Growing the Writer
Welcome, educators!
Learn how to:
- Incorporate student agency into writing units.
- Give efficient, effective feedback through the whole process.
- Guide students' self-reflection towards beneficial assessment.
And last but not least, learn how to grow a writer!
Meet Kristen
Kristen Brooks is completing her M.A. in English Education at Colorado State University and received her Bachelor's Degree in History Secondary Education from Longwood University. Throughout her experiences teaching ninth grade History, English as a second language in Spain, and college composition, one thing has stayed consistent; that is the necessity of mutuality in the classroom.
David Wallace and Helen Ewald observed, “Mutuality is invoked in that knowledge is not a prepackaged commodity to be delivered by the teacher but is an ‘outcome’ constituted in the classroom through the dialogic interaction among teachers and students alike.” Grounded in mutuality and empowerment, her philosophy aims to listen to student input and embolden them as authors of their own lives.
Meet Kelly
Kelly Peterson is finishing her English Education Undergraduate degree at Colorado State University this year. She believes in engaging students by pulling in their interests, encouraging strengths, and amplifying their voices. She wants their brain activated and their learning relevant. And since community has always been important to her, she strives to develop her students' sense of belongingness in the classroom.
Writing is where Kelly feels the most empowered which is why she intends to embolden students to use their voices and skills to their full extent. Her rambling thoughts about her passions in education, social justice, and art can be found at her personal blog.
Driving Questions:
- Why are process, progress, and product stressed in the writing classroom, but our system for evaluation does not reflect those values?
- What should/could students’ grades actually represent in the writing classroom?
- How can evaluation be used as a tool for student agency in their learning?
- How can writers' identities be transformed by an absence of grades?
Top Five Researched Patterned Findings:
- Grades are subjective (especially in the English classroom).
- Students begin to seek the grade rather than feedback.
- Grades do not grow the writer.
- There are various ways to provide feedback (both written & verbal).
- All feedback does not have to be teacher directed.
Challenges:
Although we are both in the classroom in some form, neither of us have the power to implement and try these practices ourselves. Therefore, we relied on teacher interviews, our research, and what we know to be best practice to guide our theories set forth on this page.