Student-Centered and Process Teaching
Last semester we focused a lot on the idea of a “student-centered classroom.” We spoke about student agency, student progress, and how activities and lessons could be more effective if they took the focus off of “teachers teaching” and focused more on student engagement. Learning now about writing pedagogy as a process, I think that the techniques from last semester go hand in hand with process teaching quite well. If classes are more focused on the students and their active participation, it’s up to them to write and develop their writing.
As teachers, there are many ways we can facilitate a classroom that values student engagement and process teaching. In Murray’s article, the writing process was divided into three clear steps - Prewriting, Writing, and Rewriting. He mentioned that in process teaching, around 85% of the time should be spent in the prewriting stage (pg 4). Do you agree? What kinds of activities do you present to your class for prewriting? What pros/cons do you see with this focus?
Ultimately, in process teaching, the goal seems to be to create an environment for writing to happen. What ways have you seen this demonstrated last semester, and what ways are you attempting to do this in spring 2020? I think the readings were really helpful in showing how we, as teachers, need to “get out of the way” so that writers can write. This might bring challenges. How can we motivate students to be their own writers and work on process while staying in the background? I think there are many ways to do this. In my own class, I tend to give students plenty of time to freewrite and work on their own. This gives them time to simply write, without worrying over grades or due dates. After this, I give students a chance to share their work, and I build up their efforts. I find that many first year writers have little to no confidence in their writing, worrying over grammar, sentence structure, or other less important aspects. What works for you? How do we give writers the confidence they need to be able to create and develop their writing on their own?
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ReplyDeleteHi Kristen,
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking a lot about the topic of "process over product" and really enjoyed your explanation of how you handle freewriting in your classroom. I struggle with this a bit. On the one hand, I really do want to get out of the way, but I also still have so many insecurities about what works and what doesn't. Should I completely structure my writing exercises or give students the choice to work on a draft of their choice? How do I cover all the material for class and give them the opportunity to explore their own writing? As you can tell, I'm still working a lot of this out for myself, but it's great to hear what others are doing.
I've also been considering the student-centered teaching approach. After all the discussion we have had about it, I agree that freshman writing has, no doubt, evolved into something better over the years, but I have no idea how well it works for the students. We spend a lot of time talking to other teachers about the theoretical reasons it is better, but it seems we rarely ask students how well it's working for them. I would guess it would be, in some ways, a sort of tricky thing to assess, because it is difficult to measure the things we hope are outcomes of student-centered classrooms like improved writing confidence, critical thinking skills, etc. I'm just wondering how students feel it is working for them. Maybe a research topic for another day. Thanks for your thoughtful post. --Mary
Kristen,
ReplyDeleteI also tried to use what we learned last semester about student-centered teaching to create my class for this semester. I stole a lot of what my mentor did in order to accomplish this, but I'm glad to have had the experience in a student-centered classroom that I did. I think as students get older, it's important to be student-centered in the classroom as most students rebel against the rules and restrictions given to them because they expect a certain level of independence. I've found that my students write better/longer and are more willing to share when I give them more freedom within the classroom.
One big thing I stole from my mentor in an effort to be more student-centered was the "token" policy he had. He gave each student 3 tokens for the semester and allowed them to use them at any time to revise a major assignment or to get an extension. This put the power into the students' hands and allowed them to decide what they wanted to do with their grades. He started it during the middle of the semester so some students didn't take advantage of the system, but I'm hoping to fix this by putting it into my syllabus from Day 1 (which I've already done). I think it'll become more relevant once my students actually turn in their first major assignment, but I could see their sighs of relief when I mentioned the system and their ability to revise. I'm still looking for more ways to give my students more power, but as a young instructor that doesn't really "command" respect when I walk into the classroom, I do find it a bit hard to balance.
The big way that I am trying to do this is by having each student create a discussion thread (the title is their name) and throughout the semester, we will have various activities etc. that will go toward building their research paper, and these activities on the thread. This could range from brainstorming ideas, to peer reviewing ideas, to deciding on sources, to writing full paragraphs (later on in the semester). This way, once the students get to the end of the semester, they will essentially have their whole paper already written with feedback at every step from myself and their peers. This allows me to focus on process and focus on the social aspect of learning, and give them more time to focus on revising and honing rather than just writing. Obviously this might blow up in my face and not work out the way I want it to, but I think it will help put an emphasis on an environment of writing and recursivity.
ReplyDeleteHi Kristen,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your blog. You showed a good connection with writing process to learner centered teaching that we learnt last semester's. In my 103 class, I'm also trying to get my students into free writing.This is helping out them a lot. My students are also loving it. Because they are writing without the fear of making mistakes, misplacing punctuation, doing grammatical errors etc. These are giving them spaces to feel free. I would say my students are really very good learners. They are enjoying so far.
Kristen,
ReplyDeleteI think the pre-writing stage is hard to quantify, because so much of it can just be the internal process of gathering ideas or ruminating on a potential topic even before you get into activities like free writing or listing/outlining/clustering, etc. I’ve tried to create a somewhat scaffolded approach to this within my classroom – introducing the assignment early, creating small activities in class for them to discuss potential topics with other students, dropping connections between what we do in class to how they can apply it to their papers, or asking them to free write on topics they’re thinking about. I think it’s also interesting that you mentioned students’ agency in the process – which can be a big pro if they take advantage of that setup, but also somewhat of a con if they aren’t motivated enough to take responsibility for their own process. I’ve noticed in my class that some of my students are taking full advantage of the pre-writing activities I’m giving them and already seem to have a good plan towards starting the first draft, but others seem to just be completing the activities for the purpose of having participated in class that day. I’m still looking for ways to get my students more invested in and excited about the writing process – such as trying out discussion post activities where they can respond/comment on each other’s posts, like seems to be working for JJ.
Hi Kristen,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I'm not the only one who has concerns about how to make students enjoy their writing and how to be themselves while doing it. I think the strategies you are using are very interesting since we are looking for our students to detach from the rigid parameters established by traditional writing methods. Honestly, I don't know if we can give an accurate response to the questions you are asking on this post, but I consider that sharing ideas about activities we have implemented in our own classes might help us all to apply different tools we find effective in other classrooms to ours.
For the first project I proposed for this semester, I had them choose a "famous" character they would like to know more about and write some blog posts on the most appealing aspect they find. We all know that ENG 104 is a research-based class where we teach how to do research at their level, but also "how to write". As they have the opportunity to make some decisions on their own regarding this project, I am expecting them to somehow perform the real writer they have inside. I want my students to feel confident with their writing as they approach more complex tasks that will probably demand more analysis and other writing characteristics for this level.
I feel that the first thing we should help them overcome is the fear of writing by giving them some creative writing activities for them to explore different possibilities in writing before facing the more formal assignments.
Kristen,
ReplyDeleteI think we are all trying our best to create a student-centered classroom, but it can raise a lot of challenges, especially in terms of student confidence. Students have been taught that their voices dod not matter and they re supposed to adhere to a system that minimizes their unique voices and the process involved with writing. I try to find new ways to get students to see their growth as writers, but honestly it’s hard.
I think creating an open environment with your students is the first step in building that confidence. If you students can feel comfortable and heard while they are in your classroom, it allows them to open themselves up a little more for learning.