Exercises:
Learning Writing with Computers through
Sharing Texts.
L.
Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College
http://www.accd.edu/sac/english/lirvin/lirvin.htm
The Three Levels of Shared Discourse:
AT--TO--BETWEEN
Exercises using the "AT" Level of Shared Discourse
Students post text usually via email where the whole class or group can read the text (no replying necessary)
Exercise 1: Sharing Attitudes and Experiences with Writing (Creatively)
Early in the semester in my Composition I classes, I have my students write a ten minute freewriting journal dealing with their attitudes about writing. They are to imagine the figure which embodies what makes writing difficult for them, describe this figure (called the Watcher), and write it a letter. Students send the journal via e-mail to the whole class, and then read the journals of their peers (In Daedalus, all mail messages show up on a common mail conference, something like a Newsgroup). A good follow up to this exercise after students have had a chance to read all the messages of their peers is to have students form into groups and create a collage of "The Watcher" through cutting and pasting from the messages into a new document. Another good follow up is to have students write on the companion of the Watcher which is the Muse--what helps one write.
Exercise 2: Practicing Particular Writing Skills
Using quotations. Incorporating Description. Creating transition sentences. Writing openings that hook the reader. Practice an argumentative technique (point/counterpoint). The "at" level of discourse can be a valuable tool for helping students learn a particular writing technique. For instance, my students practice "showing and not telling" by taking a "telling" phrase that is general and opening it up with "showing." We might take a sentence like, "The child was upset," and each send a mail message with our version of opening up that sentence. Commonly, I will also have the class open a message at a time (or selected messages), have the author read it aloud, and then together point to good examples of descriptive techniques. This same approach for using the mail would work for teaching many other writing features or techniques as well.
Exercise 3: Jump Starting a Conversation
The "at" level of discourse is also useful in the early stages of a synchronous conference. Students send their message as an "at" message to the whole group. The message could be a reply to a question, or I've had students jumpstart a discussion about a reading by posting one or two quotes they liked from the reading (and perhaps saying why). These initial "at" messages read by everyone can help to initiate discussion.
Exercise 4: Share Drafts
Students in peer groups usually only get to read the two to four drafts of peers in their group. It is easy to broaden the exposure your students have to the writing of their peers by having students post drafts into a commonly available location. Students could read (potentially) all of the drafts of their peers but do peer response on only three of their peers. This location could be in a discussion board or even in a synchronous writing conference.
Examples of "TO" Level of Shared Discourse
Students address text to a particular recipient.
Exercise 1: Peer Response
Peer response represents the most prevalent "to" discourse in the computer composition class. However this peer response is done (and in Daedalus there are at least five different ways), students most often answer a number of prepared questions which call on them to put into practice knowledge they have learned in the course by making observations, judgments and recommendations about their peer's writing. These comments are then sent to the author via e-mail or other means.
Exercise 2: Refining a Thesis
Another example of "to" discourse I have used (with the Daedalus software) involves students refining a tentative thesis. Before this exercise, the class should have covered some characteristics of what makes a good thesis statement, and students should arrive to class with a tentative thesis in mind. Using the Mail, students send their thesis statement in an initial message. Working in groups of five to seven, students respond "to" each peer by critiquing the thesis and then offering a revised version. This revised version can simply be a restatement of the thesis using different language than the original or a refining of the ideas expressed. After this first flurry of "to" messages, each author reads his or her mail and sends a new mail message with a revised version of the thesis. If more refining is needed, and time allows, this same sequence can be repeated.
Exercise 3: Rhetorical Role Playing
One of the great values of the computer is its ability to enhance role-playing for students. In this exercise, students are paired on separate sides of an issue (one smokes and the other doesn't, one believes same sex marriages are ok and one doesn't) and then told to write a persuasive piece to sway their peer over to their opinion. In this way students put on a "rhetorical mask" to explore aspects of audience and purpose. The point is to make the rhetorical situation of audience and purpose as defined and immediate as possible.
Examples of "Between" Level of Shared Discourse
Students dialogue between each other to negotiate meaning.
Exercise 1: Synchronous Class Discussions
Synchronous electronic conferencing is excellent for class discussion over readings or over a general subject that could be used for a paper topic. In a literature class, students could debate various interpretations of a piece of literature. Most often, I use synchronous discussions as a form of prewriting to broaden my students' understanding of a general topic for a paper assignment. They share each of their perspectives on the topic and then dialogue and debate back and forth. Where needed, it is wise to allow students time to process the discussion somehow and coalesce some nodes of meaning from it.
Exercise 2: Collaborative Composition of Essays
Synchronous writing and the "between" discourse can be used by small groups also to negotiate meaning. One of my colleagues frequently has his classes work in small groups to construct collaborative essays in competition. These groups figure out how they will work and what they will write by dialoguing in a synchronous conference.
Exercise 3: The Virtual Writing Workshop
Synchronous conferencing can also be useful for peer response to try and simulate the kind of discussion that happens in small peer groups in the traditional classrooms. Usually, students first send an "at" message which is an initial response to the essay, and then they discuss between each other about the essay.
Exercise 4: Role-Playing in Synchronous Discussions
In a more creative vein, students can assume pseudonyms and take on the persona of various characters in a story and then debate various interpretations of the literature. I've also had students writing on the issue of whether to ban a book or not take on the roles of members of a school board.
Exercise 5: Students Quoting Each Other
One good way to have students review synchronous discussions and glean important bits of information from them is to require students to use some quotations from a discussion in their paper. Transcripts can usually be made easily for students to look at. Getting student to quote each other can also be a useful way of demonstrating how to use quotes and discuss in a scholarly way.
Extending
the Shared Discourse Extends the Social Construction of Knowledge
This extension
of the shared discourse occurs through a repeated sequence of
Invention-Reflection-Reinvention
Example: A Kempian Writing Cycle
Task 1: InterChange (chat) over writing
prompt
Task 2: Write on a word processor a ten minutes
summary of what the session covered. Both items are
saved and assigned to be read.
Task 3: Write a 30 line draft.
Task 4: Email drafts for
peer review.
Task 5: Revise draft to 50
lines.
Task 6: Post drafts into InterChange.
Students read drafts.
Task 7: Freewriting about what they see
as the major problems or strengths of the class's writing and how their writing
compares.
Task 8: Prepare 3rd
draft.
Task 9: Students post drafts into InterChange
groups of four students each. Students read and discuss drafts.
Discussion saved to students' disks for review.
Task 10: Write and post final draft. Do
peer response using Daedalus Respond.
From Fred Kemp's "Computer-Mediated
Communication: Making Nets Work for Writing Instruction." The Dialogic
Classroom. Ed. Jeffrey R. Galin and Joan Latchaw. NCTE, 1998: 133-150