Peter Elbow
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
It is helpful to distinguish between two very
different goals for writing. The normal and conventional
goal is writing to demonstrate learning: for this goal
the writing should be good--it should be clear and, well
. . . right. It is high stakes writing. We all know and
value this kind of writing so I don't need to argue for
it here, but let me give one more reason why it's
important: if we don't ask students to demonstrate their
learning in essays and essay exams, we are likely to
grade unfairly because of being misled about how much
they have learned in our course. For students often seem
to know things on short-answer or multiple-choice tests
that they don't really understand.
But there is another important kind of writing that is
less commonly used and valued, and so I want to stress it
here: writing for learning. This is low stakes writing.
The goal isn't so much good writing as coming to learn,
understand, remember and figure out what you don't yet
know. Even though low stakes writing-to-learn is not
always good as writing, it is particularly effective at
promoting learning and involvement in course material,
and it is much easier on teachers--especially those who
aren't writing teachers.
OCCASIONS AND KINDS OF WRITING
In-class writing:
- 8 minutes of writing at the start of class to
help students bring to mind their homework
reading or lab work or previous lectures.
- 8minutes in mid class when things go dead--or to
get students to think about an important question
that has come up.
- 8 minutes at the end of class or lecture to get
them to think about what's been discussed.
- 5 minutes at the end of class to write to us
about what they learned that day: what was the
main idea for them, what was going on for them
during that class. Not only will this help them
integrate and internalize the course material; it
helps our teaching by showing us what's getting
through and what isn't.
We can treat this kind of writing as entirely private
or as a spot quiz--or anything in between. I find it
important to collect these pieces for a while at the
beginning of a course, and I often have students share
them quickly with a partner or small group. I don't grade
them or comment, but I insist that students use the
writing to try to think the material through on paper.
After a number of sessions like this, they discover the
usefulness of this kind of low stakes writing, and I can
let these pieces be entirely private--or just have them
share with others but not me. That is, I can spare myself
having to read them--and students still benefit.
However we handle it, this kind of writing helps
students get more out of discussions and lectures. In a
lecture or discussion, there are often only one or two
minds at work in the room; when I ask students to write,
most minds are at work.
Journal writing.
Many teachers enhance learning by requiring students to
keep reading journals, thinking journals, or lecture
journals. The goal is to get students to connect what
they are studying with the rest of their experience,
thoughts, and feelings. Teachers handle journals in
various ways: exhortation alone, periodic inspection but
no reading, fast browsing, full reading, responding,
grading. It is also productive to get students to trade
journals weekly with a peer for a response.
Think pieces.
This is the name I give to writing that is a bit more
thought out and worked over--but not yet an essay:
exploratory but not merely freewriting. I tell students
to think of these pieces as thoughtful letters to an
interested friend. Teachers often assign weekly think
pieces about the reading or homework or the issues they
want students to consider more carefully. They make it a
simple, regular, matter-of-fact requirement--"no big
deal"--but they enforce it by making substantial
credit depend on doing them all. One can read think
pieces quickly and just check that students have engaged
the task, or else read them carefully--depending on the
size of the class.
Think pieces are a productive and nonpunitive way to
make students do the reading on time and come to class.
When students have done the reading and thought about it
before class, they get much more out of discussions or
lectures or labs. Think pieces provide a way to specify
an intellectual task for students to engage in before
class: e.g., compare two concepts from the reading;
compare a concept from the reading to some experience
from their lives; work out a definition. I often take
5-10 minutes at the start of class for students to read
them outloud in pairs or in small groups. Suddenly they
know a great deal more than they did.
Essays that count--to demonstrate learning.
These are not just "writing to learn"--fruitful
explorations or wrestlings as above--but genuine essays
that must be well revised: clearly written, coherently
organized, carefully copy-edited, and typed. I often
invite students to build an essay from a previous think
piece, but I stress that these essays are different in
kind--much more demanding. Re-thinking is needed, not
just cosmetic touching up. Otherwise some students
assume, from the exercises in low stakes writing, that I
am always completely casual about writing. It makes sense
to evaluate these essays strictly and perhaps comment on
them (more on these matters below).
When students understand that they are being asked for
two very different kinds of writing in the course, their
essays get better because of their extensive practice
with low stakes think pieces, and their low stakes
writing gets more thoughtful when they experience it as
practice for the high stakes essays (and relief from them
too).
Term papers.
I find term papers involve maximum work and minimum
learning. I call them "terminal papers."
Students often pad them. Students seldom learn from our
comments since the course is over before they pick up
their papers--if they pick them up. I find it more
productive to use several shorter essays--even (perhaps
especially) for high stakes writing.
Portfolios.
Students usually get much more out of a course when they
are asked to go through all their writing and other
projects and make a portfolio out of the best and most
interesting pieces. (I always ask for a few selections
from private or journal writing, some think pieces, and
some essays. I want a range of types. I always ask for an
"interesting failure.") The most important part
of the portfolio is an essay that introduces, explores,
and explains the pieces in the portfolio and talks about
what the student has learned from these pieces of work.
This self-reflexive writing provides a kind of meta-
discourse that leads to new understanding and enriches
fragile, incipient insights.
DEGREES OF RESPONSE TO WRITING
No Response: private writing.
I find it a good use of my authority to require private
writing. Private writing gives students the safety to
learn fluency in writing--to learn how to put down words
on paper as easily and naturally as we speak. Private
writing also helps students learn one of the highest
goals of education: how to carry on a dialogue with
oneself. Adolescents in particular need this ability
since they feel so much pressure from peer groups only to
think what is acceptable. And of course private writing
is easy on us: students get warmed up and their writing
improves while we don't have to see it. Students learn
more from writing than from our responses to their
writing.
But I sometimes hold off completely private writing
for a week or two and collect all the low stakes writing
and read it quickly--till students learn how to use low
stakes, ungraded writing for focused thinking.
Sharing but no feedback.
Sharing puts more pressure on students to make sense and
not look ridiculous, yet it still gives them considerable
safety to enjoy writing and think adventurously. Like
private writing, it helps students learn to write about
the subject matter of the course without stiffness and
jargon, and often leads to good insights. The lack of any
response or grade keeps the stakes low, yet they get the
enormous benefit of being heard.
Students take their own thinking more seriously when
they have to read their writing outloud and listen to
that of others. It takes only five minutes for students
to share their writing in pairs; ten minutes in small
groups. This can be writing they have done in class or at
home. They can simply read or else go on to discuss the
ideas (perhaps about the homework reading). This takes no
time away from course material--indeed it puts more
course material in students' heads for the discussion or
lecture to follow. Speaking and hearing their words also
helps them learn to write much more clearly and
naturally--without any instruction or even feedback at
all.
I find it helpful to be this kind of audience too.
That is, I regularly assign writing that I just collect
and read--and make no response. (Or I'll scrawl
"Thanks" at the bottom.) Most of our discomfort
with student writing comes from having to comment and
grade. Yet students benefit--and my teaching
benefits--when I just read.
Publication is a striking and effective way to share
think-pieces and short essays (or stories). You can just
ask students to bring ten or fifteen copies of their
essays and then assemble class magazines on the spot. (A
four page double-spaced essay fits on one sheet--single-
spaced and back-to-back. Get someone to volunteer to make
a cover.) If there are more than fifteen people in the
class, not all magazines will be the same. At UMass
Amherst, we collect a lab fee and publish a class
magazine four times a semester--using a college copying
facility. Unless you have used publications seriously
(they become one of the texts for the course), you may
not realize how powerfully they can help students learn
material and take their own and each others' writing
seriously.
Peer feedback or student response groups.
Students can learn to give interesting and helpful
feedback to each other's writing: in pairs or in small
groups, in class or at home, orally or in writing.
Students are most valuable to each other not as
diagnosticians or advice givers but as audience--as
readers who can reply with their reactions and thoughts
about the topic. Thus, we needn't think of peer feedback
as "time taken away from biology and given to
writing," for we can direct their feedback to
matters primarily of biology (especially with response
sheets or other guides).
Some important points to keep in mind about peer
responding: students need some training and guidance at
it; it takes substantial time if done in class (less if
they work in pairs), but we can assign for homework the
task of giving oral or written feedback to each other. In
short, peer feedback may be more trouble and take more
"management"; but it's easy to move slowly into
it by starting with lots of sharing and little or no
feedback. After all, the sharing process itself produces
much of the learning, and sharing itself is the best
preparation for peer responding.
About Teacher Responses or Comments.
Commenting is not so onerous when students have already
done lots of writing that we haven't had to see and that
we've read but not commented on. They are then much more
skilled when they do higher stakes writing to demonstrate
their learning. And the main thing to keep in mind is
that if you are not teaching a writing course, there is
no law that says you have to comment. If it's high stakes
writing-to-demonstrate-learning, your only real
obligation is to assess whether the learning has been
demonstrated and give grade of some sort. But if you want
to give some comments, here are some suggestions.
There's a quick and easy form of
"proto-commenting" that is remarkably
effective--especially appropriate perhaps for think
pieces: putting straight lines alongside or underneath
strong passages, wavy lines alongside or underneath
problem passages, and X's next to things that seem
plainly wrong. I can do this almost as fast as I can
read, and it gives remarkably useful feedback to
students: it conveys the presence and reactions of a
reader.
Non-English teachers sometimes argue about whether
they should comment on "style." I would defend
both sides in this dispute. On the one hand, it is
obviously quicker and easier to restrict our comments to
the content--to the places where the student is
demonstrably wrong or right about biology. That doesn't
mean acceding to garbage; it just means acceding to
ungainly or awkward writing that nevertheless really does
say what needs to be said--that really does manage to
communicate the thought. In short, even if we don't
"grade on style," there is no need to give
passing grades for COIK writing (Clear Only If Known
already): writing that only makes sense to readers who
already understand what the student is trying to say.
Grading down for COIK writing is not grading on style,
it's grading on content. That is, unless students can
explain the material unambiguously--not just throwing
around key words and phrases--they probably don't
understand it.
But on the other hand it's important to realize that
non-English teachers can usefully and easily grade and
comment on style. That is, grading on style doesn't mean
you have to make "English teacher comments."
There's no need to explain why something is poorly
written or how to fix it in order to count down for the
problem. It's best to comment in everyday terms or in
whatever language people in your field might use (e.g.,
"This is wordy / roundabout / awkward /
naive"). Plain talk by non-English teachers is often
more effective with students. That is, it's better to
say, "Don't sound so pompous" than to say,
"Don't use so many passives and nominalized
constructions." Most of all, you have a great
advantage over us English teachers: when you say,
"This is unacceptable writing in our field,"
students tend to believe you; when we English teachers
complain about style or clarity, students tend to dismiss
it as just our occupational hang-up.
Two-fers: I sometimes wait till I have two pieces by
each student before reading and commenting. For example,
I might comment on two think pieces (and perhaps even ask
for an essay on a subsequent week that builds on the
better of the two). With this approach I make just one
comment that's not much longer than a comment on only one
paper-- but it applies to both papers. It's easier to
say, "This one is stronger than that one for the
following reasons," than to figure out what to say
about just one paper--especially if it is problematic or
bland. These comparative comments are usually better at
helping students improve because I can point to what
worked rather than what didn't.
I sometimes give feedback to essays on a cassette
tape: I ask students to hand in a cassette with their
paper. I can just talk as I read.
ABOUT GRADING
It simplifies things simply to use fewer categories:
e.g., pass/fail or ok/unsatisfactory or / +/ - or
ok/strong/weak-- especially for more informal pieces and
think pieces--sometimes even for graded essays. This
means fewer distinctions to make and saves time and
agonizing and student complaints over small distinctions.
About think-pieces: I give an ok if they engage the
task; I don't look for elegant writing or good
organization (and I take them handwritten); I don't mind
if they reflect perplexity or change their position in
mid-course like good letters often do; I don't even mind
if they come out dead wrong--as long as the student
wrestles with the material. In short, what I insist on
for an ok are those features which--if necessary--I can
identify in 15 seconds of skimming.
I read think pieces a bit more carefully (and perhaps
give check pluses and minuses) if the class is small
enough and I want to push students more. Any system works
if you are clear about your standards. I care more about
getting students to work through intellectual tasks than
about giving them fine-grained evaluations of their work.
But I am not arguing against hard grading. The most
efficient way to get good work from students is to expect
it and demand it. Since lots of casual ungraded writing
can give students a sense that we are not interested in
high quality work, there is something to be said for
having a graded essay relatively early in the term and
grading it with demanding standards--so that they can
feel the true dialectic or schizophrenic relationship
between writing to learn and writing to demonstrate
learning.
In short, if you insist on strong writing on serious
essays, students will usually provide it if that's the
only way they can get a good grade--and if you give them
lots of practice writings to warm up. This doesn't mean
you have to teach writing. (Do you have to teach typing
to insist on typed papers?) There is no greater service
you can provide to us writing teachers or to a Writing
Center than to make students angry by demanding good
writing yet not stopping to teach it. What writing
teachers need most is for students to need us.
ABOUT SURFACE CORRECTNESS: SPELLING, GRAMMAR, TYPING
I don't penalize for mistakes on in-class writing
since students have no time to revise with fresh eyes and
have no access to help. For exploratory think pieces done
out of class, I require what would be appropriate in an
informal letter to me: some mistakes are no problem, but
the pieces can't be riddled with errors, nor sloppy, nor
hard to read. A few students can just go back over a
first draft of a think piece and correct obvious errors;
other have to recopy and correct. (But some teachers
insist on typing and good copy-editing even on think
pieces.)
For genuine essays, it's important to demand not only
clear well- organized writing but also typing and good
copy-editing. I require essays to be "virtually free
of mistakes." Many students can't achieve this
without the help of a friend (or paid typist). This is
appropriate; this is how most writers operate; it's how I
operate. When they are writing for other situations, they
don't usually need to know how to get rid of all
mistakes; they need to know to get the help they need to
get rid of all mistakes. The main thing I'm trying to
teach students about spelling and grammar is, again,
schizophrenic: they are not important for exploratory
writing, but they are crucial on final drafts.
PREVENTING PLAGIARISM
I can't catch all plagiarism--and I start to go blind
and insane when I try. But when I catch it, I feel I
should make the consequences weighty. We need trustworthy
evidence, however: it's no fair saying, "This is too
good for you." Most students are capable of
astonishingly good work. The best approach is to prevent
plagiarism. Here are some ways:
- Collect lots of informal writing so students know
that you know their style or voice.
- Assign specific or idiosyncratic topics for high
stakes writing where someone might be tempted to
cheat--so they can't lift things from books or
other courses. (Examples: "Apply this theory
to that data"; "Describe your reactions
to X and then go on to . . ."; "Write
an essay in which you reflect on what so-and-so
says on page 134"; "Write a short story
that illustrates the principles we've studied
this week.")
- If it's a large course with different section
leaders, have those leaders make up different
assignments for think-pieces and essays-- so
students are less tempted to share work between
sections.
SOME PREMISES
- Students understand and retain course material
much better when they write copiously about it.
We tend to think of learning as input and writing
as output, but it also works the other way
around. Learning is increased by "putting
out"; writing causes input.
- Students won't take writing seriously till all
faculty demand it.
- Writing needn't take any time away from course
material.
- We can demand good writing without teaching it.
The demand itself teaches much.
- Students won't write enough unless we assign more
writing than we can comment on--or even read.
There is no law against not reading what we make
them write.
- Writing can have a powerful communal or social
dimension; it doesn't have to feel solitary.
Elbow, P. (1994). Writing for learning--not just
for demonstrating learning. University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, 1-4.
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