scholarly journals Use of “Comment Bubbles” in a Writing-intensive, Social and Economic Justice Course

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 463-477
Author(s):  
Ninive Sanchez ◽  
Megan Corbin ◽  
Alexander Norka
Keyword(s):  
Economic Justice ◽  
Teaching Writing ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
Career Interests ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Intensive Courses ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Microsoft Word ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Writing Intensive Courses

A central question among instructors teaching writing-intensive courses is how to best respond to student writing. This study posits that the margin of the essay should not be reserved for instructor feedback only, and that allowing students to comment on their writing choices in this space has pedagogical aims. This study examined the use of “comment bubbles” to engage students in thinking about their writing choices in argumentative writing in an undergraduate social and economic justice course. Comment bubbles are comments and questions students inserted in the margin of their essays using the comment function in Microsoft Word. The margin of student essays was framed as a safe writing environment to encourage student self-expression beyond that already expressed in the essay. A thematic analysis of student comment bubbles found that students used the comment bubbles to react to research they read in journal articles, elaborate on their writing choices, share their personal experiences, and reflect on their future career interests. Allowing students to comment on their writing choices in this space facilitates student self-expression, self-reflection, and critical thinking.

Outcomes from a Baccalaureate Program's Writing Improvement Initiative

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Betsy Vourlekis ◽  
Diane M. Harnek Hall
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Outcome Data ◽  
Teaching Writing ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
Writing Assignments ◽  
Intensive Courses ◽  
Writing Improvement ◽  
Repeated Measures Analysis ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Writing Intensive Courses

Using a writing-in-the-discipline approach, our department explored teaching writing through faculty development and evaluated the results achieved after designating writing-intensive courses in the major. A pre- and posttest quasi-experimental evaluation design examined the effect of the department's writing-intensive methods classes on a cohort of majors, and the effect of an additional instructional intervention. Trained faculty assessed student writing from required writing assignments. Sixty-one students (62 percent of the cohort) comprised the study sample. Paired t-tests revealed the cohort's improved writing over time in four of six criteria. Repeated measures analysis revealed no main effect for the additional intervention. The initiative introduced ideas and techniques that promote confidence and enthusiasm for teaching writing as a product of critical thinking. It also provided outcome data for a key component of the educational endeavor.

scholarly journals Dynamic written corrective feedback: A Tool to improve multilingual student writing

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie Miller ◽  
Anna Sophia Habib ◽  
Paul Michiels
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Program ◽  
Corrective Feedback ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
Writing Classes ◽  
Writing Assignments ◽  
Intensive Courses ◽  
Multilingual Students ◽  
Grammar Correction ◽  
Written Corrective Feedback ◽  
Writing Intensive Courses

With Mason’s increasing population of multilingual students, faculty in writing intensive courses at the undergraduate and graduate level are often looking for innovative, efficient approaches to providing feedback on student writing.This session will provide an overview of dynamic written corrective feedback (Hartshorn et. al, 2010; Ferris,1999), a strategy that allows faculty to look past errors in accuracy by prioritizing attention to student efforts towards complexity. We use this model in English composition classes to help multilingual students become more reflective, self-reliant writers in terms of their idea development, critical analysis and language accuracy. During the session composition and language faculty from INTO-Mason’s undergraduate and graduate program will explain the research behind the technique, provide examples of this feedback approach and engage participants in a discussion of its potential use in their classes.  This method can be used to support all students across a variety of disciplines that require writing assignments. References:Ferris, D. (1999). The case of grammar correction in L2 writing classes: A response to Truscott (1996). Journal of Second Language Writing, 8(1), 1-11.Hartshorn, K. J., Evans, N. W., Merrill, P. F., Sudweeks, R. R., Strong-Krause, D., & Anderson, N. J. (2010). Effects of dynamic corrective feedback on ESL writing accuracy. TESOL Quarterly, 44(1), 84–109. 

scholarly journals WRITING-INTENSIVE COURSES ACROSS THE LAW CURRICULUM: DEVELOPING LAW STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND WRITING SKILLS

Obiter ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theo Broodryk
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Writing To Learn ◽  
Course Structure ◽  
Intensive Courses ◽  
Substantive Content ◽  
Thinking Process ◽  
The Law ◽  
Writing Intensive Courses

This article will explore the use of writing-intensive courses across the law curriculum, vested in the belief that writing, as an articulation of thinking, enhances learning where it is meaningfully and intentionally embedded into a course structure. The article commences by pointing out that law students often regard the writing process and the critical thinking process as mutually exclusive and therefore fail to appreciate that writing is in fact the end-result of a process of argumentation or analysis. As a result of students‟ inability to engage effectively in a process of critical thinking, they tend to reach closure too quickly when presented with a critical-thinking problem. Consequently, students often fail to engage in a process of exploratory thinking, enabling them to suspend judgment and to enter into the spirit of opposing views. The article specifically focuses on the writing strategy recently implemented by the Faculty of Law, Stellenbosch University with the primary aim of establishing a coordinated approach to the development of research and writing skills within the LLB programme as an integral part of legal education within the Faculty. The Strategy is intended to enhance the writing and research skills of LLB students through a number of interrelated interventions implemented across the entire LLB programme. A principal aim is to inculcate both generic and specific writing skills in LLB graduates in a manner that is integrated into the curriculum. A key component of the Strategy, on which the article will focus, entails the identification and development of writing-intensive courses in terms of which writing and research assignments are integrated into substantive courses. Writing-intensive courses support the notion of “writing to learn” as opposed to “learning to write” and thus encourage critical thinking. They are assignment-centred rather than text- and lecture-centred; they are structured so as to enable exploratory thinking (and thus writing); they encourage students to become actively involved in their own learning processes; and they consist of assignments that require students to arrive at well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards, justifying their ideas in writing or other appropriate modes. In these courses, students are instructed on writing skills alongside the substantive content of the particular course and given exercises to develop such skills with reference to the substantive content of the course. Each course is focused on specific writing skills and successive courses are focused on developing these skills. The article concludes by dealing with the practical difficulties and benefits associated with the development of writing-intensive courses, one of which is the fact that students not only develop generic writing skills, but they also develop specific writing skills within the academic discourse of our environment – they therefore do not only learn to write, but to write in law.

scholarly journals Reflections of a community-based participatory researcher from the intersection of disability advocacy, engineering, and the academy

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 258-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dora M Raymaker
Keyword(s):  
Social Services ◽  
Community Based Participatory Research ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Story Telling ◽  
Research Setting ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Narrative Story ◽  
Power And Resistance ◽  
Personal Experiences

This article uses an evocative autoethnographic approach to explore the experience of being an insider-researcher in a community-based participatory research setting. Taking a holistic perspective and using the form of narrative story-telling, I examine the dynamics between the typically marginalizing (but sometimes empowering) experience of being an autistic woman and the typically privileging (but sometimes oppressive) experience of being an engineering professional, during a time of career upheaval. Themes of motivations and mentors, adversity from social services and the academy, belonging, the slipperiness of intersectional positioning, feedback cycles of opportunity, dichotomies of competence and inadequacy, heightened stakes, and power and resistance are explored through the narrative. While primarily leaving the narrative to speak for itself per the qualitative approach taken, the article concludes with a discussion of how the personal experiences described relate both to the broader work of insider-researchers within disability-related fields, and to misconceptions about self-reflection and capacity for story-telling in individuals on the autism spectrum.

Confessional data selfies and intimate digital traces

2020 ◽  
pp. 146144482093403
Author(s):  
Brady Robards ◽  
Ben Lyall ◽  
Claire Moran
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Impression Management ◽  
Quantitative Data ◽  
Brain Surgery ◽  
Daily Step ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Step Counts ◽  
Personal Experiences

Data selfies are representations of self through personal quantitative data: from graphs of Tinder dating outcomes, through to the story of brain surgery told through daily step counts. In this article, we explore practices around what we call ‘confessional data selfies’ shared on the reddit forum r/DataIsBeautiful, where more than 14 million subscribers – predominantly straight men – share often complex and intimate quantitative self-representations of their lives. We draw on an analysis of the top 1000 posts on r/DataIsBeautiful, and a sub-sample of 59 data selfies, to identify patterns in confessional data selfie practices. We identify three themes: families and relationships, routine management, and body rhythms. We argue that these data selfies generate opportunities for self-reflection, connection, discussions of mental health, grief and other personal experiences. Significantly, this occurs largely between men, modulating processes of gendered impression management and expanding the conceptualisation of selfie work.

Practicing Improvisation: Preparing Multicultural Educators

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-196
Author(s):  
Karla Hull
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Process ◽  
Teacher Educator ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Cultural Discontinuity ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Personal Experiences

AbstractPreparing competent multicultural educators involves a dynamic process requiring constant self-reflection and assisting pre-service teachers to sharpen their cultural vision as they learn to be responsive educators. Reflections on lessons learned as a teacher educator are shared through personal experiences that are identified as keys to prepare multicultural educators. The keys include practicing improvisation, the virtue of not-knowing, identifying cultural discontinuity, the dilemma of difference, and opening the door to life’s contingencies.

scholarly journals Format of Instructor Feedback on Student Writing Assignments Affects Feedback Quality and Student Performance

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
William F. Johnson ◽  
Mark A. Stellmack ◽  
Abigail L. Barthel
Keyword(s):  
Student Performance ◽  
Student Attitudes ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Methods Course ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
Writing Assignments ◽  
Microsoft Word ◽  
Electronic Feedback ◽  
Writing Students

Electronic feedback given via word-processing software (e.g., track changes in Microsoft Word) allows for a simple way to provide feedback to students during the drafting process. Research has mostly focused on student attitudes toward electronic feedback, with little investigation of how feedback format might affect the quality of instructor comments. In this study, we experimentally manipulated the feedback format, either electronic or handwritten, used by instructors grading papers in an introductory research methods course. Among the effects observed, instructors using electronic feedback provided longer comments, were less likely to rewrite student passages and were more likely to offer general observations about the writing. Students whose papers were graded using electronic feedback also showed greater improvement on subsequent drafts.

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