Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Improving Writing Essay by Essay

I am trying something new this year that I hope will improve my students' writing and help further develop my pedagogy.

 I conference with students after grading each essay. However, the time between essays can range from two weeks to a month. It really has been silly for me to assume all of these years that students retain the comments essay to essay.

So, I kept their essays and the rubrics after the conference and handed them back today, a few days before their next essay is due. In class, they had to reread their essay, the rubric (which is the same for every essay), and any comments that I made, and then write three items that they will improve upon on the next essay.

I had them photograph the three items and turn in the written copy to me.

After they write their next essay, we will meet, go over it, but also evaluate whether or not they were able to make the planned improvements.

We will see how it goes!