I
attended several sessions at this year’s MACUL Conference. Among them were talks
by Andy Schoenborn, a special needs teacher at Mt. Pleasant High School, and
Karen Chichester, who teaches at Monroe Jefferson High School and the Eastern Michigan
Writing Project (http://goo.gl/OrrtXo). Schoenborn’s
talk, “Fostering Authentic Writing Through Digital Feedback,” was about
fostering authentic relationships with one’s students. Authentic relationships,
argued Schoenborn, means connecting with students on a social-emotional level,
e.g., greeting them at the door, shaking their hands, or calling them by name.
He began his session with an opening writing exercise. He asked his gathered
audience of about two dozen or so to spend 2-3 minutes writing about their writing
experiences at high school – that is, as a high schooler. He then asked the
gathered audience of younger-looking practitioners to turn to their neighbors
and spend a few minutes pairing-and-sharing before asking for volunteers to
share what they had discussed. This was, presumably, his way of modeling how to
foster “authentic” relationship in the classroom. Moving on to his PowerPoint,
Schoenborn then shifted to scales of concerns: the global and the local. For
Schoenborn there are both global (macro) and local (micro) problems with how
students write, ranging from problems with thesis, structure, and analysis to problems with
sentences, formatting, diction and/or grammar. Hoping to unlock door to
“authentic writing,” he provided “five key things” that teachers should be
doing when providing effective digital feedback: (1) read through the entire
piece before inserting comments; (2) focus comments on patterns or
representative strengths and weaknesses; (3) use a respectful tone and search
for what is right and effective; (4) ask questions and respond as a reader, not
an evaluator; and (5) personalize final comments using two positives and one
suggestion. He then provided a “feedback template,” encouraging his gathered
audience of teachers “to focus on the piece, not the person.” Finally, he
concluded with some ways in which to foster authentic writing through digital
feedback. Among them were: personal peer editing, e.g., Google Docs; revision
history, which allows for self-reflection; group essays, which creates collaboration;
embedded rubrics, which builds consistency; and reflective learning blogs,
which is a good way to check for understanding over time.
