By Lindsay Schwehr, WIC GTA<\/em><\/p>\n In celebration of WIC\u2019s 25th<\/sup> year, the WIC team has selected six articles from the last 20 years of newsletters that we believe still meet and uphold the standards we hold today. As well as these newsletter articles, please feel free to explore the WIC archives to get a better taste of who we are and who we have developed to be!<\/p>\n Please scroll down to read our articles, or follow the links directly to the appropriate newsletter in the archives. If you choose to follow the links below, articles before 2011 may be difficult to navigate on your mobile devices.<\/p>\n Fall 1990, Vol. 1, #1\u2014\u201cActive Learning?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Spring 1991, Vol. 1, #5\u2014\u201cThe Vaccination Theory of Writing: How Can an \u2018A\u2019 Composition Student Write So Poorly in my Class?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Fall 1994, Vol. 4, #1\u2014\u201c\u2019Pull Over, Buddy. It\u2019s the Grammar Police\u2019: Dispelling Myths about Grammar in the Writing Intensive Curriculum\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Fall 1997, Vol. 7, #1 \u2014\u201cResponding to Student Papers: Responses to Avoid and Productive Advice to Give\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Winter 2011, Vol. 20, #1\u2014\u201cThree Approaches to Peer Review\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Fall 2017, Vol. 27, #1\u2014\u201cCritical Thinking: Multiple Models for Teaching and Learning (abridged)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n By WIC Team<\/em><\/p>\n Mention the word writing, and you\u2019ll inevitably provoke a response. Mention writing to university teachers, and the comments tend to group in two categories: concerns about publishing research, and concerns about the abilities of student writers.<\/p>\n Notice that when we (rightly enough) worry about publishing and when we voice concern about student writing, we\u2019re focusing on writing as a final product: will our papers or essays or articles (our final products) be accepted for publication? How good will these student papers (their final products) be?<\/p>\n Suppose we change our angle of vision for a moment. Rather than viewing writing as a product, suppose we look at writing as what writers\u2014any of us\u2014do whenever we pick up a pencil or pen or whenever we sit down at a keyboard and look at a blinking cursor.<\/p>\n In order to get words onto paper or screen, we think. We hold that pencil or position our hands on the keyboard, the paper or screen is blank, we begin thinking, and the paper or screen begins to fill up with words, notes, whole sentences. It\u2019s our thinking that puts them there. We may later change those words or cross them out, and again, it\u2019s our thinking that changes them.<\/p>\n In short, whether we\u2019re writing a grocery list or drafting a report, writing is thinking. And the most useful (and accurate) way to view writing-intensive courses is to realize that they could just as easily be called thinking-intensive or learning-intensive courses, with writing being the vehicle for encouraging and prompting that thinking, that learning.<\/p>\n Once writing is seen as an action\u2014as active thinking\u2014then all sorts of possibilities begin to suggest themselves. We could, for example, ask students to summarize a key lecture point: Take three minutes and use your own words to summarize what we\u2019ve just been talking about; if you\u2019re not sure what the key points are, write at least one useful question.<\/em><\/p>\n Does this three minute writing need to be collected and graded? No. It could be collected and used to gauge the lecture\u2019s effectiveness. It could be collected and noted with a check in the grade book. It could become part of the student\u2019s course journal or learning log. But in any case, there\u2019s no need to formally grade such writing.<\/p>\n The point is that asking students to do that three minute writing is a way to provoke them to become active learners, active participants in their own education. In a lecture, perhaps only one person is obviously active (the teacher), in a discussion perhaps half a dozen will really voice their thoughts, but in a three minute write virtually everyone will write, if for no other reason than because it\u2019s embarrassing not to.<\/p>\n By WIC Team<\/em><\/p>\n Consciously or not, we\u2019d like to think of writing as an obvious set of skills to be mastered. In fact, these skills probably formed the basis of our own most traditional (and perhaps most distasteful) grade school English classes\u2014the ones that drilled us on proper grammar, comma use, and so on. If we think of good writing as the mastery of these kinds of skills, then we\u2019re close to espousing what has been called the vaccination theory of writing.<\/p>\n According to this theory, writing (like a vaccination) ought to \u201ctake.\u201d And once it does, once students \u201cbecome good writers,\u201d then they ought to stay good writers; the vaccine ought to be good for life. Several corollaries follow here too: the vaccine (writing instruction) ought to be administered in grade school and high school\u2014writing instruction is their job, not ours; student writers who can\u2019t find and fix their own errors, who can\u2019t in short, express themselves adequately, need a new vaccination, and the English department ought to administer it, soon; and finally, students who can\u2019t write well are sick, and they need some medicine to get better.<\/p>\n The vaccination theory explains our puzzlement when a student (student X) who claims to have earned an \u2018A\u2019 in WR 121 two years ago (or even last term) now hands in writing we judge to be horrible. What happened? Why didn\u2019t the vaccination \u2018take\u2019?<\/p>\n But suppose we substitute a different theory; call it the performance theory of writing.<\/em> Here\u2019s how the new theory might work with student X:<\/p>\n In WR 121 student X writes a summary and analysis of an essay, \u201cInside the Brain,\u201d by David Noonan, and this summary and analysis earns an \u201cA\u201d grade. Whereas the vaccination theory would tell us that student X is a good writer (\u201cthe vaccination has taken\u201d), the performance theory might say that student X is a good performer in this particular setting: student X is, say, a good swimmer.<\/p>\n The next term or the next year, student X takes an economics class (or a public health class or a biology class) which asks student X to read two articles and write an analysis that compares them. The student hands in an error-ridden, inaccurate and incomplete paper and receives a \u201cC-\u201c grade.<\/p>\n The vaccination theory would suggest that student X needs a booster: go back to English. But the performance theory would suggest that while student X was a good writer in WR 121 (a good swimmer), this student needs additional help and\/or practice performing in this new setting: student X needs help becoming a pole vaulter. Swimming and pole vaulting are, after all, related; they use some of the same muscles and they build on the same sense of coordination and agility. Similarly, the writing in a public health class uses some of the same intellectual techniques and understandings as those used in WR 121, but it probably also calls on new understandings, new muscles used in new ways.<\/p>\n So how can we improve student writing in our own class? The performance theory would suggest these factors: practice and instruction. If our course introduces vocabulary new to students, then how can we give them frequent practice using that vocabulary? If our course involves readings that students may never have really encountered before, how can we open doors so that students can become self-sufficient readers? How can we point out the ways that an article is organized? The ways it makes its argument? The ways it arrives at its conclusions? As experts, that is as practiced readers and writers in our disciplines, we take such matters for granted; we\u2019re great pole vaulters. But move us to the hockey rink, say, or to the cockpit of a small plane, and we\u2019ll not perform as well.<\/p>\n Finally, writing is<\/u> performance: we write best whatever we write most frequently. And we often forget the difficulties we had, the confusions we felt, before we became practiced professionals. We forget that students may not really understand how information is structured in our field\u2014not, that is, until we urge them to see that structure, talk about it, and use it.<\/p>\n In short, the performance theory of writing argues for more writing, not less. It argues for writing graded not on accuracy of content but rather on the demonstrated degree of intellectual engagement. It argues for chances to make mistakes without penalty, assuming that such mistakes are inevitable and useful stepping stones to later understanding. The performance theory urges us to give students regular and frequent opportunities to practice before asking them to perform.<\/p>\n Just as a crew coach might try to take apart a rowing stroke in order to make the team conscious of the stroke\u2019s complexity (and how it can go wrong), we might ask students to pose questions, to forecast answers, to unpack the organizational structure of a paper or an article, and to explain a concept or a technique in their own words. This is important intellectual practice, practice which almost inevitably leads to improved performance.<\/p>\n By Vicki Collins (Vicki Tolar Burton)<\/em><\/p>\n Years ago a colleague sent me a satiric article (whose title I have co-opted above) suggesting the formation of a band of rogue grammarians whose task is to go around the community issuing citations to perpetrators of annoying grammatical errors in the public domain, like the peculiarly possessive doormat at the residence of Mr. Smith which reads \u201cThe Smith\u2019s\u201d or that unsettling irony on the restaurant menu: Our fish is \u201cfresh.\u201d (So it\u2019s not fresh?). Or the pizza truck that proclaims \u201cWe Deliver\u201d (if they feel like it?). Or even the sign in the produce section of the grocery store for Brussel (rather than Brussels) Sprouts.<\/p>\n It seems that many OSU faculty members believe that agreeing to teach a writing intensive course places them immediately in the ranks of the Grammar Police. In fact, in the WIC faculty seminar I call grammar \u201cthe hairy monster under the table\u201d because faculty feelings about grammar are so strong that the \u201chairy monster\u201d will dominate our discussions until we deal with grammar\u2019s place in the teaching of writing.<\/p>\n Faculty may have this obsession because many of us remember teachers who returned our papers with only two kinds of marks: the grade and the red marks to indicate errors. So we formed the unspoken assumption that what writing teachers do is assign grades and mark mechanical errors, and further, that anyone who teaches writing must be an expert in grammar, an undertaking which seems particularly overwhelming in light of the error-filled writing of our students.<\/p>\n One of my tasks as WIC director is to persuade faculty that student writing can improve without the teacher becoming Conan the Grammarian.<\/p>\n First, there is more to good writing than correctness. Please note: I am not saying correctness does not matter. We all know that it does, both in the academy and in what our students like to call \u201cthe real world.\u201d When I teach engineering writing, for example, I tell students that they can be the most technically brilliant engineers in America, but if they present their ideas to a prospective client in writing that is full of errors, people will think they don\u2019t know what they are doing.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, editing for correctness should come fairly late in the writing process. Good writing first requires that students analyze the situation and audience for whom they are writing, generate interesting ideas, organize their ideas coherently, support their points with proof that will be convincing to the audience, select the most effective format for presenting their ideas, and generate drafts. Then <\/strong>they can worry about grammar. Content precedes correctness.<\/p>\n The second thing I say to WIC teachers about spending countless hours laboriously correcting every grammatical error in student papers is that they are wasting their time. Research in composition shows that students do not eliminate errors in their writing in response to teachers marking and labeling every error. So am I saying ignore errors? Not at all.<\/p>\n Composition scholar Richard Haswell suggests that minimally marking mistakes with just a check in the right hand margin by each line that contains an error is more effective than correcting every error. The check mark places the responsibility for correcting the error where it belongs: on the student. Haswell\u2019s research showed that even college freshmen were able to correct between 60 and 70 percent of their own errors when he just puts a check in the margin. Of course they must be required to make correction, or the checks are likely to be ignored. (Students may need to purchase a grammar handbook to assist them.) Haswell says, \u201cThe ultimate value of this method for me is that it relegates what I consider a minor aspect of the course to a minor role in time spent on marking and in class, while at least maintaining and probably increasing the rate of improvement\u2026 Crudely put, less work for the teacher, more gain for the student.\u201d<\/p>\n A third suggestion is to abandon the red pen for responding to student writing. I have made a philosophical decision to respond to student writing in pencil. Pencil comments do not seem to take over the student\u2019s text. I want students to own their writing. Pencil is the least intrusive medium possible for teacher response. I tell students that they are welcome to erase my marks if they want to. The text belongs to them. Pencil also offers me the chance to revise or erase marks or comments on student papers.<\/p>\n In Writing for Teachers (WR 411, 511, now called The Teaching of Writing), students write narratives of their early experiences as writers. We cannot underestimate the damage that has been done to student writers by well-meaning teachers with overly active red pens. Furthermore, we all know that not all owners of red pens are well-meaning: some are angry and vindictive. To students, a paper full of red marks says \u201cLoser.\u201d Students become better writers when they want to write. Students who feel like losers often stop trying.<\/p>\n A final point I want to make about over-emphasis on correctness is what I will call correctness\u2019 double-edged sword. A professor of business management at another university said that his faculty had come to realize that a fixation on grammar and correctness creates a perceptual barrier to seeing student papers as they are. On the one hand, he said, when he reads a paper that is full of grammatical errors, it makes him so angry that he almost can\u2019t see any positive content in the answer. The flip side of that is what he calls the halo effect of the grammatically correct paper. When he gets to an essay that is free of mechanical errors and flows well, a sort of halo effect persuades him that the student also knows the content. Recent training in evaluating student writing has shown him that some of these papers he previously saw as outstanding really had serious content problems despite the \u201cflow\u201d of the writing.<\/p>\n So to summarize my response to the charge that a WIC teacher must become the grammar police: remember that grammatical correctness is not the only attribute of good writing, that minimal marking of errors may be more effective than massive marking, that the over-active red pen can do more harm than good, and that fixation on correctness can cause us to mis-evaluate the content of student writing.<\/p>\n By Jessica Mosher<\/em><\/p>\n According to Robert Connors, early in the twentieth century, a number of grading scales were proposed by which teachers rated student writing. Subsequently, many teachers only deemed it necessary to assign a letter grade to those papers, a grade scrawled out in ominous red ink. The grade did not explain what the teacher thought of the content, the mechanics, the style, or even the organization of the paper. The student was left to understand the reasoning behind the grade on their own, hoping to find an answer by the time the next paper was due. However, by the 1950\u2019s the manner in which teachers approached papers began to change. Teachers realized that letter grades alone were not aiding students in sharpening their writing skills. As teachers realized that rating scales were only serving \u201cas instruments for administrative judgment rather than for student improvement,\u201d they gradually abandoned them (Connors, 204). Teachers began addressing students\u2019 papers with more care, viewed essays as \u201creal audiences,\u201d and regarded marginal and end comments as the most effective way of explaining to students what needed attention in their writing (204).<\/p>\n The use of marginal and end comments is still in practice today, and current research is revealing \u201cwhat teachers have long suspected, hoped, or assumed: that students read and make use of teacher comments and that well-designed teacher comments can help students develop as writers\u201d (Straub, \u201cStudent Reactions\u201d 91). Therefore, teachers\u2019 commenting should not be undervalued because sometimes the most productive way to approaching a student\u2019s writing is through written response.<\/p>\n But a teacher must also be warned. While commenting is a way of guiding a student to another writing level, a teacher must be cautious in how they choose to comment. Because writing teachers shape writers, a teacher needs to understand not all commenting is useful, and some comments may even be damaging (Sperling 177). This essay reviews recent scholarship on responding to student writing and discusses different types of responses to student writing, including what types of responses teachers should avoid and what types of responses teachers should embrace.<\/p>\n When commenting on student papers, what appropriate guidelines, then, should a teacher follow? Richard Straub, in \u201cStudents Reactions to Teacher Comments: An Exploratory Study,\u201d discusses what students believe is most useful in the way of teacher response. Straub introduces nine categories of teacher comments: focus, specificity, mode, criticism, imperatives, praise, questions, advice and explanations.<\/p>\n
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\nFall 1990, Vol. 1, #1\u2014\u201cActive Learning?\u201d<\/a><\/h3>\n
\nSpring 1991, Vol. 1, #5\u2014\u201cThe Vaccination Theory of Writing: How Can an \u2018A\u2019 Composition Student Writing so Poorly in my Class?\u201d<\/a><\/h3>\n
\nFall 1994, Vol. 4, #1\u2014\u201cPull Over Buddy. It\u2019s the Grammar Police\u2019: Dispelling Myths about Grammar in the Writing Intensive Curriculum\u201d<\/a><\/h3>\n
\nFall 1997, Vol. 7, #1\u2014\u201cResponding to Student Papers: Responses to Avoid and Productive Advice to Give\u201d<\/a><\/h3>\n
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