The World Literature Blog

Today was my presentation. Shuchi was the facilitator so things went smoothly. I presented my case using a Powerpoint presentation and also used samples of student work that included a range of unedited, edited and feedback- and - after examples. In the powerpoint presentation I explained the context. Students who are learning English literature show varied development in the case of their writing skills. Some are able to incorporate feedback instructions while some aren't. It's a question of how within the time constraints we work in , writing skills can be improved overcoming the negative impact of student variability.

My key question was:Taking into account the fact that I can spend only the same amount of time on both students, how can I equalize the learning of writng skills to mainimze the damging effects of student variabilty.
( a very pertinent remark made was that the word 'damaging' was not as appropriate as 'negative').

The group discussion and collaborative strategy building sessions after that were rich in suggesting alternate strategies to the ones I am using.
I am putting down the memorable ones:
Make the students write movie reviews.
Make them understand they are "authors."
Solicit feedback for the written pieces from other teachers, (warm feedback), classmates, and "unknowns"
by writing a description of the blog in such a way that people will leave comments.
Inspire and motivate by using things the students like.( Movies for instance)
Teacher feedback must be constant and immediate.
Marks and grades must be given.
A word limit could be given.
Collaborative writing projects. However this was considered a risky proposition in that it could create either anxiety through comparison or envy through competition.
Writing skills not being developed , a teacher rightly remarked, could mean that thinking skills was what was actually impaired. This has to be looked into at greater length.
Another strategy that was suggested was giving more of a time span for the student who is in need of more input

The issue was hopefully generic enough.

During the debriefing session an important point that came up was the one of ensuring that during the participant discussion the presented must not be involved in anyway, not even through eye contact.

The participants included our team of Bala,Joel, Viji, Anu and For quite some time Uday was there as an observer.

It was a very satisfying experience.

On being asked what strategy I would take back to class and implement , I felt that I would start with the last piece of written work of these students and try to improve that using the strategies suggested by the teachers and then bring the result in for my CASW review.