Working With Student Writing March 13, 2014 Lisa Kelly, Center for Teaching Matt Gilchrist, The Writing Center, IDEAL

Workshop Objectives After this workshop, participants will be able to: O Determine how and when to use writing as a teaching tool O Describe and evaluate the kinds of writing used in classes across disciplines O Create effective task-based writing assignments O Model and practice giving effective feedback and constructive criticism to drafts of student writing and use rubrics to assess student writing

Warm Up Activity Please answer one of the following prompt questions: O Describe the writing you have most enjoyed in your life. Use details that show why it was enjoyable. O Describe a writing assignment that was particularly fun or useful for you. What made it so? O Describe a writing assignment that was particularly difficult or useless for you. What made it so?

Why Do We Assign Writing? O Reflection (perhaps ungraded or low stakes) O Evaluate students as individuals-depth and comprehension O Promote critical thinking O Practice communication skills (for careers) O Developing clarity with technical detail O Improve writing skills O Improve reading comprehension

What Kinds of Writing Do We Assign? O Freewriting/journal writing vs Prompt-based writing O Persuasive O Using/applying theory O Synthesis O Critical reaction / analysis O Close reading O Timed writing (exams, quizzes) O Research papers O Creative writing (essays, plays, poems, stories) O Coding O Priming discussion (minute writing)

Composing Writing Assignments Use Task-Based Language to Create Writing Assignments

Giving Constructive Feedback on Student Writing Give Feedback That Students Will Actually Use How to Use Rubrics to Grade Student Writing

Best Practices of Constructive Feedback O Use a positive, respectful tone O Include a mixture of strengths and weaknesses in evaluation O Use a Sandwich technique – start with positive feedback, then describe where improvement can be made, and end with something positive as well O Focus on no more than 3-4 areas of improvement to avoid overwhelming students O Decide whether it is better to write long-form, narrative feedback at the beginning or end of a paper or to insert marginal comments. Pick one or the other form to avoid red ink syndrome. O Before grading decide how you are going to deal with grammar/syntax errors – one suggestion is to provide specific feedback and corrections on the first page of a draft, then just circle repeat problems (only do this on DRAFTS)

Resources The Writing Center O uiowa.edu/~writingc/ uiowa.edu/~writingc/ Iowa Digital Engagement and Learning O ideal.uiowa.edu ideal.uiowa.edu The Center for Teaching O cft.uiowa.edu cft.uiowa.edu