Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Sun, 30 Aug 1992 11:43:14 ADT
Comments:     <30AUG92.12693725.0029.MUSIC@UNB.CA>
From:         HUNT000 <HUNT@UNB.CA>
Subject:      comments

Although I do believe that marginal commentary of the usual -- or
even the better-than-usual -- kind tends to disrupt communication,
I think the much more important argument against commenting on
student papers (which, at least among my students, is usually
referred to as "correcting" papers) is the one from numbers.  Even
if we were superhuman and able actually to become engaged with
every paper we read, and even if our students believed we were
engaged, there simply aren't enough hours.  I don't think there
are enough even in ideal situations, much less the ones most of us
are really in on a day-to-day basis.
     Given both those arguments, I don't think I really have any
choice: I HAVE to find alternative, and engaged, audiences for my
student writers.  And the only one immediately available is the
rest of the class.  (Actually, there are other possibilities, and
I and my colleagues here use them -- for instance, a colleague in
psychology last year had his intro psych class write an introduction
to psychology for a specific high school English class, that they
corresponded with and finally distributed a published book to; I've
had literature classes write and publish "playgoer's guides" to
current productions in town).
     But the real problem, as you say, is, "Would this kind of
approach work in all writing courses (all situations)?  I
can see how this approach might work in some courses, and
how it might tap the social energies students and their
peers seem to have so much of."  My problem has been using this
sort of approach in WRITING courses (as opposed to "content"
courses).  But I'm lucky, as we've managed here to avoid an ongoing
comp course and put writing into other contexts -- in the case of
the approach I'm currently using, into psych and religious studies
and literature courses.  Fundamentally what we do is organize
classes as "collaborative investigations," in which students read
different things, report to each other, generate questions and
strategies on the basis of the reports, and do another cycle of
research, reading and reporting.  It's difficult and time-consuming
to orchestrate, but (in my memory, anyway) less so than all that
marking and commenting -- and the students can write three or four
times as much, and get authentic feedback on it.  Other students
don't "correct" or "edit" or "peer-review" it, they use it -- and
either misunderstand it or don't, respond or don't.  One thing I do
in literature classes, for instance, is get students to make
arguments for reading certain writers, and have the class make the
decision about who we're going to read based on the written arguments.
There's no feedback more effective than having your argument really
convince someone -- or really get ignored.
     It's true that "a good deal of involvement (including
comments) by the teacher is necessary if part of the role of a
teacher is, as I see it, to help introduce the student to a new
discourse community--an academic one."  But I think the comments
can occur in a quite different arena than the margin.  And I
certainly agree that what we're doing is introducing the student
to a new discourse community."  And the hallmark of an academic
discourse community is that it's literate (even our F2F hallway
conversations are invaded by literacy).
     "Call me elitist, but if I were simply to ask my students in
my writing course to find out what a poem means and tell their
peers, I would not expect much depth in the written product that
would emerge."  That's certainly true.  But it's possible to
structure situations so that people are asking and answering
different, and more specific, questions, or so that "what a poem
means" becomes something that's socially negotiated rather than
simply invented by an individual.   But I think what we've
discovered here is that the more you can make writing
authentically transactional the more students stand to learn by
engaging in it.
     I've gone on long enough.  If anyone wants to know more
about this, I can send a list of some publications that have
arisen out of this strategy; let me know offline.

                                    -- Russ
                                _~|__
Russell A. Hunt            _~|__)_ __)~|__   Learning and Teaching
Department of English      )_ __)_|_)__ __)    Development Officer
St. Thomas University        |  )____) |        EMAIL: hunt@unb.ca
Fredericton, New Brunswick___|____|____|____/  FAX: (506) 450-9615
E3B 5G3   CANADA          \                / PHONE: (506) 452-7700
                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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