I just want to take a bit of time to reflect on the idea of collaboration and workshopping in the composition classroom. We are all aware of that wonderful social-constructionist pedagogy, where learning and writing are seen as a social construct; the creation of a small culture of shared ideas and artifacts with shared meanings. In this pedagogy, the teacher assumes the role of "facilitator" rather than "instructor." While I wholeheartedly agree that the teacher should never assume a sole role as "ruler" or "instructor," I'm not sure that collaboration, in most cases I have seen, is really as effective as social constructionists seem to think.
I'll begin with a brief discussion of Kenneth Bruffee's "Collaborative Learning and the 'Conversation of Mankind.'" In this article, Bruffee suggests that we should encourage students to "harness the powerful educational force of peer influence that had been—and largely still is—ignored and hence wasted by traditional forms of education" (418). Bruffee asserts that students' conversations during collaborative learning often lead them to a means of developing a much broader framework for the subject or assignment. In addition, they are able to "talk through" any issues they are having with their writing, either with content or with mechanics.
Although I agree with Bruffee on his assumption that collaboration usually leads to better writing, I'm not sure that a peer-to-peer (P2P) collaboration is the most effective means. Especially as freshman, our students most likely have not developed the means of effectively constructing and evaluating their own writing (hence, our job as their guides on the road to good writing). With this in mind, how can we expect that they will be able to truly help each other?
I harp on my students constantly about their ineffective workshop methods--talking about the weekend, chatting about other classes, or remaining in complete silence. They are given a handout with specific questions to address about their peers' papers, but all I can get them to do is fill out the sheets and hand them over. Much as I try, I cannot get them to engage each other in genuine conversations about the assignment or subject. Nearly all of my students thusfar have agreed that peer workshopping is useless to them; they prefer my comments on their drafts, which are often in the form of questions, suggestions, or guidance. These notations are my form of collaboration with these students.
I think that collaboration should remain at the student-teacher level or the student-tutor level in freshman composition courses. Workshopping can be invaluable to upper-level and graduate students because of their mutual experience, but when inexperienced freshmen get together to critique each other's work, little of value often comes of it. Writing Center sessions can be a great way for students to collaborate, but I think that at least one participant must have some grasp of what's going on--otherwise how can anything develop?
Bruffee, Kenneth. "Collaborative Learning and the 'Conversation of Mankind'." Cross-Talk in Comp Theory. Ed. Victor Villanueva. 2nd ed. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2003.
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3 comments:
I disagree.
For one thing, I see that the advice my basic writing students give each other is usually on target except when it comes to grammar issues. This is a bit harder in freshman comp, where so many students are confused about the goals of the assignment, so I understand that you might not see all the results you want.
For another thing, I think your expectations of peer review are all wrong. If you think it will make their papers better, then you'll be disappointed. What peer review is supposed to do is to make your students better writers. By helping reading and evaluating other students' papers they gain the ability to critically view their own work. It doesn't fix their paper today, but it gives them the skills they need to succeed in the future.
I can appreciate the fact that letting the students look at other papers could help them critically review their own, but I do not believe that the in-class time spent on peer review is helpful. It seems to me that the same effect can be created by showing them examples of other student writing. Perhaps I'm just not savvy enough in getting them to communicate properly.
You might take another look at Trimbur's response to Bruffee's article (also in Cross-Talk). If I remember correctly, he discusses the learning potential of dissensus, which he says is greater than collaboration's consensus. So maybe you could encourage students to argue over their papers rather than passively reading and discussing them (i.e. playing nice).
Another point: I try to transition my students from relying on my comments to relying on their own evaluations of their papers (see my comment on Moses's blog). Maybe you could encourage your students to respond to each other and their own papers in the same way you respond to them? The first assignment's rough draft would be the model, of course, but after that you could reasonably expect them to respond more fully. Also, I did a brief example of a workshop with a student. That seemed to work fairly well. Some students engaged with more gusto than others, but that's to be expected.
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