ahead with them, and be prepared to pull back as they realize that whoops, that was a false start. We need to help them celebrate their triumphs—if only a well-chosen word, or the mere germ of an idea—and move on from miscues.

Murray builds on this by telling us that the primary text in a writing course should be student writing. Period. Don’t waste your students’ time with the latest thing you read in The Atlantic. I promise you, I swear by all that is true and dear to me, they won’t read it and they won’t care. Let them read each other’s work. Let that work be the grist of your class’s mill. Murray teaches us that students should find their own subjects, write using their own language and in their own voices (and our assignment sequence allows this), write as much as possible until they find their subjects and their appropriate treatments of those subjects. Murray reminds us that students are individuals, each of whom needs to practice writing somewhat differently, and that’s OK. For Murray, the drafting process is never complete, and is comprised not of absolutes but alternatives.

Read his essay here: ‘Teach Writing as a Process not Product’

Let me also suggest creating writing peers, or writing partners, or creating peer writing groups. This can create a sense of accountability among your students, which may be of particular value in a hybrid or online setting. Peer writing groups can improve students’ knowledge, attitudes and skills. They create opportunities for collaboration and involvement, and help students learn to communicate about writing: provided, of course, that purposes and roles are clearly defined.

Learn more in Wendy Bishop’s “Helping Peer Writing Groups Succeed”

And you may wish to consider the following resources on revising, courtesy of XFA Chase Burke:

Revision Advice from the Judge’s Table

Becoming Your Own Best Critic

Not Every Sentence Can Be Great But Every Sentence Must Be Good

Locating an Essay’s DNA

 

When you write, you’re in a perpetual state of reflection. You reflect on your ideas, your expression of those ideas, your potential readers and their potential reception of your ideas, and so forth. Reflection is a highly rhetorical act, one that takes into account message, purpose, audience, and messenger, sometimes simultaneously. Much the same can be said about teaching writing. The classroom should be a space of ongoing reflection, often on a daily basis—student writers need to think about what they’ve learned, and what they need to learn, and they need to reflect carefully on what their writing, and the writing of their classmates, teaches them. By inviting your students to reflect, you’re inviting them to grow as writers. See The Transformative Power of Reflection in Nonfiction.

Reflection, again, should be ongoing, a daily task. I often ask my students to write for a few minutes at the start of class and indicate how much progress they’ve made on their essays, and where they feel they could use some additional assistance or specific strategies. Sometimes I’ll collect their writing and teach an entire class around the issues they’ve raised…you can call this crowdsourced teaching, or on-demand teaching. A more sophisticated extension of this model is called ‘just in time teaching’. 

You can ask students to reflect after any class activity, such as a peer review (what did they do? how did they do it? what did they learn? how will they apply what they learned to their work in progress?); prior to starting a new writing assignment (what are their concerns? what do they feel most prepared to handle?); just before turning in that writing assignment (what did they do well? what still needs work? if they had 24 more hours, what would they work on?); at the start of the semester (what are their habits of mind?; what habits of mind would they like to develop in your course?); and of course, at the end of the semester (to what extent have they met the course outcomes? what are their strengths as writers? what would they like to work on in the future?).

Reflection can scaffold the entire semester. I often like to use instructor conferences to encourage students to reflect on their work in progress, and tell me what they think is working well and what needs to work better. I can then tailor my responses accordingly. And my students always surprise me with the depth of their knowledge of their own written work. They often know it better than I thought, and that ability to see it clearly helps drive their continued drafting.

One of my favorite forms of reflection—and one that saves me enormous amounts of time when I grade—is a dialogic self-assessment. In this document I ask students to evaluate their papers just prior to submission by using the assignment criteria. They can write as much or as little as they like (although I find they write a lot more if they use electronic copy; with hard copy, they just fill in the boxes). They have the option of rating their work. There is also space for me to respond with my own comments, which very often mirror or extend the very things we’ve talked about during conferences and workshops. And there is space for my numerical rating and a grade. I find that this technique encourages students to think carefully and critically about their work. To the extent that they discuss their work in terms of course outcomes, the self-assessment helps them recognize the larger purposes of the course—which far transcend the course, of course. Finally, it’s worth noting that this assessment is ‘dialogic,’ an extension of the conversation about writing that’s been taking place all semester long.

A sample form is shown here: Sample Dialogic Assessment Form

It would be easy to dismiss this activity with the charge that students merely use it to argue that their work is ‘great’ and should receive an ‘A,’ regardless of its actual merit. This is why it’s important make the language of grading/assessment clear to your students from the get go: help them understand each one of the criteria that goes into their papers, and reinforce those criteria in your teaching, so they are prepared to critically engage those criteria. I would also suggest modeling an example of a sound dialogic self-assessment, and one that is perhaps thinner and less substantial. Let your students see and examine and interrogate aspirational texts, not just of their papers, but of any written work you assign.

A Word on Grading Contracts

Another powerful tool for reflection is the grading contract, which extends and magnifies the virtues of a dialogic assessment. John Warner has posted a series of blog entries at Inside Higher Ed, detailing his experience with grading contracts.

This strategy privileges what you as the instructor truly value in your students’ writing, and provides students with greater agency in the grading process. Other teacher-scholars—Asao Inoue and Peter Elbow, especially—have done some really good work on contracts as well (see Inoue’s Labor-Based Grading Contracts as well as his blog: and Elbow’s work).

The FWP has a 2020-2021 task force assigned to the study and implementation of labor-based grading contracts. One element of these contracts that you may wish to consider is an end of semester reflection, per Dr. Kefaya Diab (Indiana U).

Dr. Diab joined the task force for a talk in Spring 2021; which was recorded for your viewing.

And you can find the task force’s presentation to UA (via a Creative Composition meeting) 

If you’ve read this far, thank you. I hope it hasn’t been too tiring a slog. And I hope you don’t feel that if you don’t follow each of the tenets I’ve laid out, you’re doing something wrong. Far from it. I’ve shared a few principles, even beliefs, that I’ve developed over the years, and I’m always evolving in how I see the classroom and what I bring to it and how I imagine it can be. Classrooms are organic, relationship-driven spaces; what works one semester may not work the next, and that’s part of the ongoing work of teaching.

If you see the classroom differently, if you read my work and think, ‘well, that’s OK for him, but not me,’ that’s fine, that’s perfectly OK, and I wish to affirm our differences—and I would like to engage with you further, so that I can continue to learn and grow and develop my professional identity as a teacher. Don’t hesitate to contact me with questions, concerns, and, should you feel like sharing, teaching materials.