2004 Writing discussions

Hayama Writing Courses Discussion Group

Saturday July 10 2004

Akiyama-sensei, Andy Barfield, Dave Berthiaume, Shi Jie, Morizumi Fumi, Jamelea Nader (& later Meg Arai)

The session began with Andy giving a brief presentation entitled “Introduction to Academic Essay Writing: A Personal View and …Somewhat of a Radical Re-think from 2003-2004.” It then continued with some whole-group and pair-trio discussions. Towards the end of these discussions, we worked individually and filled in a worksheet about what we had each been doing in our writing courses this semester, and how we felt about the do-ability of the course exit objectives. Finally, we split into three pairs and prepared posters for display about 3 types of course: first-year Introduction to Academic Paragraph Writing (Akiyama-sensei & Fumi), first-year Introduction to Academic Essay Writing (Dave & Jie), and second-year Improving Academic Essay Writing (Andy & Jamelea).

(1) Introduction to Academic Essay Writing: A Personal View and … Somewhat of a Radical Re-think from 2003-2004

Andy started by explaining how towards the end of the second semester in the previous academic year, he had been struck by one student “just going through the motions” – she was doing writing but was disengaged. In asking her about her writing and the obvious difficulties that she faced in revising drafts, she explained: “I’m not really interested in what I’m writing about – I do the writing and turn in work, but I’m not interested in the topics that I’m writing about.”

Andy commented that this gave him plenty of food for thought, especially as the student had been choosing her own topics to write about! He came to think that she was “outside her writing” and not “writing from within.” He felt that he needed to re-think things for 2004, and decided to focus on 3 key questions for the first semester 2004 “Introduction to Academic Essay Writing” course:

1. How to build confidence and fluency from the start?

2. How to break negative cycles of learning (or, rather, how to establish positive cycles of learning from the start)?

3. How to build genre awareness of the “essay” and a strong sense of personal voice?

In retrospect, at the end of the first semester for 2004, Andy believed that the re-directed course had been organized around 5 guiding principles:

· accessible texts

· accessible tasks

· an emphasis on fluency writing

· an emphasis on responding to writing

· the gradual guided development of genre awareness of the essay.

So, the rest of the presentation focused on each of these in more detail, within an overall course framework of “Guided Journal Writing.” “Guided Journal Writing” here means the studentswriting 20-minute 3 journal entries a week on left-pages only in a B5 notebook. Initially, at least one of these entries was done in class, and 2 outside class, so that students were from the start writing for at least 60 minutes a week. The time on writing increased as students started to draft and revise their own essays in the last 6 weeks of the semester.

To show what kind of writing his students had been doing through the semester, Andy gave out the writing folders (portfolios?) of 12 students – each included about 28 journal entries in the notebooks, 6 or more reader responses by other students in the notebooks, and at least 2 word-processed and self-corrected drafts of short 200-500 word essays. The very best 2 or 3 students’ work was not included among the 12. He also gave out copies of several worksheets and journal entry guidelines from different points in the semester.

“Guided Journal Writing” and … Accessible Texts

The kind of texts used involved:

· essays written by peers – these would be used for pair discussion in class about whether the readers found the essays interesting and what they noticed about the organization of the essays;

· journal entries that students had written in the previous week – students exchanged journals in class, read the 3 entries written by their peer, then chose one to respond to; the responder’s journal entry would be written on the right page opposite the journal entry chosen, and students would have short discussions in English as they returned their 20-minute reader responses to their partners;

· simplified current issues texts such as the decision by Bunkyo University to reject Aum Asahara’s a daughter – in April, this was in the news, and a short Japan Times article was used in a slightly simplified format, as well as a one-paragraph response expressing disagreement with the decision.

“Guided Journal Writing” and … Accessible Tasks

Students were required to write 3 journal entries a week at the start of the course, more often than not in response to other texts (essays, simplified current issues, other students’ journal entries), so that reading and writing were closely linked. [This is perhaps in contrast to a “personal journal writing” approach where students keep more of a diary of their lives, but tend not to engage with text, genre or issues.]

“Guided Journal Writing” and … Fluency Writing

· No erasers allowed – students were asked to cross out or simply continue to write if they wished to change what they had written.

· Encouragement, not correction, by the teacher, so students focus on expressing their ideas rather than getting anxious about accuracy.

Andy also explained that, until the day before the Hayama retreat, he had not collected in any writing from the students. Instead, at the start of each class, he asked students to leave their B5 notebooks open on their desks, and then to stand up and have 5-minute social English conversations in pairs. As the students did this, he was able to go round and check briefly whether students were up to date or not. (In fact, only 3 students ever missed completing journal entries out of class – and they were able to catch up over time, with some gentle encouragement.)

The basic fluency process underlying Guided Journal Writing centres on:

· students first writing, responding in writing, and pair-discussing their writing and responses;

· students then reading near-peer essays, discussing what they notice, and writing;

· students finally going back to their own writing and writing revision plans or re-organizing/re-writing their own prior writing.

In other words, students start from their own writing, and go through short cycles of reading, responding, noticing, discussing, and revising. They always have writing ready that they can re-work towards different aspects of genre conventions. They do not write in a void, in other words.

“Guided Journal Writing” and … Responding to Writing

· Writing one 20-minute journal entry as a reader of another student’s journal

· Reading near-peer essays and pair-discussing organization

· Using their own organizational insights to help re-write/re-plan their own writing

Meeting the Course Exit Objectives Or Not?

As for whether this Guided Journal Writing approach met the course exit objectives for the first-year “Introduction to Academic Essay Writing” course, Andy felt that it helps students to:

· express their ideas comfortably…and clearly(?)

· produce increasingly well-organised paragraphs

· create multi-paragraph text

· support main(?) ideas with concrete detail and elaboration (?).

He felt that students were just beginning to get a sense of “thesis statement”, and that in the second semester that would develop, along with basic MLA-style referencing and formatting.

In addition, remembering the student who had had made him start to re-think the course, Andy felt that Guided Journal Writing was also helping student to:

· find/express their voice in writing

· become critically and constructively “writing-aware”

· be interested, motivated, and keen on developing their writing from within.

As for language correction and teacher time spent on reading and responding to student writing, Andy had consciously decided not to do any correction at all during the semester. He had designed some tasks for raising students’ awareness of “common language points” (such as verb agreement, verb tense, singular/plural nouns, linking sentences), but this had been done within the same pair-discussion, notice, revise cycles outlined above. He felt it was much more important for students to raise their awareness and learn to self-correct and edit.

At the same time, he would be collecting the students’ journal, self-assessments, and self- /peer- evaluations at the end of the semester, and that would require some time for him to read through, before returning at the start of the second. That would also help him reappraise current practice.

(2) Whole-group Discussion

Points that were raised included:

· the use of web-based bulletin boards for students to post their work and to respond to each other’s writing (Jie);

· the benefits of closely connecting writing development with substantial amounts of reading and discussion of other texts (Akiyama-sensei);

· the alternative of using board work rather than handouts to set up and guide tasks (Dave);

· the benefits of working closely on paragraph writing and summary writing as the basis for moving towards writing academic essays (Fumi);

· the strong sense of voice and engagement that comes through in journal writing, which can help counter some of the problems that some students face in using sources (Jamelea);

· the sense that writing textbooks have got it round the wrong way: They start from models and exercises outside the students’ experience and own writing and then expect students to replicate the models presented in “a unit;” this can force the teacher into an uncomfortable role of telling and explaining monologically what writing is, rather than guiding students interactively and dialogically to develop and explore different ways of writing and re-organizing writing (Meg, in the afternoon discussion).

(3) Some Clarification of the Different Types of Writing Course in 2004

Through our discussion, although we realized that we were teaching different writing courses:

· First-year Introduction to Academic Paragraph Writing (Akiyama-sensei & Fumi)

· First-year Introduction to Academic Essay Writing (Andy, Dave & Jie)

· Second-year Improving Academic Paragraph Writing (Meg)

· Second-year Improving Academic Essay Writing (Andy, Jamelea, & Meg)

· Advanced Academic Writing (Andy & Meg),

our concerns largely seemed to overlap (see the posters produced at the end of the Saturday morning session). One major interest we had was in sharing essays and other writing done by students with each other, so that we can build up a common data bank of writing for students and teachers to benefit from.

We also clarified the fact that, as of April 2004, students choose the type of writing course that they take. They are not placed in writing courses by TOEIC score (unlike 1^st year and 2^nd speaking and listening classes, for the most part). So, “essay writing” courses do not have the “best students.” Moreover, as of April 2004, there is no high class in the first or second year for any type of writing course. All students choose the type of writing course (essay writing, paragraph writing, or grammar translation).

(4) The ‘Do-ability’ of the Writing Course Exit Objectives for the First and Second Year

We then worked in small groups to discuss what we are have been doing in our writing courses in the first semester: We decided to frame these discussions as “Successes” and “Problems/Questions” (see copies of the posters below for a summary).

We next individually filled in a worksheet about what we had each been doing in our writing courses this semester, and how we felt about the do-ability of the course exit objectives:

· first-year Introduction to Academic Paragraph Writing (Akiyama-sensei & Fumi)

· first-year Introduction to Academic Essay Writing (Dave & Jie)

· second-year Improving Academic Essay Writing (Andy & Jamelea).

We noted that, for the second-year Improving Academic Essay Writing, the whole of the first semester had become more or less a review and further consolidation of doing research, note-taking and essay writing done in the first year, and that this was important preparation for the second semester of the second-year course when students would be required to produce two research 800-1200 word papers.

We also talked about the idea of having faculty awards for “best student writer” in different courses, agreeing that wider public recognition of writing could be highly motivating and rewarding. However, for the moment, we focused on the idea of building up a shared data-bank of student writing.

Finally, we talked about the first-year “Introduction to Academic Essay Writing,” in which all students will be required to write a 500-800 word guided research paper. Writing teachers would be invited to contribute suggestions for issues for such a guided environment. The idea here is to provide on the web by mid-October a set of 4-5 simplified readings on a particular issue, with a set of further links. Students would be able to choose from about 10 issues agreed on by writing teachers. (An e-mail message would go out about this shortly.)