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Reflection in the Electronic Writing Classroom
L.
Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College
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Example Draft Letters from
my classes
I have my students
compose a Draft Letter to accompany each essay they turn in, and I write
each Draft Letter prompt to guide their reflective writing. Also, when
students do peer response, they look at the Draft Letter as well as the
essay. I will either have students compose the Draft Letter in class as
they turn in their paper, or I will assigned them to have it complete
along with their essay to turn in at the beginning of class.
In a networked computer
classroom, I have my students turn their essays in to an EnCore MOO. Students
create a new room and post the essay as the description of that room.
Draft Letters are posted inside the room as a note, so that students doing
peer response can go visit their peer's essay room and in one electronic
place read both his or her Draft Letter and essay (the peer response is
also recorded in that student's essay room). The same effect could be
achieved using a Bulletin Board where students post their Draft Letter
as the first message and their essay as the reply to their Draft Letter.
Then peer responders would reply to the essay.
I should note that
an electronic environment offers advantages compared to a traditional
classroom since access to essays for peer response is not limited to class
time (and space). Faster students may get all their peer responses done
in class, but slower students can complete their work out of class for
homework. In fact, I have at times (particularly for 50 minute class periods)
only started the peer response process in class, allowing time for maybe
two peer responses and then assigning the rest of the peer response as
homework. I also feel the freedom--since I am not limited to in-class
time to do peer response--to assign more peer responses (say, six rather
than three or four).
Below is an example
Draft Letter topic with four student responses. Following the student
examples are four more draft letter topics without student responses.
Draft Letter
Topic:
You have just completed the Once I Was Essay. Describe your writing process
for this essay. How did your topic discovery go, brainstorming, drafting,
revising, and editing? Where did you get hung up or where did things flow
smoothly? What special challenges did you face as you sought to meet this
essay's special goals--introduction, shaping the two sides, SHOWING and
trying to bring in illustrative examples? What are your essay's strengths
and weaknesses? What should the author know to fully appreciate your essay?
What special feedback do you want from your peers as they do peer review?
Joseph's Draft
Letter
My topic discovery was a very easy choice. I have seen my character, and
personality develop and change drastically since my early childhood, and
even highschool years. In drafting and revising my essay I found that
there were many instances where there was more room for examples, and
illustration to grab the reader's attention. I became a little hung up
on the instances where I had to watch out for proper use of punctuation.
The commas, quotes, and run-ons are an ongoing battle that I can win.
It was a challenge to me in deciding how to grab the readers attention
the most effectively. I struggled at first, but later decided that I needed
to bring the reader, right into the most exciting part of my life, and
the only place where I dared to express myself without any moral/ social
restraints. The football feild, gives a true reflection of my change in
character, because my true feelings were not hushed and quieted, but were
praised for their ferocity, and disregard for the well being of other
human beings. The strenth of the essay, to me is the introduction. Like
I said, football is the clearest example of how I went from a mouse to
a man--a very mean man, when the situation allows. The weakness of my
essay is probably still the punctuation, and grammatical aspect of it.
I hope to have my peers read the essay and try to point out to me any
obvious errros in grammer that I they may have encountered. Also, perhaps
if they felt my story accurately displayed the change drastically enough.
I would like to know if they felt my work grabbed their attention, from
beginning to end.
Talia Draft Letter
My writing process for this essay was a little more complicated, I had
to deeply think to find my topic, brainstorming I am not quite happy with
my essay, I think I would like to approach it in a different way. Revising
and editing is my nightmare because I always think of throwing what I
have write and start all over . And then I remember having a time frame
so I end up showing what I have done not feeling so happy about it. I
do have trouble meeting the flow between the introduction, body and conclusion.
It is hard to write for an audience. To think what they like, and what
will be boring for them, and keep trying to hook them with your reading.
Now I know how hard is to write a good piece. The readers should know
that I am trying. From my peers I deeply thank them for their response,
letting them know that their response help me notice if I am in the right
track or if I am lost.
Matthew's Draft
Letter
In the process of writing my essay, I did not have a hard time finding
a concept to write about. I have been going threw a lot of positive changes
in my life, so it was easy for me to get that mirrored effect with the
comparative part of my essay.
One thing that I
found difficult was trying to use description, while concentrating on
the format of the paper, as well as the punctuation. I did not know whether
to emphasize strongly on description, or emphasize stronger on grammar
skills. Putting two and two together, I concentrated on both equally.
In doing this it made my essay stronger in my opinion.
I always hate doing
my revising because I feel as if I'm not doing any kind of correction.
I spend so much time getting the rough draft right that I don't have too
much to correct. This is an example of my stubbornness, coming out to
stop me from doing things I should probably do, but just will not do.
To conclude, I revised
my essay the best I could and hope everyone can get a little something
from it.
Draft Letter of
Peter
Well this essay was quite interesting. From day one when we started to
pick our proverbs, my mind was already shuffling through ideas to write
about. The hardest thing about my essay was choosing the topic. I began
to think of what people said in the past about me and also things that
I saw change in my life. This had to be one of the hardest tasks of my
essay, but after a little thought while talking to my peers, I noticed
how I talked a lot about myself. I chose, I Once was well-known by everybody
and now I am known by the true friends that care. I thought about how
many times in my life I looked forward to a weekend, not realizing that
I had no true friends to hang out with and no true friends that I trusted
enough to talk to. The strengths of this essay is that many people can
relate to this hard topic. I do believe that in order to fully comprehend
this essay, the readers need to place themselves in the right position
in order to see my reasoning. Be a little open with this, because it may
seem as though I am putting down the in-crowd, but I am sharing an experience
of coming out of the in-crowd and into the true circle of friends. I would
really like you to give me positive or negative feedback on NOT the format
of my essay, but the ESSENCE of my paper. Some advice on my structure
would be fine, but feedback on how you feel would help me to understand
my audience and help me to see if I could have reworded anything. Thanks.
Other examples
of Draft Letter Topics
Generic Draft Letter
Topic:
What was your experience writing this essay. Prepare the reader with any
information that you feel is necessary to appreciate your essay fully.
At this point, what do you think are its strengths and weaknesses? What
kind of special feedback would you like from your readers?
Draft Letter Topic
Example #1:
Write a letter to your reader preparing them to read and evaluate your
letter. Discuss what you have done to write this essay and how you have
struggled to meet the essay’s objectives related to essay form, development
with stories, and reaching an audience with a specific purpose. How do
you think the essay came out? Also, discuss where you think you wanted
to go with this essay but found it difficult to get there (and why). –Draft
Letters should be a minimum of 250 words.—
Draft Letter Topic
Example #2:
Write a letter to your reader preparing them to read and appreciate your
essay. Discuss your experience writing this essay, especially your experience
attempting to incorporate more SUPPORT in the form of various ways of
defining the "subject." How did the invention exercise help
you with writing this essay? How did "chatting" on your progress
in small group help or not help?--should be a minimum of 150 words.
Draft Letter Topic
Example #3:
Write a letter to your reader helping them to evaluate and appreciate
your essay. Discuss your experience writing the essay and how you believe
it came out. Talk about the essay's strengths and weaknesses in your opinion.
What particular questions do you have for your reader about your own paper
that you would like feedback on? If you were able to continue working
on the essay, what would you focus on first?
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