To construct criteria for workshop and practice giving useful feedback on a sample essay. To provide an opportunity for students to give and receive comments on their essays.
Workshops encourage students to see their writing as a process by promoting critical thinking and revision. Also, gaining feedback from peers helps remind students to keep their audience in mind while writing. Constructing some criteria for the workshop helps you set the standard for completing an effective workshop.
Some students believe there is little to gain from workshops. They tend to think that the instructor is the only person capable of providing useful feedback or they are resistant to workshops because they've found them unproductive in the past. The aim then of this discussion then is to develop a set of criteria for making this workshop worthwhile. You might do this by asking students to generate a list of "Helpful" and "Not so helpful" comments on the board. Since they've all received comments from teachers/instructors on papers, they should know which ones are most useful.
Your lists might look something like this:
| Helpful comments are: | Unhelpful comments are: |
|---|---|
|
|
Transition: Develop a transition here.
Put the workshop questions on an overhead or distribute them as handouts (see appendix for workshop questions); then, review the questions to be sure students understand them. Explain that these questions reflect both the material covered in class so far, and the elements you'll be looking at when you evaluate their work.
Transition: Develop a transition here.
Using the workshop in the appendix or by creating one of your own, conduct a workshop for the remaining 45 minutes of the class session. This should be plenty of time for students to get two sets of feedback on their drafts. You can incorporate the Writing Studio by having students post their responses to one another (if they need more time).
Transition: Develop a transition here.
While students are workshopping papers, list the portfolio materials on the board - everything you intend to collect (for example, the in class WTLs and any homework you haven't already looked at. It is also common to collect student's feedback from the workshop in the portfolio). Review this list at the end of class.
Tell students that you want to make sure that they know how their essays will be graded. Put your P1A grading hierarchy up on an overhead; if you wish, note that there will be a copy of it available in the Writing Studio. Let them know that while all parts of the grading hierarchy are important, you'll be looking first at concerns like purpose and focus and less at things like mechanics (though this is not an excuse to not proofread carefully!).
Explain that they should use the feedback that they received in class today to revise their essays, and that they can also use the assignment sheet and grading hierarchy as tools to help them assemble P1A.
Devise a conclusion for today's class. You might:
