Rachel Mazique's blog

Blogging in the Classroom: Not Only Why, But HOW!

Rachel Mazique — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 06:47:07 +0000

Author:

Rachel Mazique

Image Credit:

http://www.pinterest.com/misty_poland/classroom-technology/

If you’re anything like me, you may be hesitant to set up a new platform for teaching and writing in your classroom. Or, even if you’re convinced that blogging in a rhetoric or literature classroom is a great idea, you may avoid doing so because you’ve never run a blog, been a blogger, or fear the possible breakdowns of working online in an unknown digital space and losing student work.

As I prepared for teaching a literature course for the first time this semester, I made up my mind that I wanted to try setting up a new classroom space. In the past, I worked with PBworks, and while that digital space was extremely useful, it is not the most visually appealing space. Since my class is a “Literature, Visual Culture, and Deaf Studies” course, I planned on incorporating several YouTube videos relevant to the course, and I wanted these compiled in a public space—a sort of public classroom portfolio that students could share with friends, family, and also easily enjoy at home.

Since this would be my first time managing a blog, I wanted to work with a user-friendly site. A quick Google search turns up pages like this one, which lists Blogger and WordPress as two of the top blog websites for creating free blogs. I looked at both, and although Blogger requires that you set up/own a Gmail account to get started (since it’s now owned by Google), its home page is incredibly streamlined. Within a few minutes of playing around, I was able to set up a blog spot for my class.

Working with WordPress was not as intuitive, and its dashboard is a bit more intimidating at first. After playing around with both and reading about the pros and cons of each blogging platform , I found that I preferred Blogger. Before running with it though, I needed to see if it was conducive to classroom work. I wanted students to be able to modify their settings in accordance with their preferences re: privacy. I also wanted to retain a modicum of control over this public space.

After much reading of blogs—including those by teachers, with more pros and cons from a pedagogical standpoint—including this one from “Professor Beej,” (B.J. Keeton), a “writer, teacher, and runner,” I started to lean towards WordPress—especially because of it’s comment moderating capability. I eventually discovered that the University of Texas at Austin runs a University Blog Service on the WordPress platform.

Learning that my university’s Information Technology Services ran a WordPress platform for its faculty, staff, and students alleviated my concerns about having a support system in case anything went wrong. Students here at UT can log in to a blog created through our university’s blog service with their UT EID. Instructors can easily set up their new class blogs at home—again, through our UT EID.

In the end, after hours of playing around and teaching myself WordPress’ functions, I decided on WordPress over Blogger. Once the university approves our request for a blog page, we can even personalize our URLs. Here’s mine: http://blogs.utexas.edu/litblogs/

I love our class blog’s functionality, and I haven’t looked back since.

------

Disclaimers: I have students customize their usernames and decide whether they want to use their full names, first names, last names, or a pseudonym/nickname.

-------

A couple of key points from our university’s Service Level Agreement:

“The University Blog Service does not meet FERPA requirements for use by faculty within their courses.”

University Blog Service subscribers agree to:

Not post or store any Category-I data in the University Blog Service.
Provide critical information to ITS in a timely manner when requested for purposes of resolving subscriber issues.

Pedagogy of a Deaf Teacher

Rachel Mazique — Wed, 07 Aug 2013 05:00:00 +0000

Author:

Rachel Mazique

Image Credit:

American and British Sign Language ABC's

This blog post is a “coming-out” [1] story—the story of teaching in a classroom of hearing students as a Deaf [2] teacher and what that means in terms of methodology. It is a “coming-out” story because it involves processes of choosing to “come-out” (as Deaf identity is invisible until some aspect comes to play to disrupt the “hearing line.” [3]) This blog post also aims to make clear the abilities of D/deaf teachers, to explain the differences (small from my perspective) between Deaf and hearing teachers, and to detail the benefits of the Deaf teacher in a hearing classroom with regards to power dynamics.

I also aim to lay out questions of embodiment and how the choices of the D/deaf teacher affect, rely on, and consider power dynamics not only between the teacher and the students, but also with relation to the cohort of teachers within an institution. As I do this, I hope to answer common questions about my pedagogical choices (with regards to questions of abilities and implied commonplaces about teaching hearing students). I have asked several of these questions of myself as my teaching practices evolved and as I developed more confidence as both a teacher and a graduate student without a cohort who could fully relate to or understand my position as a Deaf teacher.

On the most basic level, the difference between hearing teachers and myself is one of language modality—it is a difference that relies on questions of access and language dominance. My first language, American Sign Language (ASL), is a minority language. Yet, I teach and talk about the dominant language of English, the language of our institution, of our department, and of our course content. I can do this because I am bilingual. However, because I am Deaf, I must consider my options for teaching hearing students. Because I speak English well enough to “pass” as a hearing person (with most audiences), I must choose when to “come out” as a Deaf person. And, because I do not hear well enough to understand everything that is spoken—especially in large group settings—I have full access to language only when it is visual. Hence, on the most basic level, I require, or have the most access to what is said in a classroom when I either read or see the words spoken. Having tried CARTs, or Communication Access Real-time Translation, in a few lecture classes and in a conference setting, I find that I prefer seeing language on the hands, and I work with ASL interpreters who sign what my students say and speak what I sign.

Returning to the idea of “coming out” and questions of abilities, the way I present myself when I first meet a person sets the expectation for the remainder of our communicative interactions. When I first began teaching—way back in high school—I strove to mold myself in such a way as to fit my students. This chameleonic work meant that when I taught hearing preschoolers and middle school students, I did so without interpreters. I “passed” as hearing and never came out as a Deaf person. The mentor that I worked with might perceive me as deaf because she knew me as a deaf student from her other classes, in which I had interpreters, or I might “come-out” to my mentor as a hard-of-hearing (hoh) person, but I would never come out to my students. I thought it most important that I focus on my students’ needs and that I appear like them. Conversely, when I tutored D/deaf high school students in the writing center, I signed and presented myself as a Deaf/hoh student like them. But, when a hearing high school student came in, I switched right back to spoken English, and if they did not already know me, they saw me as another hearing tutor who worked in the writing center. However, even as my Deaf identity was invisible to most, it was never invisible to me, and I had to work harder than my hearing colleagues to understand the hearing student and to speak in not only a second language, but in a second language mode. I was most comfortable and at most ease when teaching in ASL and teaching Deaf students.

From high school onwards to my current teaching position with the Department of Rhetoric and Writing, however, I have more experience teaching hearing rather than D/deaf students. Other than tutoring Deaf students, I interned as a high school English teacher at the Model Secondary School of the Deaf in Washington D.C., which required more thought on questions of pedagogy as English is most often a second language to D/deaf students, and one that we do not have full access to. I also had to reflect on the best ways to teach a dominant language via a minority language that is not often appreciated as a separate and complete language with grammatical rules different from the rules in English that they were expected to be proficient in. These pedagogical questions require a completely different mindset than do questions of teaching hearing students English via ASL because these students are not expected to be bilingual or to understand what I’m signing. The ASL interpreters are there to provide them with access to my instruction and to provide me access to their questions, comments, and insights. Hence, pedagogical questions of teaching hearing students are much more focused on the teacher-interpreter-student dynamic and facilitating communication in the most efficient way.

In order to do so, I include visual text as much as possible, and I share my lesson plans with the interpreters in as much detail and as early as I can. The interpreters that I work with have said, at times, that they love the “script” that I provide them. My lesson plans are probably more detailed than most, and I strive to provide my lessons as early as possible so the interpreters have more time to review and prepare for class. I think of teaching with interpreters as working with a team, and I need to take them into consideration as well as questions of translation and provide instruction to the interpreters as well as the students. These interpreter instructions most often relate to the signs that we should use—especially when certain English words are fingerspelled. I will create a sign whenever possible so that we do not need to repeatedly fingerspell lengthy English words.

Some people ask why I choose to sign rather than speak directly to my students. This question is one that I asked of myself when I began to teach at the college level. Before coming to the University of Texas at Austin, I had some experience teaching hearing students with interpreters, so I was already trained in advocacy and had instruction on best practices when working with interpreters under the “team” mindset. However, on a one-on-one basis with students or the primary teacher, I would often speak. I carried this practice over to my work as a Teaching Assistant at UT, and I would alternate between signing and speaking when students asked me to speak. But, I realized, over time, and as I developed more confidence, that I was just as effective as a teacher when I signed as when I spoke. I also realized I was doing a disservice to myself and to my community when I adhered to audist norms that privileged speech over sign. I was operating under the commonplace that students learn best from those like themselves. I was also teaching under audist pressures that prevented me from asserting my position as the one “in the front of the classroom”—or, as the teacher, the one who could determine the pace of the class. I was comparing myself to my hearing colleagues and feeling, like I did in high school, that I should “blend in” and be like them, or that I might be putting my students at a disadvantage if I was not like the other TAs.

However, I learned to put more trust in the team of interpreters that work with me, and I’ve worked on improving the teacher-interpreter-student dynamic by being more assertive and instructing my students on this dynamic from day one. I’ve found that by being straightforward and providing a simple clause about turn taking and participating in a class with interpreters, students are able to quickly adjust to the different communication dynamic. Several students are also fascinated by the different dynamic, which has worked to my advantage at times. In my years of experience thus far, I have not had troubles with classroom management or respect. I also feel that I connect more with minority students or with students for whom English is also not a first language. So, even though I’m not hearing like them, in another sense, I am like them, and I do a service to students and teachers—both hearing and Deaf—who are typically underrepresented in the educational establishment when I assert my identity and refuse to “pass” for someone other than who I am.

And, for full transparency, I should also disclose that I am fully aware of the ways that I am perceived as a role model, and that I knew I served as an ambassador to the D/deaf and hard-of-hearing community even before that role became official. Hence, as I considered the pedagogy of the Deaf teacher, I was thinking on a global scale and not only of myself. I believe in the abilities of all D/deaf and hoh teachers who are qualified to teach, yet, at the same time, when I first started teaching at the college level, I questioned my own best practices when it came to my specific group of students as their concerns and needs were utmost in my mind as well. With experience, and with the knowledge that other D/deaf teachers and academics work to teach hearing students, I came to the conclusion that I could both serve my students and my community in a way that benefitted us all—with the backing of the university, interpreters, and laws that protect the civil rights of deaf people—laws that recognize interpreters as professionals who provide a service that accommodates the communication needs of both hearing and deaf people. In the end, I will continue to refine my teaching methods along with my hearing colleagues, but I will also continue to refine my skills as a Deaf teacher so more articles like “Miss Deaf America Raises Awareness” and “Sound Teaching” are published and so less discrimination occurs—as detailed in an article published last year titled “Silence and Solitude,” for one tragic example.

---A side note: UT Newscast has produced a video of an interview with me as well as clips of my teaching, and an interview of one my students. I’m still waiting for it to be captioned, but I’ll post the link as a comment once it is captioned so you may have a brief, “inside” look at my teaching.

Here's the captioned version of the video.

---Please feel free to post questions if I’ve left any unanswered, and I will answer them either as they appear, or in a future blog post on a more specific pedagogical topic.

[1] See Brenda Jo Brueggemann’s article, “The Coming Out of Deaf Culture and American Sign Language: An Exploration into Visual Rhetoric and Literacy.” Also see Brueggemann’s chapter, “On (Almost) Passing” in Lend Me Your Ear: Rhtetorical Constructions of Deafness for her discussion of “coming out” as a deaf person (82).

[2] There are two current general understandings surrounding the sign/signifier DEAF. The use of the capital “D” Deaf signifies Deaf culture and a person who identifies as culturally/ethnically Deaf. The use of the lower case “d” deaf signifies physical impairment, pathology, and the general audiological perspective on deafness as signifying lack—the loss of hearing.

[3] Christopher Krentz theorizes the hearing line in Writing Deafness: The Hearing Line in Nineteenth-Century American Literature; he defines it as “…that invisible boundary separating deaf and hearing people” (2).

Multimodal Writing: How Do We Assess New Media?

Rachel Mazique — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 00:35:39 +0000

Author:

Rachel Mazique

Image Credit:

"Multimedia Message" by rockcreek on Flickr

"Students should be able to both read critically and write functionally, no matter what the medium" (William Kist).

Last semester, I gave a presentation to a class of new Rhetoric and Writing instructors on my "Disability in Pop Culture" class proposal, experiences, and syllabus. Professor Mark Longaker introduced my class as one that works with disability and new media. Although I hadn’t thought of it that way, I realized that my pedagogy most definitely incorporates not only disability theory but also “new” media: whether within my lesson plans and clips pertaining to rhetoric/disability, in the design of my course—with our PbWorks wiki platform, or with the final major assignment I had students write: a multimodal argument. I was apprehensive about assigning this type of new media writing project, but, fortunately, resources abound. This blog post offers some of those resources I drew from and shares my method for assessing my students’ projects.

I have been working with The Journal of Undergraduate Multimedia Projects for over two years now, in a variety of positions, and this work served as my primary resource. The website includes information on the students’ project assignments and on the course. Professors often share their class websites, which means that this journal becomes a pedagogical resource as well as a publication venue. Professor Tanya Rodrigue’s class website inspired me to create a YouTube channel for my own class—even though my multimodal assignment prompt did not restrict the shape of the project to videos (as you can see from the links on the left of our homepage). From Rodrigue's class Tumblr, I came across a helpful article, “Between Modes: Assessing Student New Media Compositions.” I also drew on assignment descriptions and prompts from Professor Justin Hodgson and Scott Nelson.

The National Council of Teachers of English has a “Position Statement on Multimodal Literacies” including statements such as Kist’s, which begins this blog post. Another quote that I took to heart and found exemplified in a TED talk by a 12-year-old was:

"In digital forms, students, even very young students, are often more literate in the technical aspects of digital production than many of their teachers. Many students are frequently exposed to popular technologies, have the leisure time to experiment with their own production, develop the social connections that encourage peer teaching and learning, and may have access to more advanced technology than is available at school. The 'definitions' of multi-modal composing may be written by educators, but they will most likely have first been pioneered by these young people."

Hence, I strongly encouraged my students to collaborate on these projects, to learn from each other, and I happily learned from them. Working in the Digital Writing and Research Labs also means that I had our Visual Media Specialist, Scott Nelson, for support. He came to one of my classes and led an iMovie workshop; he also addressed copyright flags and takedowns on YouTube. Thanks to all of these resources, I felt much more confident about assigning this multimodal project; I also planned for three weeks of class time so students could work together. This time helped alleviate the concerns of the “low-tech” students who were anxious about this project. All of my students proved to have a tech-savviness that they (in some cases) did not know they had. Most were excited about writing in multiple modes. In short, they all relied upon/developed their digital literacy skills.

Teaching and assessing student work via The Learning Record portfolio system (which I explain more in-depth in previous blogs and lesson plans) allows me to assess work not solely based on the final technological project, but on how well it meets the requirements of the assignment, shows development and research into writing in new digital modes, and effectively presents an argument.

After the revision stage, I commented on student progress by synthesizing the comments of three of their peers on how persuasive the project was and whether the revisions following peer review were substantial. The instructions were as follows:

If you have reviewed this project during peer review, answer both questions below.

If this is your first time viewing the project, only answer the second question.

1. Did your peer substantially revise the project? Or, did your peer attend to your feedback and improve the overall project? What improvements stood out and were effective? What still needs improvement?

2. Were you persuaded by the argument? Describe how the argument persuaded you to think or feel a certain way. Or, does it successfully convince you to do something? How did the elements of rhetoric (logos, ethos, and pathos) work to persuade you? Or, how did a lack of attention to certain rhetorical elements (logos, ethos, and/or pathos) result in an unconvincing argument?

This method proved effective because it allowed me to see common threads in feedback and to elaborate on points where students left off. Following the advice of Madeleine Sorapure in “Between Modes: Assessing Student New Media Compositions,” I evaluated projects not only on how well they met the requirements of the assignment, but also on how well they created rhetorical impact via “productive tension” between modes (from the visual, to the textual, to the auditory). In sum, my evaluations via the Learning Record grading system strove to avoid imposing a method of assessment from print essays and, rather, to connect evaluation to “everything else in the course, from the assignments themselves to the readings, the class activities, and the software we use” (Sorapure 2). In my classes, the course goals for development in research, the writing process, presentation, argumentation, and digital literacy all came together in this final project--allowing students to display their skills and to work through the essential learning dimension of confidence and independence.

Encouraging Class Participation with Google Docs

Rachel Mazique — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 18:35:40 +0000

Author:

Rachel Mazique

Image Credit:

Salman. "Google Docs VS Microsoft Office Web Apps." Techtoggle. 15 July 2009. Web. Sept. 30 2012.

Classroom dynamics can vary widely from one group of students to the next. This fact has really struck home now that I’m teaching two sessions of Rhetoric and Writing: “Disability in Pop Culture.” I walk into both classes with the same lesson plans, with (one of) the same interpreters, and with the same kinds of technology available. Many variables are different; different buildings, different classroom space (in terms of size), one interpreter is different, different days, different time of day (although both take place in the afternoon).

However, the biggest difference is the group of students themselves. Both classes have a range of upper classmen with a few sophomores. One class has a good number of journalism majors, but both classes have students with a wide range of majors and educational backgrounds.

Because I assess students using The Learning Record, I know from their background information (interview and reflection), that many students in one class prefer to listen rather than speak when learning new ideas or grappling with new concepts. In the class that took about four weeks to open up and have a rolling discussion (or one that doesn’t require my constant prompting) many students are self-professed introverts. Now, because The Learning Record requires “outstanding participation in all course activities” for an “A” grade, the hesitation to participate in class discussions becomes a concern for those students who learn best by listening—or those who have a fear of speaking in class.

In order to have a class document of students’ questions and thoughts on their assigned reading, I planned an in-class activity in which students would write their questions on a class wiki page—for all to see. As I’ve mentioned in a previous blog, our course work is conducted almost entirely on the wiki (excluding class meetings, office hours, and required reading in the form of printed text). This class document would also serve as an informal work sample (in the language of The Learning Record) documenting evidence of their reflective learning and critical thinking processes. However, my original plan to use a wiki page for the activity did not go as planned, as PBWorks does not allow for more than one typist at a time.

This, however, became what my colleague, Cate Blouke, called a “happy accident in the classroom,” as I quickly checked to make sure that all students had a gmail account, then added a link to a Google Document titled “Questions …” to the wiki page I had intended students to write on. Google Docs does allow for multiple writers at once; students, by way of experimentation (first-time experience for everyone) developed their Digital Literacy as they quickly navigated this new format and learned how to save their own space on the document and personalize it with their preferred font, font size, and color.

Having students work on the Google Doc allows everyone to see each other’s questions; it allows me to monitor their progress without peering over everyone’s shoulder or walking around to quickly check computer screens. I can stay in one place and observe their writing process—with all the backspaces, highlighting, rewriting, pauses, and self-correcting that goes on. Google Docs also allows me to quickly intervene if a student is not quite following instructions. I also get a better idea of the time it takes students to write and can easily see when most students are done writing—as activity quiets down on the Google Doc. (Without this document, students may appear to be busily working online, but they may have jumped to a different web page or activity once completing the given task.) Having all their questions as a starting point also helps guide the discussion, and the document allows us to return to past questions that are not answered in one class. The digital archive functions as collective class memory; we will not forget because it is saved online.

In these first four weeks of the semester, after our first “happy accident,” we have used Google Documents three times. The first was for their questions on the reading, the second time was for a collaborative class resource page on instances of “disability” in pop culture, and our most recent encounter was for a quick workshop on their individual research questions.

As useful as the tool has been to me as an instructor facilitating learning and working to make the best use of our class time, what I’ve found most interesting have been the student Observations on the use of Google docs during in-class activities.

One student wrote,

“I noticed the class seems much more comfortable using technology to interact with each other. Also, all the questions that were written on the google doc, while similar, all offered a unique perspective on how people interpreted the readings. (digital literacy; Creativity, originality, imagination)”

Another wrote of his difficulty with using this new format and of his strategy for adapting to it,

“In class today while we were all brainstorming on the Google Doc, I observed that it was extremely difficult to type information on the page because it was bouncing all over the place with everyone typing at once. To solve this I typed my comments on a seprate word proccessor and copied them in. Digital Literacy &prior and emerging experience”

A third indicated that she liked being able to participate via Google Docs (I should note that this student does not generally speak up during in-class discussions):

“In class today we used a google document to express any questions or reflections we had about the readings we have been assigned to read outside of class. This type of class participation allowed me to write my own reflection and also allowed me to see what were my fellow classmates reflections and questions about the readings were as well. (Skills and Strategies, Independence;Digital Literacy)”

One observant and introverted student (who also puts good effort into pitching in when he can) noted that the digital format for class participation allows for greater “accessibility:”

“I noted that the majority of students are still shy and don't contribute much in discussion, myself included. I did notice that working on a Google Doc simultaneously allows for more easy and accessible sharing of ideas though. (Presentation, Knowledge + Understanding)”

All four of these observations came from the class that has (up until our most recent meeting) been generally quiet and reserved during discussions. The student dynamic in the other class—which is much more vocal—did not seem to view the use of the Google Doc as an alternative mode for participating or accessing class discussions. Their observations focused on the pragmatics of the Google doc (observations along the lines of: "my reading notes allowed me to remember my questions and thoughts on the readings, so I knew what to write on the Google doc;"and, "the collaborative resource on disability in pop culture allows us to see how disability really is everywhere—even if we haven’t noticed it on our own").

However, those two comments also tell me that the Google Document has a pedagogical value when used in the classroom. When asking students if they have any questions, few, if any, may speak up. Open-ended, on-the-spot questions often leave students speechless. On the other hand, when asking students to write their questions, they know they are being observed “on paper” so to speak, so they are much more inclined to generate a question to demonstrate that they have, in fact, completed their homework. Last, collaboration in online spaces allows students to “see” each other and to realize that everyone has something to contribute.

Peer Reviews Work: Observations and Reflections

Rachel Mazique — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 03:03:42 +0000

Author:

Rachel Mazique

Image Credit:

Jorg Weingrill

As we approach the end of the long academic year and my students prepare their first draft of their final paper for peer review, I thought it would be fitting to reflect on the pedagogical practice of peer reviews in a writing course.

First off, let me say that my colleague in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing, Cate Blouke, convinced me last semester to make the switch to digital submissions of writing assignments. To reduce the paper load I had to carry, I asked students to share their essays with me via NoodleBib’s sharing tool (which relies on GoogleDocs). At times, students had difficulty sharing their papers via this tool, so I also made BlackBoard digital submissions an option. Checking for student assignments in two different web-based software programs required a bit of extra work on my part, but because I believe in democratic, student-centered classroom practices, I was willing to provide options as we made the switch from paper to digital submissions.

This spring, consolidating all of my classroom instructions, resources, and student work into one place (with the PBWorks wiki system) was a breath of fresh air. At the beginning, a few students had a bit of anxiety about using the online workspace; none of them had used a wiki before. One student even wrote (in an observation on her learning processes) that she found digital submissions to be “less personal” and "a bit confusing." But, a few weeks later, this same student wrote that it was easier to navigate the wiki and that she could do so "without problems."

A handful of students have run into a few glitches here and there (during heavy uploading traffic times), but the PBWorks support team has been helpful whenever these issues come up. And, as another student put it, "The wiki kinda grew on me. It saves paper :-D." So even though some students felt "apprehensive about using the wiki on a daily basis," these same students concluded at the midterm, "I can see how helpful technology, such as the wiki and other resources, are to the writing and reflection process. I actually like this way of organization much better, because it is efficient and fast." I fully agree and am a huge fan of the wiki.

I even have to make one final plug for digital submissions and contest a comment Ms. Blouke makes in her discussion of some of the pitfalls of digital submissions, "No system is entirely perfect. Digital submission means that I can't generally grade papers on the bus," and admit that I actually do take out my laptop on bus rides and comment on student papers. Once papers are all on the wiki, I simply need to download them and create a folder devoted to comments on that particular writing assignment. The rest of the work is done offline, and I do not need to be “plugged-in” until it’s time to upload my comments to their “Teacher Comments” folder. In fact, I plan on reading papers while in the air during my travels this weekend.

Now that I’m done plugging for digital submissions and the PBworks wiki system, I’ll go into how peer reviews work via the wiki during in-class review sessions. At the start of the semester, I envisioned that students would provide comments on papers digitally—much like I do with their papers. However, before the first review session, students were very vocal about having hard copies to work with as well. So, that has been our practice. And, as fellow bloggers Blouke and Jay Voss have pointed out, this preference is clearly an uncommon one. So, in my class, I require both. Students ask for printed copies, and they get what they want for those peer reviews. Here’s the rationale for requiring that these first drafts be uploaded to the wiki as well:

I can check to see whether they completed a full first draft:

Last semester, students learned that I was not going to read their first drafts for peer reviews, so I started to notice a trend of very “unfinished” first drafts, which did not help them or their reviewers. Reviewers were unable to answer all the questions I set out for them to respond to when their partners only had a page or two of their paper completed.

Students can more easily include specific examples in their feedback:

Since the peer review prompts students to be as specific as possible (e.g. if you’re confused, which part is confusing?; or locate and transcribe the main claim; give examples of where you see your peer explaining how arguments intersect/differ, and so on), rather than transcribing all of the examples that they want to refer to, students can download their peer’s paper from the wiki and simply copy/paste the relevant sections.

Increased sense of online collaboration and interaction:

Because I give student work high security restrictions on the wiki (only the writer and I can see that student’s work), peer review is the one time when students can peer into and access their partners’ work on the wiki. I grant assigned peer groups security privileges (but only to their peer group’s papers—and only for that particular paper). They are then able to type up a review and reflect on the paper copy and use the electronic copy as needed. Also, if a student is absent on peer review day, they already have access to the paper via the wiki, and I do not need to ask certain students to email their paper to their absent partners (this was an issue on several occasions last semester but hasn’t occurred this semester as this group has perfect attendance on peer review days!) The peer review process requires online collaboration because students usually do not finish their reviews during class time; they can use the wiki or BlackBoard to email their reviews to their partners. I also ask that they post their reviews on the wiki so I may see what kind of responses they had. Last, for multimodal compositions, electronic submissions are the only kind that make sense. For their final paper of the semester, I’ve encouraged students to showcase their understanding of visual and spoken rhetoric and incorporate a variety of multimedia evidence—whether podcast recordings of interviews they conducted, images they found or took themselves, or links to video sources that display authoritative testimonies.

And, since I use The Learning Record as my method of assessing student learning processes, I have the privilege of sharing evidence of the purposefulness and helpfulness of peer reviews from the students themselves. As part of the Learning Record, students make observations about their learning; I encourage observations that are relevant to our five course goals, or course strands, but otherwise, students are free to make observations on any topic on a self-imposed timeline (although they do have a minimum of fourteen observations to make throughout the semester). These observations are analyzed as data of how their learning progressed over time. In commenting on their observations, I focus on the content and not the grammar, so in the direct quotes below, I’ve kept the original errors and will refrain from pointing them all out with the [sic] reference.

One student wrote after the peer review session:

"For starters I didn't really know what to think of my experience with peer editing. I like the idea of having your peer proofread, make suggestions, etc. However, I don't think I got as much out of it because my peer didn't give me any critical things I needed to change or work on. It was mostly just what I was doing right, which of course I admire, but I know my paper is far from perfect. I found Ms. Mazique's suggestions very helpful though. There were some things I knew after being in class I knew I had to revise, but she gave me other feedback of things I had not thought of that were insightful. I hope to implement the revision goals to end up with a splendid 1.2 paper!"

However, around the midterm, and after the second peer review session, this same student observed:

"I think this is crucial to the writing process for not only the person we are evaluating but for ourselves. I know that reading and evaluating my peers' papers it enhanced my own paper. The reason for this is because everyone has different writing styles and techniques and when I would read some of the other papers I realized my paper lacked in some areas where theirs was more in depth. It made me look at my paper in a whole new way because of the feedback I was given and also the feedback I gave them."

A second student, who is not a native English speaker, has shown much improvement in his writing over the course of the semester. He made this observation after the second peer review session:

"For this assignment I review [my group partners'] paper. I felt like if I were Rachel for a second. I tried my best to correct their papers, and I also focused on their erros. I used my experience learned from my mistakes and applied it to their papers. I also used what I have learned from Rachel's comments. This assignment helped me realize how much I have learn."

I found this comment especially poignant after attending a Peer Review Workshop that presented research on how and why peer review works.

Susan Schorn, of the School of Undergraduate Studies, provides consultation work to instructors and faculty who teach writing-intensive courses (across a variety of departments). She shared research that confirms what I have experienced with my students.

For example, her presentation noted that Lundstrom and Baker (2009) found that students who gave feedback improved their writing more than those who only received peer feedback. Students with the poorest writing skills improved the most. Considering the improvement of the second student above and his strategy in providing feedback (trying to think like the teacher and recalling feedback he had received from me in the past), I would say that he relied on critical thinking skills in order to complete his peer reviews.

And, although research shows that peer reviews benefit those with the weakest writing skills the most, one of my best students--a student who already has a Bachelor's degree and is in my class only as a pre-requisite for a medical school program (that he's already been accepted to)--has also made an observation about the peer review process:

"While reviewing [my partner's] paper I found it very surprising how many errors in each others papers we were able to find in a single reading. I found [his] comments very helpful and insightful, and I think I was also able to point out some sentences in [his] writing that could be clearer with a little revision. It's amazing what another set of eyes can find."

A couple of other students made observations about how the peer review process made them think about writing style. For example, one student wrote,

"While analyzing and editing the writing of my partner, I learned many things about my own writing. I learned how my writing style differs and how I can better my own writing. Changing my word choice and syntax will help me explain my thoughts more efficiently and ultimately make me a better writer."

These comments align with other research that Schorn presented at the workshop with faculty from the English Department, the Department of Theatre, and the Department of Rhetoric. Schorn cited Monroe and Troia (2006) as finding that when students collaobarote their standards become higher. They are better able to assess their own writing.

We thus have evidence from multiple sources that peer review works when done well. One point that really stuck out to me was that peer review is an academic form of “peer pressure” (Schorn) that helps students take the instructor’s comments more seriously. After receiving feedback from peers, they are less able to rationalize that the feedback they receive from their teacher is just from someone who “doesn’t understand them,” or who is just another “really picky teacher.”

I’ll leave you with some other pertinent thoughts/options for peer review and links/suggestions for further reading in case you ever need a resource to justify your pedagogical practice of peer reviews!

Options for Peer Review formats:

Response-centered (doesn't rely on grammatical expertise)

--E.g. “I was confused when…” “This doesn’t make sense…” “I really like”)

2. Advice-centered (recommending specific changes)

--Sometimes detrimental when students give poor advice, or the wrong advice, or do not know what to say so they make something up

3. Ask students to do either or both

For further reading:

Check out the School of Undergraduate Studies' page on "Peer Feedback," which is a resource in and of itself, but also cites references to published books and articles on peer review.