In the Best Interest of Students by Gallagher Kelly;

Author:Gallagher, Kelly;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stenhouse Publishers
Published: 2015-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Writing Groups as a Vehicle to Develop Agency in Young Writers

Every Thursday my students meet in their writing groups. Each group consists of five students of mixed gender and ability. All written pieces brought to the writing groups are self-generated by the students, and for each writing group meeting, students are asked to bring either a new draft or an old piece they have significantly revised. They are also asked to bring copies of their pieces for each of the other members of their groups. This means that if a student is in a group of five, she brings five copies of her piece to the discussion.

Once in the groups, each student takes a turn sharing his or her piece with the other members of the writing group. When it is a student’s turn to share, he or she distributes copies of it to the other group members and, before reading it aloud to the other group members, indicates the level of response he or she would like from peers. The student asks the group to provide one of the following three levels of response (these originated years ago somewhere in the National Writing Project):

Bless: When a student requests “bless,” he asks for his peers to note only the things they like about the paper. Elements students might bless include diction, sentence structure, the introduction and/or the conclusion, sequencing, realistic use of dialogue, or a favorite segment of the paper. When the writer requests “bless,” no criticism of the paper is allowed. All comments are positive. Hakuna matata only.

Address: When a student requests “address,” she is asking for peers to look at a very specific element of the paper. For example, a student might ask the others in the group to pay close attention to a particular section of the paper she is having trouble with and to offer some thinking on how to work through the difficulty. When a student asks for “address,” she dictates exactly where in the paper she would like her fellow group members to focus their feedback.

Press: When a student requests “press,” he is indicating to his partners that all comments are welcome. Partners can offer constructive criticism, praise, and/or suggestions. Anything goes—provided the feedback helps the writer to make the paper better.

Let’s say it is Robert’s turn to share his piece with his writing group. Robert distributes copies to the others in his group, and because he is a reluctant writer, he asks his partners to “bless” his paper. Once the copies are distributed, Robert reads his paper aloud to his group, who are following the reading with pencils in hand and quickly marking areas they may “bless.” When Robert finishes reading, he sits silently for a couple of minutes while his partners revisit the paper, highlighting areas of strength in the paper. This is all done silently. His partners then grab precut quarter sheets of paper and write comments to Robert (based on the markings they made while Robert read the paper to them).

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