Reflection

The rationale for the project changed a few times during the course of its creation. We originally wanted to work exclusively with the writer’s workshop. We wanted to know what it is and how does it work? We managed to answer these questions relatively quickly, but there was a part of the project that seemed to be missing while we explored: the “group” aspect of “group” work. We decided to add another level to our original inquiry and figure out how to get the best out of our groups of students while working in the writer’s workshop setting.

Most of the research was done searching through scholarly articles on JSTOR. What was interesting is that a few of the articles that were found were not specifically meant for an educational perspective, but we were able to apply and adapt the ideas found within the articles to a high school writer’s workshop setting. By incorporating pieces of the KISS method along with a well structured classroom we found that students were able to gain more when it came to writing than they were previously in a strictly teacher driven lecture.

In the article, “Student Group Project Work: A Pioneering Experiment in Interactive Engagement”, Jeffry Mallow makes a claim about the benefits of group work. According to Mallow, “Group work has been shown to enhance student performance, as well as to improve retention...” (Mallow) Mallow also lays out a step-by-step guide on how to divide group work. His idea is to divide work into eight phases:

“1. Introduction: group self-selection,advisors election,project overview 2. Choice of specific project theme 3. Problem formulation: group negotiation and consensus, precise statement of research to be undertaken 4. Practical planning: task assignment, scheduling, assessment of internal and external resources 5. The investigation: literature search, coordination, advisor consultation, possible modifications of investigation direction and group process, midsemester presentation and feedback from peers and advisors in other groups 6. Product production: written monograph or other form of presentation of results 7. Evaluation: internal (group and advisor), external evaluator 8. Post evaluation appraisal: assessment of the experience by each group member" (Mallow)

While these stages were written with a scientific methodology in mind, it is easy to see how some adaptations can be made in order to apply it to an English classroom and a writer’s workshop. Depending on the students in the classroom, self-selection may not be feasible, but this decision will ultimately depend on the specific classroom. The assignment itself may also influence some of the decisions made in the eight phases: is the final product a group project or is each student working independently and using the workshop as a place for ideas and peer-edits. Regardless of the intention of the workshop, the suggestions of having internal and external advising brings up an interesting point about different type of group learning which Sze-Sze- Wong brings up in her article, “Distal and Local Group Learning: Performance Trade-Offs and Tensions."

Wong defines the difference between local and distal learning in the following: “Local learning is defined as the interpersonal knowledge acquisition, sharing, and combination activities with members in the same group, and distal learning is defined as the interpersonal knowledge acquisition, sharing, and combination activities with individuals external to the group." This difference can be seen clearly in many aspects of life. A good example for students would be talking about their group of friends and comparing it to, say, the parents of their friends. The students, member of the local group, may have a number of ideas that they believe to be true and ideas of how things should work. On the other hand, the members of the distal group, or their parents, have different views and ideas and influence the local group. Wong’s explanation for this being, "...distal learning is likely to trigger divergent thinking, which in turn is likely to increase cognitive variation in members' beliefs about their tasks and how things are done." This “too many cooks in the kitchen” logic may cause dissonance within the local group and impede the group’s progress. This scenario can also be applied to smaller and larger scales of groups.

While on the subject of group size, a number of articles were explored dealing with that exat issue. What is the proper size of a group? The authors of the article, "Reinventing High School: Outcomes of the Coalition Campus Schools Project." explored the reasonings behind a group of schools moving to smaller numbers of students. While not necessarily about group work, the benefits of having a smaller student population was shown in the article and this principle can be translated into the benefits of small groups. The article states, “A number of studies have found that, all else equal, schools have higher levels of achievement when they create smaller, more personalized units in which teachers work together and students see a smaller number of teachers over a given period of time." This increased personal time between teachers and students fostered an environment where students had higher levels of achievement. This evidence, combined with Wong’s belief in less outside influence to the local group, leads us to believe the the smaller the group, the more efficient the group can be in their work.

As mentioned earlier, the classroom environment the students impact the teacher’s decision on how to form these groups. While students usually prefer to choose who they’ll be working with, this may not always be the best scenario. However, teachers must be careful when they are the sole-deciders on which students go into which group. Tom Roberts and the fellow authors of the article, "The Effects of Information Technology Project Complexity on Group Interaction." also explore the idea of group composition. The article is mostly about the effects of technology on the group aspect of the project, but it also makes a point about how no amount of technology can change the group dynamic. "Too often, groups are composed quickly and conveniently, and then immediately called upon to make a series of decisions. This collection of people is not necessarily a cohesive group characterized by a common goal, such as a football team or a fire crew or a software development team." (Roberts, Cheney, Sweeney, and Hightower) When some students are placed into groups, told to work together for a common goal, and they must rely on their group members fully and unconditionally, they create a tension an attitude that group work is “stupid” and they would prefer to work on their own. With this in mind, teachers must be aware that group work, or the writer’s workshop format, isn’t always the best way to approach a certain assignment.

The teacher must be ready to explain why the writer’s workshop is the best option available for the type of project students will be working on and be able to place students into groups where they will be compatible with their fellow members. "The use of groups often comes at the expense of speed and increases the chances for conflict or power struggle that can get in the way of performance and the productivity of the group. Conflict researchers have found that group strife that is based on personality or interpersonal dislike adversely affects how the group functions." (Roberts, Cheney, Sweeney, and Hightower) While it is not always possible to create such a situation in a real classroom, the teacher must weigh the benefits from the drawbacks when choosing group work over individual work. This group work provides students the opportunity to recieve feedback and the use of other group members prior knowledge in the process of their group activity, yet many educators are afraid of the drawbacks of this classroom activity set up.

**What is the Scope/Perameters?**
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The articles we examined for this project were both educational and non-educational texts. We saw no reason to exclude the non-educational texts as they still had merit to the inquiry we were researching. During our research, it seemed that every time we had a possible answer to a question, we developed more questions and explored those avenues, as well. As we continue to research our questions, we would like to find more texts that deal specifically with high school students and would liek the chance to use the writer’s workshop in our own classrooms to get firsthand experience in how to properly manage one.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One such question we came across during our research was, “How are we going to present our findings to the class?” Using some of the information we found, we decided to turn our own project into a writer’s workshop and see what happened. We created a wikispace page and began posting our ideas about the project onto the main page. After our initial brainstorm, we divided the work and began creating our own pages with the information we came across. When we felt we had enough information and resources, we started putting them together into one cohesive project. The nice thing about working with a wiki is being able to see the edits the other person made to our work and we would often write in little notes about why we made a change or just a note about thinking it should be changed and we would discuss it. The other nice part about the wiki was the digital aspect. We could work on our own time while still getting that feeling that we were working together. The Roberts’ made a point about technology being a hindrance to group work by saying, "Since only one person can be heard at a time, some members may be prevented from participating, thus reducing the synergy of the group." (Roberts, Cheney, Sweeney, and Hightower) We never seemed to run into this problem as our “voice” was the text we wrote and we were able to fully flesh our own ideas and read the other’s ideas before we ever began a conversation. The use of the Wiki space also gave us the opportunity to support and flush out our ideas without the distractions that may take place within the classroom. Technology like the Wiki page gave our group the opportunity to collaborate on our group project when we were available which may not being during regular 7-2 school hours.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Our Classroom activity uses many of the techniques we picked up from our research on implementing a successful writers workshop which could be used in both a classroom setting or hybrid/partially internet based with an online website. By pulling sources from an outside internet site such as Youtube.com we are able to introduce our students to the multiple lenses and scopes of writing when studying poetry. The ability to take the average lesson on poetic lines and rhythm and present it so it can now be heard, seen and explored rather than read from the classroom text can create depth and meaning to the students.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The audience we had in mind for this inquiry project was our classmates in Engl 409. They will be the ones seeing our presentation and, since we already have a rapport with them, we can show them our wikispace as an example of a genre of the writer’s workshop. We also realized that this wiki could be used to convince fellow educators when we are in the field to take their writing workshops and move them to a digital medium. It is also something we can put into our portfolios in getting those jobs, too.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The second genre we selected was making a list of writing prompts that could be worked on in a writer’s workshop setting. While making the list, we discovered that the National Writing Project has a very good list of ideas for such an activity. Since the National Writing Workshop has more experience than us, we decided to try some of the ideas that were workable for two students. The link: <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/922#Twentyseven__]

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Think like a football coach.
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The writing teacher should apply the KISS theory: Keep it simple stupid. Holt explains for a freshman quarterback, audibles (on-field commands) are best used with care until a player has reached a higher skill level. In writing class, a student who has never written a poem needs to start with small verse forms such as a chinquapin or haiku.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Firstly, the KISS theory is a cool name and a fun acronym. Using this suggestion, we created a haiku.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">__The Kiss Method__

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Use the KISS method

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">when teaching writing, but don’t

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">call your students dumb

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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Some suggested questions for students to answer were listed, so we answered a few of the questions: =====

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Why did I write this piece? Where did I get my ideas?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I wrote this piece because it was required to pass the class. I got my ideas from past experience and research.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Who is the audience and how did it affect this piece?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The audience is our professor and whatever evil is in charge of livetext. It made the paper a bit more formal than if it were written just for Professor Baker.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Was this piece easy or difficult to write? Why?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It was difficult when we were still trying to decide on which questions to research. It was easy when we finally decided on a topic and began researching. Why? Because we’re in one of our last semesters before graduating and have written a lot of papers.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What parts did I rework? What were my revisions?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We reworked the entire thing multiple times. The revisions came from finding new references and working them into the paper.

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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Work with words relevant to students' lives to help them build vocabulary. =====

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For each letter of the alphabet, the students find an appropriately descriptive word for themselves. Students elaborate on the word by writing sentences and creating an illustration. In the process, they make extensive use of the dictionary and thesaurus.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Iconoclast

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">