Teaching Writing: Is it a race against time?

As a classroom teacher, the biggest struggle I face is feeling like I have enough time. Time to get to know my students, time to help them reach their personal goals, time to guide them in mastering standards, time to provide them with the learning opportunities they deserve. But never do I feel like I fight that time battle more than when it comes to growing great writers. And based on a conversation from EdcampNBCT, I am not alone. Time was the number one frustration listed when we engaged in a conversation about challenges we face when teaching writing and/or using the writer's workshop model.

I wish I had the answers to finding the time we need to not just rush through every student's writing, but truly devote the time that is needed for students to develop their own voices, experience (and learn from) the struggles of a writer, overcome those struggles, and fine tune their writing prowess. Since none of us have Hermione's time turner, I thought I would share some of the ways that I have found to save time without sacrificing the quality of the instruction and support each individual student needs to grow into a great writer.

One of the biggest commitments that we have is to provide our students with timely, personalized feedback. Like most of you, I would spend hours editing papers, writing feedback, often to have students ignore my suggestions when they went through a revision process. This is amplified when you have multiple classes of students. We want to give our students personalized and timely feedback so as to push their growth and keep the momentum of the writing project progressing, but there are only so many hours in the day.

Through trial and error, I have discovered that if each of my students creates and shares a Google document where they compose/curate all of their writing from brainstorming, planning, drafting, revisions, and editing, I can type feedback comments into their document much faster than if I am writing them with pen and paper. An added bonus is that both the writer and I know what feedback has been left. When leaving feedback, I am focusing only on the standards that my writers are working on proving mastery of in that project. However, as I am reading and leaving feedback, I am making notes of patterns of error within their writing. If I see that a student is struggling with subject verb agreement, I will plan a special small group lesson and additional practice for that student until he/she demonstrates mastery of that skill.

When I shifted to using Google Docs, I found I had more time to contribute meaningful feedback to my students more frequently. It also afforded students the opportunity to receive feedback from their peers. Because it is in Google Docs, students can easily refer to the feedback when making revisions, weighing the ideas and making deliberate choices in their next draft. They can see the evolution of their growth throughout the project.

A second way, I've discovered for saving time while not sacrificing the quality of instruction was I stopped editing their writing. Now I know that there are a lot of English teachers (including an earlier me) who may be shocked by this idea. Here is my rationale: if we are changing, editing and rewriting their work, we impose our voice, ideas and opinions upon them. We steal the ownership of their writing. We take away crucial learning opportunities. As educators, we know that students learn by doing, failing, and retrying. Yet, as writing instructors, we tend to take that away. There is no wonder why so many students hate writing; we tell them we want them to have a voice and then we contradict ourselves by superseding our voice, opinions, and ideas onto their work.

For learning to be meaningful, students need to have that ownership. They need to have the creative license to write and create. Learners need to experience the struggles that come from meaningful work and feel the triumphs of hard work, perseverance and dedication. By providing them feedback on the side of Google Doc, conferring with them one-on-one, supporting them with small group mini-lessons, we are facilitating that type of environment for our students. We are providing them with the tools to master writing, while encouraging them to hone their voices.

Do these strategies and tools give us unlimited time with our writers? Unfortunately, no. But, they present us with more time to spend growing great writers while still focusing on best writing practices. And ultimately, isn't that what we want for our learners?

I'm always looking for new way to sharpen my teaching practice. I'd love to hear any time saving tip you have discovered that still affords you the ability to provide accomplished writing instruction to your students. Thanks in advance!

Further reading on related topics:

• Who makes the grade?
• Your learners are masters of...
• All rubrics are not created equal
• From numbers to meaningful feedback

Feedback: Taking it to Heart

Feedback. It's a topic about which I have written quite a bit, especially in the realm of its integral role with student learning. However earlier this week, I got to experience the role that feedback should have upon the instruction provided to the learners. I know that all of us have dutifully completed surveys at the end of a day of professional learning only to see that no changes are made to subsequent events. As a participant, it implies that your voice isn't important; others know better than you. You become a victim to what others want for you rather than having that control over the learning process.

I can honestly say that my experience with the Network to Transform Teaching Hub team was the complete opposite. Never in my experience, have I observed a group of organizers take the feedback left at the end of one day, to immediately turn around and spend hours making alterations and adjustments to the following day's agenda based on what the learners needed or wanted from the experience. I want to point out that all the participants received an agenda (a plan) that I can only imagine took days to create in advance of the learning session. Yet, the Hub team valued what everyone said and were willing to make adaptations to meet our needs.

For me, this served as a perfect model for how accomplished teachers would approach their classrooms. We all collect information and data from our students, but the real question is what do we actually do with it? Do we listen to what our students are actually saying and make changes to our plans based on what we hear? Are we valuing what our students need, what they want out of their learning experiences?

For several years, I have asked my students to provide me feedback on our classroom throughout the school year: What went well? What didn't go well? What goals do you have? What changes can we make to better support your learning? As the recipient of that feedback, you have to be willing to hear some things that may be very hard to hear. I've had some learners provide feedback that has brought me to tears, but when I honestly looked at the choices that I made, I could see the disparity between what I thought I was doing to support learning and what the student perceived.  Even though we may spend hours planning to meet the needs of our diverse learners, the truth is we don't know how our intentions translate to each one of them unless we take the time to ask, truly listen, and put their ideas into action. Because the reality is that this learning is about them, not us. They deserve the best learning opportunities possible. We just have to provide the tools, guidance and pathways to get them where they want to go.

Want to read more about feedback in our classroom?

• From Numbers to Meaningful Feedback 
• Where Do We Go from Here? Tools for Providing Timely, Personalized Feedback

From Numbers to Meaningful Feedback

In the world of education there seems to always be a new crop of buzz words creeping into our professional conversations. One thing that I've observed is that we all may use the same words, but often we are speaking a different language. Just like my students and I discuss how we each build different perspectives/connections based on our schema (background experiences), the same is true of us as educators. We may change our vocabulary without altering our practice.

I recently completed a graduate program in Teacher Leadership. One of the best aspects of this program was my experience of viewing things from the perspective of a student again. As I traversed this world of academia, I discovered that although many of my professors used the word feedback, they had little understanding of its true meaning.  I would diligently complete my projects or papers, asking questions along the way for clarification of the expectations, submit the assignment, and then receive a score.  The most frustrating part of this process was not the heavy workload or the irrelevant projects that sucked away my time, but the utter lack of feedback. I would receive a number score with a comment along the lines of "good job." I was flummoxed. I couldn't help but ask: Good job with what? How do I grow? How do I improve? Could my writing improve? Was there a way to deepen my content knowledge? Did I make some grammatical or mechanics errors that I could or should avoid in the future?

As I wondered about the disconnect in what a professor said and what he/she did, I began turning that question on my own practice with my learners. Was I saying one thing and doing something completely different? The number score and "good job"type of comments had long been left behind as I began conferring with my students and letting them set their own academic and personal goals. I realized that often my students would come back to me and inquire about their feedback in these sessions. They needed something tangible upon which to return to remind them of specifically how they needed to grow or where they were headed as a learner. That's when I began leaving private comments on their blogs and their Google Drive work. If I ever failed to leave feedback, my students would come back and ask for it; this showed me that they valued having my input to guide their choices and help them to grow as learners. One student actually told me this year that she was so glad that I didn't just give them a number. In her words, "Numbers don't really mean anything."

How many times are we guilty of slapping a number or a checkmark on the top of a paper or project? What signal is that sending our learners? What does the focus become? It's telling our students that the grade on a assignment is just a hoop they have to jump through to progress to the next assignment. It completely eliminates a focus on their learning. Learning is fluid and ongoing. Although students may master a standard, there is always room for growth. Yes, I teach sixth graders ELA, but I have several students who are working on mastering seventh and eighth grade standards. Isn't that what we want for our students? To continue their learning journey, wherever it may take them throughout a lifetime? There is no end game when it comes to learning.

As I was contemplating all these thoughts, it occurred to me that I needed to know what my students truly thought about our classroom. They understood and craved meaningful feedback; it's an integral part of our learning environment. So, I asked my students to provide me with meaningful feedback on our class. I completely trusted them because they understand the power of feedback. It needs to be honest, specific, and provide prompting for future growth. Here is some of the feedback I received:

"One thing I especially like is this: Blogging. I like writing creatively online more than turning in a sheet of paper. It has helped my writing grow because I can get immediate responses and corrections." ~AB

"Another thing that I liked is the pretest. The purpose of our pretest is to show our teacher (aka Miss Ramsay) what we already know. If you were to make a lower grade then you would be in small group,but say you aced the pretest you could still ask to be in small group. That way you can always make sure you really know the material well and can use it in your writing." ~Richard 

"This is random but it would be fun if we had a part of the website or blog where we build up a book list for anyone who doesn’t have anything to read. Each student could add one book each week including the title, author, theme, and a short summary that shows the main point of the book. " ~Annabeth

"Genius Hour could possibly be one of my favorite things though. I loved the freedom in it and that I am getting to do a topic I am interested in and teaching it through art. I have the whole picture planned out in my head and I am really excited to put it on the paper. " ~Belle

"The thing that I really liked about this class is small group.If you were having trouble with the subject you were learning and the test was in two days but you couldn't catch on when the teacher was teaching to the whole class, then you could ask for some help and sometimes you can even get a one on one lesson with the teacher, which can really help a lot." ~Peter

Do my students understand meaningful feedback? Absolutely. As a teacher, if you want to know how to improve, ask your students. They have the answers. From their feedback do I have areas to change, ways to grow? Absolutely. I also get to see their perspective of my practice. I realize that it matters not how well intentioned my choices are if they do not support my specific students' learning. In all of their feedback, do you know what was missing? That's right, a number. And although my students did give some "good job" kind of comments, they always backed up their answers with meaningful examples and ways I could help support their learning. One thing's for certain, my sixth graders could sure teach those professors a thing or two about feedback...and I love it!

P.S. I received permission from students to share their feedback. All student names have been changed.

photo credit: Vince Alongi via photopin cc