How do you comment on an article you completely agree with? How to reformulate any kind of argument with a work that you find yourself nodding your head to?
This is my only problem with "Critical Reading and Response: Experimenting with Anonymity in Draft Workshops", by J. Paul Johnson: I agree with it. Wholeheartedly, unabashedly, completely, which is a rare experience for me.
This article answered a couple of very important problems that I have run into as I've mused about forming my syllabus for the spring semester. The first problem: how do I get the students involved in the revision process more than the apparent college norm (which is to say, barely at all)? The second: how can I incorporate exercises where the students write for more than one audience?
This article has given me some serious tips on how to do both. That makes me happy.
Pedagogically, the article is well grounded. Johnson refers to other educators whose work we've already read, namely Hillocks and Nystrand (197), so he has based his argument on solid theoretical ground. "The peer response activity I discuss here - a directed draft workshop - is one well grounded in contemporary composition theory: more focused than mere peer review, the draft workshop reinforces the social constructedness of writing." (197, italics his)
Throughout virtually all the articles we've read, one near-constant problem I've noted is the prevalence of apathy in the college students that have been viewed in a classroom setting. Whether it's a community college, or the University of Cincinnati, or the Ivy League, these students seem to have one unified purpose: how to get the best grade doing the least amount of work. Faced with this attitude, which was certainly in place when I was an undergrad 15 years ago and was probably in place 30 years before that, the one burning question in my mind was: how to get the students engaged in the writing process, get them to completely commit to improving their writing, without standing over them with a lash, shouting at them the entire time?
Johnson provides the answer. With an anonymity-based critique system, I was initially skeptical that the professor could hold the students accountable for the critique that is entered on the blog. Johnson provides the answer by having the professor control all the names being used. Only the professor knows who everyone is, and only the critic and the professor know who the critic is. By having the students post their WORK with their names on it, and by having the CRITICISM be anonymous, the accountability factor is high. The students will be writing for a different audience - their peers, not just me, which helps to solve my second problem as well. Furthermore, by placing this in a blog, the students can augment their critiques with pictures, video, audio and other materials if they choose, to take full advantage of the medium (the entire written critique will still be required). By proposing this system, Johnson enables me, the professor, to keep tabs on which of my students are actually doing the work. Peer pressure will keep many of the students in line, even if the system IS anonymous - they may not know who hasn't posted, but they'll be able to count the number of posts on their papers. As an added bonus, I can have the students add their best critique or two to the portfolio I plan on having them submit for their final grade. Making the critiques a portion of their grade should ensure that the work gets done, and gets done to a reasonable degree. (They can also be part of the class participation grade - wonderful!) I can keep track privately of who does the work and who does not. The students will have to maintain their involvement in the course, and become personally invested in the success of not just their own work, but each other's, as they begin to identify with the papers they have critiqued. The class will, hopefully, bond through the online experience. Although anonymous, the experience of posting and waiting for criticism on their papers (a nerve-wracking experience) will be a shared one for the entire class.
Through this semester's experience, I have learned (or re-learned, in my case) just how valuable a skill critical analysis is for a student. I have also learned in other classes that the ability to critically analyze a piece of writing is like a muscle; it must be exercised in order to be fit. Johnson's article seems to me to be an ideal way for me to teach, develop and nurture the very rare skill of peer response to my classes.
This article has been one I have enjoyed tremendously, and it comes at a very opportune time: when I am scrambling to finalize my textbooks for the coming semester. Incorporating a peer response unit will chew up some class time (in a good way) and allow me to keep the focus of the class where it needs to be - on the students' writing - while satisfying a desire for both multimodality and accountability.
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I liked the premise of Johnson's article too, although I am not sure if it has semester-long staying power. Here's why.
I think at the beginning of the semester, anonymity is a useful tool. Adam, Ben and I created a pseudo-assignment last week based on an anonymous free-write followed up with an authored peer response. We thought it would be a good way to break the ice in the semester and see what we were dealing with as far as raw writing talent. So I like the premise in peer review too, but I question it's sustainability across a semester's worth of writing.
One, I am not sure anonymity can be preserved. The football player picks the name "Bonnie" out of a hat. Minutes later his entire table knows. OK, maybe not a reason to do it, but over time, people get to know each other. Although much smaller in size, I can't imagine having any sort of anonymity in our writing workshops or in Pam's class. I feel like I can read two sentences on this blog and know who wrote the post. Is that bound to happen in College Writing I? Seems like it, over time.
Two, once you break the ice with each other and get a dialogue of "good" peer reviews going, what's the harm in attaching your name to your work? In life, you have to deal with giving feedback to peers face-to-face. It also provides for conversation outside of the class room, "Hey Bill, thanks for your comments on my piece. I am not sure what you meant by this..."
Third, as Johnson points out on page 203, "the mere condition on anonymity, even if carefully constructed and protected, is no panacea for a poorly motivated student..." Although there certainly benefit in the critical thinking component of peer response, a bad response is a bad response under any name. For the lazier student, there might be more motivation to write a solid response when his/her peers are reading it. Some students might perform better for peers than for the teacher, maybe.
So I think thi tactic is good at the onset. If peer review is a regular component of my class, I am not sure I would use it beyond paper numero uno, but we'll see...
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