As a second semester UTA who took a semester off to go study abroad in Europe, I feel as though I have lost much of what I learned in the 388V class prior to going away. That being said, there have been a few articles from last Spring that have helped me improve as a UTA this semester. For example, my grading went a lot faster this semester than it ever has before, I was able to get a lot closer to my students much earlier on in the semester, and I got much more students to come to my office hours than last year. Overall, it’s really been a great semester in my ENGL101 class. I have also noticed an improvement in my own writing. Now that I know what to look for in other student’s writing, I find myself being more involved and critical of my own writing.
Last year in 388V, we focused a lot on applying the concepts from various scholars on pedagogy to our ENGL101 classes. I found that the thing that stuck with me most throughout the year was the theories on commenting on student work. At the beginning of this semester, several students commented in their discussion boards that they struggled with writing in high school because they felt like they didn’t receive quality feedback from their English teachers. Because of this, I made it a goal for this year to give the most constructive feedback that I could on their reflections and discussion board posts. I also strived to spend as much time on editing their assignments as I could if they came to me during office hours. In our group presentation last year, we focused on Peter Elbow’s article, “High Stakes and Low Stakes in Assigning and Responding to Writing.” In the article, Elbow talks about how giving feedback on low stakes writing (like the discussion board posts) could help students with their high stakes writing (like their position papers.) One of my primary jobs as a UTA is to grade their low stakes writing. These assignments don’t have a very big effect on their grades, but they generally give them an idea of what direction to go when they do their high stakes writing. I find myself trying to exploit this technique in my writing for my other classes. I try to do the low stakes assignments the best that I can so that I will be prepared for the high stakes assignments when they come.
During that same group project, we also assigned the reading “Responding to Student Writing.” This helped me out a lot last year and I feel as though I still followed it this year, even though I hadn’t looked over it again until the end of the semester. I try my best to be a responsive reader, rather than a reactive reader, and I feel that now that I am going through this for a second time, I have gotten more experience at being the former. Because I have become more efficient at grading, I can start to see my students’ progress more and more and can tailor my comments accordingly. I can also more easily follow the “take home tips for student writing” section of the article. For example, I have been working more on coaching rather that criticism by acknowledging the progress that a student has made, instead of viewing their work as an isolated entity. With that being said, I still have trouble “reigning in my impulses.” I feel as though I typically overload students with comments on their writing if they come to me for feedback. Now that I am more aware of the best ways to give feedback, I might try to apply these tools to my own writing when I self-edit my submissions.
When looking back at the articles we read when I was in 0101, I noticed the very first reading was “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.” I feel as though my experience has improved most of my skills in implementing those seven principles. For example, I communicate with my students a lot more than I did last Spring, and I definitely know my professor a lot better, so communication with him has been much easier. I also feel as though I can better respect and adapt to diverse talents and ways of learning because I have developed better communication with my students. At this point in the semester, I can tell who does better with the online courses and who does not, and I can tell whether or not it would be better to give feedback to them via a Google Doc or in person. This has also been a big help to me in collaborating with other students on writing projects. I am currently taking Professional Writing and my end-of-year partner project is going better than I could have imagined because we are both able to respect one another’s learning and writing styles.
Lastly, Mark Blauww-Hara’s article “Why our Students Need Instruction in Grammar, and How We Should Go About It” would have been very helpful in planning my lesson on grammar. I think a lot of the time in college, we assume that students come in knowing more than they often do. Not all students have taken an in-depth grammar class by the time they get to college, and I think it is important to acknowledge that in ENGL101 before it starts to become a problem in their other classes. The way that Blauww-Hara suggests teaching grammar makes a lot of sense to me. He suggests that we stop teaching grammar as “right” or “wrong,” and start teaching it in terms of sociological context. With my lesson on comma usage, I feel as though I taught it as having a right and wrong answer, but when I moved into dashes and semi-colons, I tried to emphasize that it depends on the context in which the student is writing to determine whether or not they are appropriate. I also provided them with external links so that they could look further into the most appropriate situations in which to use semicolons or dashes. I hoped to emphasize that they had a choice in whether or not they should use certain punctuation. Since that lesson plan, I have thought much more about my own grammatical choices. I even use semi-colons sometimes now. I threw in a dash for a recent paper that I wrote in professional writing. I feel as though my experiences in 388V and in being a UTA have transformed me both as a writer and as a teacher.
Last year in 388V, we focused a lot on applying the concepts from various scholars on pedagogy to our ENGL101 classes. I found that the thing that stuck with me most throughout the year was the theories on commenting on student work. At the beginning of this semester, several students commented in their discussion boards that they struggled with writing in high school because they felt like they didn’t receive quality feedback from their English teachers. Because of this, I made it a goal for this year to give the most constructive feedback that I could on their reflections and discussion board posts. I also strived to spend as much time on editing their assignments as I could if they came to me during office hours. In our group presentation last year, we focused on Peter Elbow’s article, “High Stakes and Low Stakes in Assigning and Responding to Writing.” In the article, Elbow talks about how giving feedback on low stakes writing (like the discussion board posts) could help students with their high stakes writing (like their position papers.) One of my primary jobs as a UTA is to grade their low stakes writing. These assignments don’t have a very big effect on their grades, but they generally give them an idea of what direction to go when they do their high stakes writing. I find myself trying to exploit this technique in my writing for my other classes. I try to do the low stakes assignments the best that I can so that I will be prepared for the high stakes assignments when they come.
During that same group project, we also assigned the reading “Responding to Student Writing.” This helped me out a lot last year and I feel as though I still followed it this year, even though I hadn’t looked over it again until the end of the semester. I try my best to be a responsive reader, rather than a reactive reader, and I feel that now that I am going through this for a second time, I have gotten more experience at being the former. Because I have become more efficient at grading, I can start to see my students’ progress more and more and can tailor my comments accordingly. I can also more easily follow the “take home tips for student writing” section of the article. For example, I have been working more on coaching rather that criticism by acknowledging the progress that a student has made, instead of viewing their work as an isolated entity. With that being said, I still have trouble “reigning in my impulses.” I feel as though I typically overload students with comments on their writing if they come to me for feedback. Now that I am more aware of the best ways to give feedback, I might try to apply these tools to my own writing when I self-edit my submissions.
When looking back at the articles we read when I was in 0101, I noticed the very first reading was “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.” I feel as though my experience has improved most of my skills in implementing those seven principles. For example, I communicate with my students a lot more than I did last Spring, and I definitely know my professor a lot better, so communication with him has been much easier. I also feel as though I can better respect and adapt to diverse talents and ways of learning because I have developed better communication with my students. At this point in the semester, I can tell who does better with the online courses and who does not, and I can tell whether or not it would be better to give feedback to them via a Google Doc or in person. This has also been a big help to me in collaborating with other students on writing projects. I am currently taking Professional Writing and my end-of-year partner project is going better than I could have imagined because we are both able to respect one another’s learning and writing styles.
Lastly, Mark Blauww-Hara’s article “Why our Students Need Instruction in Grammar, and How We Should Go About It” would have been very helpful in planning my lesson on grammar. I think a lot of the time in college, we assume that students come in knowing more than they often do. Not all students have taken an in-depth grammar class by the time they get to college, and I think it is important to acknowledge that in ENGL101 before it starts to become a problem in their other classes. The way that Blauww-Hara suggests teaching grammar makes a lot of sense to me. He suggests that we stop teaching grammar as “right” or “wrong,” and start teaching it in terms of sociological context. With my lesson on comma usage, I feel as though I taught it as having a right and wrong answer, but when I moved into dashes and semi-colons, I tried to emphasize that it depends on the context in which the student is writing to determine whether or not they are appropriate. I also provided them with external links so that they could look further into the most appropriate situations in which to use semicolons or dashes. I hoped to emphasize that they had a choice in whether or not they should use certain punctuation. Since that lesson plan, I have thought much more about my own grammatical choices. I even use semi-colons sometimes now. I threw in a dash for a recent paper that I wrote in professional writing. I feel as though my experiences in 388V and in being a UTA have transformed me both as a writer and as a teacher.