Author: jfleming

In our recent workshop on how to grade ESL student writing, we focused on a number of strategies for reading past a student’s accent through to the content of their work, and for designing writing assignments that do not presume a level of culture-specific knowledge that they might not possess. As an example, we created a mock writing-prompt that might be used in a psychology class in which the concept of “cognitive dissonance” is being taught. It went something like this: “How might the celebration of Thanksgiving be construed as an example of cognitive dissonance?” The issue related to our workshop is fairly clear. For a student who has not grown up in a culture that celebrates Thanksgiving, the writing assignment, ostensibly on a topic in psychology (cognitive dissonance), becomes additionally a research assignment on North American cultural history. Our solution was to provide an alternative form of the same question or task that did not rely on such specifically American content that was not part of the content for the class. Such an alternative could look like this: “Can you think of an experience in your life that illustrates the issue of cognitive dissonance?” The task is essentially the same. It asks the student to synthesize the class material in order to effectively demonstrate its reality in the world, and to tie that meaning to his or her own personal experience.

I would like to suggest that offering alternatives to the same assignment is an effective strategy for the benefit of all students including ESL students. Alternative versions of the same task can both reinforce the motivation for the prompt, and offer insights to its solution. Even minus the specific cultural background, the ESL student responding to the double prompt given above might discern some basic contours to the problem at hand. How, he or she might ask, might celebration be a bad thing? (Well, of course, if you are celebrating a bad thing!). This context can then inform their selection of a suitable experience for the illustration of the concept at hand, encouraging a more integral learning experience. The native English speaker as well can benefit from this decoding of the premise and can select his or her own relevant context for the problem.

Further, research has shown that tying information to prior experience, like understanding that information in different contexts, is the most effective means of grasping and internalizing its conceptual integrity, creating deep structural learning as opposed to short-term learning (Alexander and Jetton, 2000). It all comes down to the notion that the goals we have for our students are the same regardless of their background, and that deep structural understanding is the scaffolding both for their continued ability to incorporate new information and for their effective writing.

Informal writing assignments can be an effective means of focusing the content of your class and conveying critical class concepts. In a jazz history class I taught recently, the students discussed a passage in Ted Gioia’s The History of Jazz and images from the Ken Burns documentary that dealt with Congo Square in New Orleans. The class read descriptions of eighteenth-century dances that took place there, and looked at contemporary sketches of the musicians who played and the instruments they used. My students read speculations made by observers about the origins of the dances that they witnessed and looked at pictures of African instruments that resembled ones in the sketches. At the end of class, I asked them to free write on the meaning of “African cultural survivals,” telling them that they would not be graded, but that they needed to turn in a paragraph or two by the end of class. Without having been fed the definition of this key term in class—with out the term ever having been mentioned, in fact—all of my students were able to give me a detailed definition of it, and speculate on the reasons and means for African and other cultural survivals to exist and proliferate in the Americas. This was a much more effective means of conveying the core concept than asking them to memorize a definition.

As teachers we have all had the experience of staring at a stack of papers, red pen in hand, and feeling as if we will never reach the bottom. A cycle of negativity can begin here. This negativity can easily be compounded if we are grading students’ writing and, forgetting the pressures that our students face, we train our attention on every slight detail of grammar, every transgression of good spelling and usage, and every exasperating offence to structure and coherence. Our corrections can become a morass of red ink and a demoralizing blow to our students. What’s more, correcting student writing mistakes is time consuming and will rarely have the effect of teaching them the “right way” to write (why would a student bother to learn the right way, when copying your corrections will earn them an upgrade?). Our upcoming workshop on Effective Grading and Minimal Marking will deal with many strategies that will ease the load of grading while improving the quality of our feedback and, consequently, our students’ writing.

I would like to use this space to reflect on what I believe to be the most important of these strategies: begin your comments by saying something positive about the writing. This step (I prefer to think of it as a rule) has the power to unlock your students’ potential and make your task a more uplifting and pleasurable one. By taking a moment to formulate a positive response, you will not only gain the attention of your student, you will remind yourself of the person behind the pen (while reminding them of the same). But just as important, you will create a constructive frame through which to view the potential in their paper. The remainder of your comments should aim to support the strength that you have identified in their prose. Your criticisms will gain direction and authority, as they seek to uplift rather than merely identify mistakes.

Try it. It is not difficult to spot a student’s strength after even a cursory reading. Stop and write it down at the end of the paper (e.g. “Sarah, your comprehension of the material is very sophisticated.”). This simple observation will give a constructive frame for your remaining comments. You can choose to mark only the grammatical errors that obscure the clarity of her understanding of the material, and she will understand them as surmountable obstacles to her potential. Your remaining end comments can focus on how Sarah’s understanding of the material can be more clearly and effectively presented. Through positive feedback, we gain the trust of our students and a constructive lens through which to evaluate and encourage their work.