+ Writing with

Intention Power

Comfort

Ilene D. Alexander, PhDUniversity of MinnesotaCenter for Teaching and

Learning

z.umn.edu/idaportal http://neh2.wordpress.com/2006/10/03/teamwork/

+Demonstrating Learning – items from your course module Communicate in a clear, systematic and concise way

for a range of different purposes and audiences Employing both written and oral presentation skills Apply knowledge to the solution of familiar and

unfamiliar problems – writing to learn Demonstrate initiative and responsibility –

intentionality and revision Manage and reflect on their own learning, including an

awareness of personal learning styles – writing as a process

Interact and negotiate effectively and impartially with individuals and groups in a variety of contexts – meaning making

+Adult Learning

think dialectically decision-making moves between objective/subjective,

universal/specific

employ practical logic attend to internal features of a given situation to reason

contextually “in a deep and critical way”; inferential reasoning)

“know how we know what we know” conscious of own/others’ learning, ability to adjust styles

situationally; know grounds for decision-making

engage in critical reflection assessing match between earlier rules/practices/practical

theories and emerging understandings in “interpersonal, work and political lives” (Stephen Brookfield, 2000)

+"I hate writing, I love having written.”

- Dorothy Parker, writer of fiction, journalism

+Writing with Power

Writing with power also means getting power over yourself and over the writingprocess: knowing what you are doing as you write; being in charge; having control; not feeling Stuck or helpless or intimidated.

- Peter ElbowU Massachusetts-Amherst

+Writing with Power & Intention

Sometimes real world problems that compel us to communicate are economic. Other times the defects are political. Sometimes the challenges are social: the deportation to immigrants, the treatment of people with racial, ethnic, or physical differences. Sometimes the flaws are personal….

In all these cases, circumstances exist that call out for us to communicate with others.

Understanding [what compels communication] is essential because without it we cannot effectively determine purpose.”

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/composition/purpose.htm

+Writing as Meaning Making

And [Barbara Kamler] is right.  Writing isn’t an activity that you do to whip up a study or report after understanding ideas and thinking up insights.  Writing is the very route scholars take in order to think things through.  As such, it isn’t such an extrinsic instrument, but an essential process in scholarly work.   What is even more interesting, … is that writing is not only thinking, but it’s also forming your identity as a scholar.

So today, I’m not just writing up my research proposal.  I’ll be gathering the ideas accumulated from research, processing them and thinking them through. 

strugglingSCHOLAR blog: http://jcgosj.wordpress.com/

+Writing as a Process

http://stevendkrause.com/tprw/introduction.html

+

Read and Respond like a Real Reader

Cleo Martin, U IowaResponding to Student

Writing

+What Is Feedback? And Why Bother?

+What, then, Is Feedback? a response from “real readers” to specific

questions/actions learners can address/take in order to improve a learning artifact – a paper, poster, sculpture, diagnosis

Feedback is Formative – (1) provokes, prods, sparks transformation, growth, development of work on an artifact and learning of the artifact creator; (2) provides specific information with a goal of moving a project ahead, improving the artifact that is being reviewed; (3) focuses on what the work can become as well as what it should become

+What, then, Is Feedback?

IT is NOT Evaluation, which is Summative(1) judgment that assesses, sums up value of finished artifact; (2) rests on specific criteria known to teachers & students ahead of evaluation; (3) situates the work relative to expectations

+Why Is Feedback Important? Part of Meaning Making, which requires making private

writing public, engaging in multiple retrievals of information, and using information in different ways

Feedback joins with question asking, researching, and writing as a process to shape how humans actually make meaning and work to create/construct knowledge.

Is the most important component of “inspiration” or “being lucky” or “finding one’s muse”

Enhances problem solving skills for whatever new/next ill-defined moments we encounter as learners – so that we become more comfortable in writing, in problem-solving  Video 1 : Example of bad feedback Video 2 : Example of good feedback

http://www.med-ed.virginia.edu/courses/fm/precept/module4/m4p2.htm

+

Lila M. Smith

Writing with Audience, Purpose and Task in Mind – Consider Course Module Tutors

+ Effective Feedback Is SpecificRevision – Content and Organization

Where and why it’s needed Strategies for content development, overall

organization and development of cohesive analysis / argument / knowledge construction

Transitions Coherence Unity

Surface Features Key sections, paragraphs, sentences Section, paragraph, sentence structures Conventions – of language, of citation style, of

formatting Notice that this is dead last on my list – and Peter

Elbows’ list!

+Sample Peter Elbow FeedbackPrompts

+Effective Feedback Is Specific

Summarizing – Narrate, Compare

Telling – What’s missing, not clear & ideas for clarifying, changing

Showing – What could be better linked, organized, highlighted, backed up

Pointing – Name what’s good & say why it’s good, Name the most effective change that could be made and suggest how/why

+

Lila M. Smith

Writing with Audience,

Purpose and Task in Mind – Consider Clients

+Good Questions / Questioning

Open Ended Questions Asking for Information Diagnostic Questions Challenge Questions Extension Questions Combination Questions Priority Questions Action Questions Prediction Questions Generalizing and Summarizing Questions

+With Team Writing: Pulling the Whole Thing Together

Key Considerations Who will function

as and what will be roles of exec editor?

Who will perform lead editor role for sections of the doc?

After individuals gather feedback onindividually written segments of a team assignment, who will provide final feedback?

Image: http://www.haringkids.com/book/sleep/teamwork.htm

+Writing & Individual Resilience

selection from Robert Boice’s How Writers Journey to Comfort and Fluency (1994

+Write what you really think.Accept that you can do it.

Ilene, via my great-great grandmother (right) and grandmother (left)