I have a due date coming up - or a publication date, I guess, would be a better Writer's Workshop term. Whatever you call it, my seventh and eighth graders have to have their completed pieces turned in by December 12th. I do require a certain number of finished pieces - it varies according to grade and according to what kind of genre study we've done. One of the completed pieces needs to be in the genre we've studied (though topic within that genre is open) and the others can be whatever the student writer would like to do.
I allow students to turn in as many drafts of each piece as they'd like. I mark them up and make comments, I conference with the students, I make suggestions, I teach minilessons to help with the kind of problems I'm seeing. Then I give them a grade on the final draft (using rubrics based on the 6+1 traits), when they decide it's ready, or when the end of the quarter comes - whichever is first.
At the beginning of the quarter, my grading load is fairly manageable. I have a pile every evening, but as long as I keep up with the work, it doesn't get out of control. But the end of the quarter is crazy. I'm coming home with thirty or forty drafts every night, needing immediate feedback because the end is nigh.
How do other Writer's Workshop teachers manage this? I keep reading that you don't have to read everything they write, but how can that be? I don't grade everything in their notebooks (though I do read it all), just give them credit for doing it, but for their drafts, I really do feel I need to read them and respond.
The advantage to reading multiple drafts of each piece is that I have a very good idea of what my kids are working on and what they need help with. It's fun to watch things develop and, in many cases, improve hugely between first and final drafts. And it's not as difficult to assign a grade to a final piece when you are pretty familiar with it. At the end of the quarter I routinely get pieces turned in marked Final even though it's the first time I'm seeing them. Inevitably these pieces are not of the same quality as those that have gone through a whole process of drafting. They get much lower grades, and they frustrate me.
I think I've just pep-talked myself into continuing to do things the way I do them. But if you have a better idea, talk to me. How do you manage to give your students helpful feedback and have a life?
1 hour ago
2 comments:
I was just wondering what kind of standards you require under the "as many drafts as they want" heading. I agree that multiple drafts are worthless if they don't get reliable feedback (yours, primarily--not peer feedback). But do they understand that the drafts they expect you to read have to represent their very best effort?
Is this system working to produce better writers?
Is there any consequence built in for waiting too long to apply themselves? It seems like you, not they, are the one who suffers when they don't take things seriously till the last minute.
It seems like a system that makes their failure or success very much your problem instead of theirs...?
Just impressions based on very little information. You have tons to offer them, and I'd like to see a system that protects your time and sanity! :-)
Are they putting in their very best effort into their early drafts? Well, yes and no. Depends on the student. Some of my students are taking things seriously and working hard. Others are goofing around and then throwing something together at the last minute.
Is it producing better writers? I think, yes. It's nice to work with the same group of kids for two years in a row, because I do get to see improvements over time.
Consequences - yes, because the ones who turn stuff in at the last minute do really badly. And I generally have a couple of kids who get a zero or two.
Is their success or failure my problem instead of theirs? Hmm. I'll have to think more about that. Certainly there are some students who don't seem to care much - I feel that I invest more time and energy in their work than they do!
I do love the Writer's Workshop system because they are choosing their own topics, so writing about things they care about; they are writing every day for extended periods of time; and they are being taught through a variety of methods HOW to write. When I was in school we had an essay assigned (maybe a topic you cared about, probably not), wrote the essay, turned it in, and got a grade. I don't really remember instruction in HOW to write better.
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