Blogging: Last on the to-do list

While it's been longer than I anticipated, I'm back to post the next component of my deadline draft. Thanks to my inquiry group, and others who posted on the first section.

Classroom Surveys
I needed to find out where students were with writing groups: definition, experiences, frustrations, expectations. At the time, my initial inquiry focused on how technology changed writing groups. Through the survey, I found that students preferred face-to-face meetings, yet, I still noticed the lame comments students were offering to each other. Having the groups on-line only proved that students still struggled with providing constructive and helpful feedback to their peers -- since their comments were in print.

Initially, I skimmed through the survey and concluded [wrongly] that yes, students did indeed know the difference between revision [the sole purpose in writing groups] and editing [while a component of writing groups, it should never be the focus]. When I went back to the surveys this summer, I looked more closely and discovered that the majority of students felt that writing groups were there to fix grammatical errors. [I need to go through the surveys and find a quote from a student to support this].

Moodle
I set up Moodle to use as the online forum where students could post their writing and respond to their peers. I found the tool helpful in that I was able to discuss with students appropriate comments as well as standard English expectations. Students initial postings were riddled with texting and IM (is this capitalized?) vocabulary. While this vernacular is accepted on myspace and the like, I needed to discuss with my college bound students, that online forums were extensions of the classroom. Granted, audience and purpose certainly dictate the language used; however, it appeared that students forgot that I, too, was part of their audience.

Compiling Data
After the class survey, I decided I wanted to have a whole class discussion about writing groups. I acquired a blank tape in order to record the conversation. I explained to my students the purpose in having the discussion, and I gave students a preview of the six initial questions I had for them. [Do I need to include these? Also, do I need a copy of my survey?] The discussion went well, and I felt I gained some insight as how students perceive writing groups.
I appreciated their honesty: most admitted they were simply lazy. They were concerned that they couldn't trust their peers to offer comments that would actually help their writing. They only trusted the teacher.

A few days later, I went to review the tape, and discovered that the device I used did not have a microphone. Therefore, I didn't have a copy of the conversation. [This was posted on my blog a while back.] Not to worry. While I didn't have the tape, I knew I wanted to pick one student's brain in particular. [See student interview].

Additionally, I compiled students' comments from their final paper. Nothing spectacular or insightful jumped out at me as I was gathering all the comments. Yet, I still need to triangulate the data.

Student Interview
My favorite and most insightful piece was an interview I completed with a student. A bit of background, I have known this student since he was a sophomore in World Literature. It was my first year at the school. Yes, you guessed it, sophomore, and new teacher tug-of-war. While never disrespectful, we often agreed to disagree.

Now that Brandon was a senior in high school, I was able to see a mature student who was incredibly insightful when offering constructive criticism to his peers. Additionally, I saw someone who was willing to listen to the comments from his peers and weigh each comment with the instruction I was giving -- specific to his writing, the assignment, and the class instruction. [ugh, so not a parallel list!]

I have a partial article written that I'll be bringing to my writing group in hopes of figuring out what I should do with that.

Next week...what I found out... I guess I better figure out the triangulation piece before then!