A Student-Centered Approach to Teaching Skills for Writing Paragraphs and Essays with David Kehe!

Thanks so much for being here this week David! I have been a long time fan of your work.

Your offer some great advice on giving students specific ways they can improve their first drafts.

When I was in school, I remember receiving drafts back that were marked up in red ink outlining every conceivable grammar and mechanics issue present in my writing. I felt defeated, and I had no idea where to begin to improve my writing. I would have appreciated receiving more positive feedback and the invitation to focus on just one or two problem areas.

In her blog, longtime adult educator Kate Nonesuch outlines a procedure she calls marking for confidence that I know would have helped me become a better writer.

I look forward to learning more from you this week!

Steve Schmidt, Moderator

LINCS Reading and Writing Group 

Hello there!

First time ever in Tesol. I can't tell you how enthralled I am. Undoubtedly, the process of writing is so important for anyone at any level that is almost, at least in my humble opinion, a must for teachers to include and pay attention to in the syllabus. I always try to put writing portfolios into practice and have students write as much as they can. When the time for marking arrivves, I always negotiate a rubric with my students so that they know what is going to be requested and, above all, how they are assessed. Do you use rubrics? 

Kind regards from Uruguay

Walter

Here are five ways I’ve used to motivate students. (I’ll try to give a brief description of the ways below. In this link LINCS Day 2 Motivating Learners, you can find more details and exercises.)

1) Give Students Autonomy

According to psychologist Edward Deci, the most important ingredient for motivating students is autonomy.

Having autonomy doesn’t mean that students decide what is taught in a lesson.  Instead, students can experience autonomy if the lesson is set up so that they can individually choose which exercise to do first, second etc., how fast to work, when to ask the teacher a question or for help and even when to take a break.

A writing-workshop approach is an excellent way to give students autonomy. Here is how it can be done:

     Step 1) The teacher briefly explains all the assignments that student will be working on during the class.
     Step 2) AUTONOMY!  Students start the assignments by individually choosing which one they want to do first, second, third.   At any time, they can ask the teacher any questions they might have and show him/her corrections from any returned assignment.

For more details about how to organize a Writing Workshop and for a description of the many benefits for students and teachers, see The Writing Workshop: Countless Benefits for ESL Students and Teachers and to see a more detailed lesson plan for one workshop class, see link LINCS Day 2 Motivating Learners

 2) Explain the Purpose of the Assignment.

Students need to feel like they are working toward something worthwhile and are doing something important. We can satisfy this need in students by explaining the reason for the assignment. For example, when we introduce an assignment, we can explain…
     • how they’ll be able to apply it when they write their next essay or paper.
     • how the skill or technique will help them do well and impress their instructor at the next level.
     • how they’ll be using the skill or technique when they take college classes or in the future job.
(For specific examples of what we can say, see LINCS Day 2 Motivating Learners

3) Show Your Enthusiasm

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you used an animated voice and happy talk.

• When introducing a writing technique, for example, including a short story for support in a paragraph, we can say, “This technique is a lot of fun to use because you can use your creativity. The story doesn’t have to be true.”
     • Tell them how much the technique will impress the reader.
     • In our comments on their papers, next to specific sentences, we can write, “Wow!!” or “Interesting,” or “Great example!” or “Funny!” or “Amazing! Is this true?”
     • At the end of essays in which students had obviously put in a lot of effort, we can write, “This was fun to read.” or “I enjoyed reading this.” or “You are a talented writer.”
     • When conferencing with students about their essays that they are revising, we can point to specific parts and say any of those descriptions above (e.g., “Wow!” “I like this example,” etc.)
For more about these and for exercises that develop these techniques, see LINCS Day 2 Motivating Learners

4) Arouse Curiosity

We can stimulate students to want to learn more about what they’ll be doing or studying in the upcoming activity or assignment. For example,
     • We can tell them the reaction former students had about the upcoming activity. For example, when introducing Definition Essays, I start by saying, “Several of my students have told me that this was the most challenging essay, but it also was the most rewarding.”
     • We can explain how this assignment is going to make them special. (See Links Day 2 Motivating Learners for how we can do this to introduce exercises about comma uses.)

5) Give your course credibility in the eyes of your students

A very powerful tool for motivating your students is their confidence that your course will help them develop their skills.  Testimonies by previous students (your students’ peers) about how much your course has helped them can give your course a great deal of credibility.  These can be actual quotes that students have said or written, and others can just capture the essence. 

For example, the Level 3 teacher can introduce the course by sharing this testimonial written by a former student:
• “I just finished Writing Level 4 and got a good grade.  I can say that I did well in Level 4 because of all the techniques that I learned in Level 3.  I used those in most of my essays in Level 4.”
(See LINCS Day 2 Motivating Learners for more sample testimonials.)

Onward!

David Kehe

Thank you so much for continuing this discussion David!

I rediscovered your blog, Common Sense Teaching ESL , that is packed with useful information including two carefully written blog posts that debut on the 1st and 15th of each month. More than 180 blog posts are contained in this exciting resource.

It's fascinating how you approached arousing curiosity from the perspective of providing former students' reactions to assignments as well as explaining how the writing task will make them special. Curiosity is a great place to begin teaching. I've heard curiosity described as an itch that just has to be scratched!

I've approached curiosity in writing through activities. I love doing the New York Times Learning Network's What's Going on in This Picture where students are invited to write captions or longer works based on an interesting picture stripped of context. 

Your ideas on enthusiasm also resonated with me. I was taught long ago that we need to be the "enthusiasm engineer" in our classroom. I lived your description of how positive paper comments provide enthusiasm. While in school, even one positive comment amidst a sea of red ink was incredibly motivating for me and kept me writing. I always look for the good in student papers. 

Providing the why behind assignments is also incredibly important. When students see a path forward for their learning, motivation ensues and they will persevere through tough times. 

Thanks again so much for your thoughts David!

Steve Schmidt, Moderator

LINCS Reading and Writing Group 

Speaking of feedback, thank you, Susan and others, for your feedback on my response to the Days 1 and 2 questions.

Giving feedback to students on their writing is such a rewarding aspect of our job. However, it’s important to do it in a way that is meaningful to students yet user-friendly for the teacher. Here is how we can do it.

Giving meaningful feedback in in a manner that is time and energy efficient

In general, we’d like to give three types of feedback on a piece of writing:
     1) Indicate what they did well.
     2) Lead them to discover their grammar mistakes.
     3) Point out where they could improve their content.

(As I did on Days 1 & 2, I’ll give a brief discussion here about giving feedback. In this link LINCS Day 3 Offering Feedback, you can find more details and techniques.)

1) Indicate what they did WELL.
Before describing an easy, efficient and effective method for giving focused positive feedback, it’s important to understand the reasons why we want to give positive feedback. What we are trying to do is to encourage students to continue to use writing techniques which have made their writing assignments coherent, cohesive and interesting.

This means we’d like to point out, for example, where they have effectively used…
     • expression that introduce or connect ideas (e.g., For example, However, Also).
     • conjunctions (e.g., and, but, so, or) which can show reasons and contrasts, and connect ideas;
     • subordinators (e.g., after, although, when, where, who, if, since) which can show relationship between ideas;
     • good vocabulary which can make their ideas clearer.
     • examples with enough details to clearly illustrate their ideas and make their papers more interesting.

One easy, efficient and effective method for doing this is to use a colored pen or marker to underline or highlight specific words, sentences, examples and ideas.  For example, the teacher can tell the students that “green” means good.  As the teachers read the students’ papers, they merely underline those parts in green.  Or perhaps to emphasis especially good vocabulary words or expressions or a good use of a subordinator or conjunction, they could draw a green box around them.  And it takes very little mental energy on the teacher’s part to decide what to green and very little time to do it.

To comment of specific content, we can write a couple of words in the margin next to specific sentences:
• Interesting idea                       • Good example           • Good details                            
• Amazing!                                • Good support              • Clever idea

 2) LEAD them to discover their grammar mistake.
For this technique, the teacher writes a simple code in the margin to indicate that the student had a mistake in that line and to give them a hint about the type of mistake it is. For example, NF (noun form) VT (verb tense) -W (omit word) + prep (add preposition) (Note: I usually would use red color for these codes so that they'd stand out.)

NF / VT              I have three friend who have help me a lot. When I have a

+comma/ -W      problem they are always stand me.                                        +prep

By putting codes (hints) in the margin, the teacher has given the student a chance to find the errors on their own.   If the student is able to do this, we can feel quite confident that the mistake was caused by poor editing or proof-reading rather than a lack of grammar knowledge.

What if the student can’t find their mistakes with the hints?  When conferencing with the student (see the Day 2 discussion about students’ autonomy and conferencing), the teacher gives additional hints to lead the student to the mistake.  For example, let’s say the (male) student can’t find the NF (noun form) mistake in the first line in the sample above.  The teacher could say, “Underline the nouns in this line.”  After he underlines “friend,” the teacher could ask, “Do you have one or more than one friend?”  99.9 % of the time the student will realize that he needs to change to “friends.”

I should mention that many of us teachers have used the codes-in-the-margin technique successfully with students from high-beginners to advanced. 

(To read more about this technique and see examples of how it can be applied to students’ papers, see Most Effective Technique for Marking Grammar on Essays to Develop Self-Editing Skills

 3) Point out where they could improve their content.
We can tell students that any words or sentence that are underlined with blue means that they should try to improve their ideas. For example:
“When I was in elementary school, I was often nervous because of the bad behavior by some older boys. However, my older brother helped me. However, my older brother helped me. Also, I had some health problems.” (Note: I would underline those bold words in blue, but I'm not sure how to do that here on this LINCS platform.)

The student could use one of the techniques that they had practice, for example, “Give an example,” “Tell a short narrative,” “Tell a personal experience.” In their next draft, they could describe the bad behavior and tell more specific details about what the older brother had done to help. (See Day 1 of this discussion about the process approach: Step 3 Preparation for the second draft.) 

Interestingly, when I conference with my students about what I’ve marked on their second drafts, they may need my help or hints for correcting some of their grammar, but rarely do they need additional suggestions for improving their content. They just need someone to point out where to do it and the techniques for doing it.

Feeling some spring in Bellingham, WA.

David Kehe

David, once again you have provided some excellent guidance for helping students with writing. We really appreciate all the time you put into this event!

Can you offer any specific help for students who are afraid to write? So many times students are reluctant to write because of negative past experiences or they just don't know where to start. Writing is scary as it forces one to put their thoughts out in public. This is magnified for our English language learners who are struggling to communicate in a new language. Any thoughts?

We appreciate you and all you do,

Steve Schmidt, Moderator

LINCS Reading and Writing Group 

Susan, I'm happy to hear that you've found the interactive activities useful. I'll describe four of them below that I include during each writing unit plus a fifth one that is mode specific. They do give variety to a writing class, but more importantly, they are effective in helping students develop their writing and editing skills.

(I’ll give a brief discussion here of five interactive activities. In this link LINCS Day 4 Interactive Activities, you can find more details and related exercises.)

1) Writer-in-control peer editing. Type 1: Writers prepare questions.

In traditional peer-editing activities, the students read a classmate’s essay and give feedback by filling out a teacher-provided questionnaire, rubric or checklist. (For example, “Is the topic sentence clear?” “Are the verb tenses correct?”)

For this non-traditional approach below, the writers have control over the type of feedback they want. Here are the steps:

Step 1: (A model) Sample essay and peer editing questions. In order to demonstrate to students how they will peer-edit with a classmate and the type of questions that they can ask, they work with a model essay with peer editing questions that the “writer” has asked. 

Step 2: Preparing for Peer Editor. After students have written their essays, they identify specific parts where they’d like a peer’s advice.  These could be about the grammar in some sentences, clarity of an example, a need to add details, etc. On a separate piece of paper, they write questions about these parts that they will ask a peer-editor. For example, “Look where I wrote #1. Is my example clear?” “Look where I have #4. Is there a problem with this sentence?” “Look at # 8. How can I improve my conclusion?”

Step 3: Exchange papers. Students exchange essays with a partner and silently read them.

Step 4: Working with their Peer Editor.  One partner will start by orally asking his/her editing questions. The peer editor does not see the questions.  In other words, in order to make this an exchange of ideas, they don’t just trade their list of questions and write the answers.  After hearing the advising partner’s (peer editor’s) advice, the writer can revise anything on his/her essay but does not have to.  Also, the advising partner only gives solicited advice.  In other words, the writer has control of the type of advice he/she gets.

Step 5: Reverse roles.

In the link LINCS Day 4 Interactive Activities, I have a sample model and exercise for introducing this activity in Step 1, and I describe the many benefits from this type of peer editing.

2) Writer-in-control peer editing. Type 2: Writers hear their essays read aloud.

Once students are aware of the types of questions they can ask during peer editing, they can easily and effectively do this version of peer-editing. Below is a brief description of the steps. (For more details about each step, please see the link above.)

Step 1) After students have written a draft, they are matched with a classmate (Student A /Student B.) Beyond writing their essays, they do not prepare anything.
Step 2) Student B reads Student A’s paper aloud to Student A. Student A cannot see his/her paper during this step. Student A can ask B to pause reading at any time in order to get advice.
Step 3) They switch parts.
Step 4) They have the option of revising their essays.

Notice: These two peer-editing activities are very user-friendly for the teachers. The teacher’s only role is to assign pairs, monitor, and be prepare to answer any questions the pairs might have. There is no pre- or post- paper work.

3) Fluency Writing: Reading, Speaking and Listening Culminating in a Writing Task

This is the perfect activity for integrating four skills into one activity.  Below is a brief description. (For more details about each step, a description of all the benefits, and for two samples, please see the link LINCS Day 4 Interactive Activities.)

In brief, each student in a pair or triad is given a different part of a high-interest article and follows these steps:
     1) Silently read their part to themselves.
     2) Take turns reading aloud their part to their partner(s), who can only see their part of the article. They can ask the reader to repeat or explain parts.
     3) After all parts of the article have been read, individually they write as many details as they can about the whole article without looking at the article.  (A list of key words from the article are given to them to help them remember the details.)

In other words, they are not trying to think of ideas, but only write about the details in the article.  As a result, they can especially focus on their grammar and style.

4) Grammar Groups: Triads analyze grammar in sentences.

     • Students are put into groups of three (Student A / B / C).
     • They each have a copy of a “Worksheet” with a list of sentences, some of which have grammar mistakes.
     • Each student is given a list of questions about the Worksheet sentences.Student A's, Student B's and Student C's questions are different from their partners.
     • They take turns reading their questions and fill out the worksheets, helping each other when necessary and confirming that they are filling in the items correctly.

Here is a brief model: Grammar Groups Model

(For more details and for a sample of the activity, please see the link LINCS Day 4 Interactive Activities.)

The four activities above can be used with any type of Writing unit. This next activity is more mode specific: “Describe someone.”

5) Describe a classmate (secretly).

In brief, the steps for this activity are:
     1) The students are secretly assigned by the teacher to a classmate to describe.
     2) They write a description.  It can be a list (for lower levels) or a paragraph (for higher ones).
     3) They give their papers to the teacher, who quickly looks at them to make sure that there is nothing inappropriate on them.  
     4) At random, the teacher returns the papers to the students, and each one tapes the one that they were given on the walls of the classroom.  These have no names on them, only a number.
     5) They move about the room, read the descriptions and write on a separate piece of paper the name of the classmate who is described.
     6) When most students have finished #5, the teacher asks them to stop.  Then as a whole class, they tell the teacher who they think was described on each paper, and the teacher confirms the correct answer.

Variation depending on the level of the students:

For lower-level students, they can describe the physical appearance, e.g., clothes, hair, size etc.
For students who are a bit higher, they can describe the personality, habits, backgrounds, unique characteristic or experience, or even say what job they’d be good at in the future.  

The only tricky part of this activity can be assigning the secret numbers.  I use a form that has been helpful for that. For a copy of the form, see Writing Class Activity: Fun, Lively and Productive 

Onward and upward!

David Kehe

David, we are very grateful for the many insights you have provided throughout this week's discussion!

What would you say to the instructor who has done little writing so far in her class but wants to begin having her students write more? 

Thanks again so much for all your guidance,

Steve Schmidt, Moderator

LINCS Reading and Writing Group 

Steve, I think a great way to get students to start writing more is by first giving them some input.  I’ll include a sample of how I’ve done this for writing one paragraph that includes a story, but in brief, here are the steps:

1) The teacher reads a paragraph “essay” to the students, and the students just listen without looking at anything.
2) The students are given a paper with a skeleton of the essay that they had just heard which includes blanks and above that they can see the words / phrases that they will choose from to fill in the blanks.
3) They fill in the blanks. After a few minutes, the teacher can tell them to turn over their papers while s/he re-reads the essay. Then the students can continue to fill in the blanks.
4) After checking the fill-ins in pairs, they don’t look at the Step 2 skeleton while doing this Step 4. In this step, they write that essay that they had just heard with as many details as they can using their own style. We give them Key Words to help them remember. (They give their paragraph to the teacher, who can give them feedback.)
5) Students are given some topics and write their own paragraph that includes a story.

Here is a link to a sample:  Exercise: one paragraph including story.

And here is a link to a complete unit that uses this approach: Engaging Student-Centered Classification Writing Unit Using Inductive Approach

I hope this concept might help your students get started writing, Steve.

David