Over the past two weeks, I have been working on my final multimodal project for Composition Theory. I wanted to research a subject that might be useful to me (and other teachers) for teaching ENG 103 next year, so I chose a classroom exercise about which I had heard mixed reviews. From my conversations with several of this year's ENG 103 teachers, I knew that peer-review was a common exercise used in the classroom, but had heard that it didn't always work so well. My research consisted of a few articles on the subject, as well as videotaped interviews with three of the teachers from the 2007-2008 and the 2008-2009 years in ENG 103. Both sets of research had many similarities. Basically, I found that peer review is great, but only for those students that really take full advantage of it. Some partnerships take the process more seriously than others. To improve the effectiveness of peer review in the classroom, a teacher must do 3 things:
-Structure the reviews in such a way that students give constructive feedback, preferably in writing that the students can take with them to use during their revisions
-Convince students to take full advantage of the process
-Monitor student reviewers to make sure that they are giving constructive feedback
I created a website to explain the benefits of and the potential issues with using peer review. Check it out at: www.clemson.edu/~bricke/peerreview
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
April 7 - Blogs
In preparation for today's class, we looked at several blogs that discussed rhetoric, networks, and the pedagogical role of blogs and webpages. Collin Brooke's Weblogs as Deictic Systems was a compolation of related essays. The first blog post was about Diexis, the use of words and phrases that are purely contextual. The author then continues his thoughts by writing about how software is becoming more and more social, how this social networking is either inwardly-focused (centripetal) or outwardly-focused (centrifugal), or both. He then addresses how networks of people and ideas can quickly include a large number of people though a small number of connections and how blogs can help create these connections. Blogs are a tool for both centripetal and centrifugal networking.
In sharp contrast to Weblogs as Deictic Systems, The Blogora allows for a dialouge on many different topics and is constantly updated by many different contributors rather than only including one person's viewpoint. Although it is harder to read as a stand-alone source of information, it seems to allow a rich mix of opinions on everything rhetorical. A particularly interesting recent post I saw was about a Apple application that disables a users internet for 8 hours at a time so that they can't get distracted online. It posed the question of whether it was positive or negative liberty and was meant to start a discussion on the topic open for others to contribute.
I think that blogs can play a very important role in the classroom, but feel that they need to act as a discussion and not only as a stand-alone statement by the author. There is obvious value in having a student write and post their own materials, but by opening up their materials for others to comment on (and contribute to) it creates a small discourse community and involves a larger number of students in a more substatial way.
In sharp contrast to Weblogs as Deictic Systems, The Blogora allows for a dialouge on many different topics and is constantly updated by many different contributors rather than only including one person's viewpoint. Although it is harder to read as a stand-alone source of information, it seems to allow a rich mix of opinions on everything rhetorical. A particularly interesting recent post I saw was about a Apple application that disables a users internet for 8 hours at a time so that they can't get distracted online. It posed the question of whether it was positive or negative liberty and was meant to start a discussion on the topic open for others to contribute.
I think that blogs can play a very important role in the classroom, but feel that they need to act as a discussion and not only as a stand-alone statement by the author. There is obvious value in having a student write and post their own materials, but by opening up their materials for others to comment on (and contribute to) it creates a small discourse community and involves a larger number of students in a more substatial way.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
March 31st - Multimodal Project
For my multimodal project, I knew that I wanted to create a webpage, which would allow me to include text, pictures, video, and perhaps even a short quiz at the end. I was happy to be able to create a lesson, as well as a product that would address my research on a topic of pedagogy. I emailed Dr. Haynes with a project idea that will discuss the potential benefits and problems with including peer-review exercises in the classroom. From listening to conversations among this year's English 103 teachers, it seems as though this could be a great exercise for students, but that many of the freshmen students don't take advantage of it. I hope to find the best way to implement this exercise in the classroom and be able to share it with my peers via a website.
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