I thought everything seemed to be going well on the first day that I taught for the entire class period. As I circulated the room to see if anyone had questions and to check that everyone understood what they were doing during partner time, I realized Brian* and his partner, Shawn*, were sitting silently looking down at their papers. The students were supposed to be peer editing their own and each other’s papers using the strategy of reading the work aloud to find errors. Usually Brian is very talkative and tends to get off task easily which is why I chose Shawn, a serious and quiet student, to be his partner. I asked them if they understood what to do and they said that had already done everything they were supposed to do for partner one (Shawn) and asked if they could move onto partner number two’s paper. I told them there was still seven minutes left to work on partner number one’s paper and suggested a number of ways they could try reading the paper to find more errors. Brian said that he wanted to work on his own paper and I told him not to worry because each partner’s paper would have the same amount of time, ten minutes, to be edited. I also noted that Shawn did not mark up his paper and that he was supposed to mark the errors and show how to fix them that way when he could easily see what needed to be fixed when he decided to revise it. There were only a few errors corrected on the two page paper. They began to work, so I moved onto other students.
After the ten minute mark when students were supposed to begin editing partner two’s paper, I walked over to Brian and Shawn again. Brian told me he didn’t want to do this with his partner now. I tried to explain to him that he was only hurting himself and his own grade by not working today because they are allowed to revise their work. Brian said he was a great writer and was very good at grammar, so he knew there were no problems in his paper. I glanced at the paper and saw a number of errors, so I told him that I found a few things that could be fixed and that he should use this time to find them himself so that he could get a better grade. After a bit of prodding and pointing out a specific sentence that had an error, Brian added a comma to one sentence in his paper, so I said something along the lines of “now that you found one mistake, I’m sure you can find more” and walked away thinking that they were now working. After reviewing the papers the students handed in at the end of the class period, I noticed that Brian only had the one comma marked on his page.
I feel as though Brian completely missed out on the lesson for the day and wonder how the outcome could have changed had I done something differently.
*pseudonym
Nicole,
ReplyDeleteDo Brian and Shawn usually work well together or did you partner them up for the first time on this activity. I wonder if they were embarrassed at making mistakes in their writing and did not feel comfortable working with partners Had they ever done peer editing before or was this the first time?
Throughout the 10 minutes did you check on them other than when you had these conversations or are these the only times you saw their lack of work?
Were other groups having trouble peer editing like Brian and Shawn or was this the only group that did not want to participate?
They have never worked together as far as I know. I was just experimenting with making my own groups rather than just using the groups my cooperating teacher has already planned. They have all done peer editing in the class before, but this was the first time that I have been in the classroom and they have been asked to read their work aloud.
ReplyDeleteI walked passed them a number of times throughout group work time, but it seemed as though they were working. These are the only conversations I believe I had with them about their not working on their papers. I did talk to them while they were working on partner number one's paper; they called me over to help them with a few questions they had. I think all of the other groups were working fine. They all handed in their papers with many corrections on it. Brian is the only person who did not mark anything on his paper. Toward the end of the group work time, many of the students were getting off task because they felt they were finished and knew it was almost time for class to be over, but overall, the other students were on task.
Can you clarify what the task was for the pairs? Did they have an editing checklist? What errors were they supposed to find? Or were the instructions simply to "find errors"?
ReplyDeleteThe task was for partner two to read partner one’s essay aloud. Either partner could choose to pause throughout the reading to focus on an error in the writing. The partners were to discuss the error and correct it on the paper before moving onto the rest of the essay. After the ten minute mark, the partners were to switch and parter one was to read parter two’s essay following the same directions.
ReplyDeleteThe students were supposed to to find any errors as I had originally planned on focusing only on one or two, but then after reading all of the essays, realized while some students did not have issues in one area, others did. I thought that by doing it this way, the activity would be helpful for all students. Although the instructions were to “find errors”, I reviewed the learning targets for the wiki project with the students and stressed these three: I can correct errors in subject-verb agreement in my own writing, I can correct inappropriate shifts in verb tenses in my own writing, and I can correct errors with there/their/they’re in my own writing. I did not give them a sheet of paper with the learning targets, though,
Nicole
ReplyDeleteWas Brian's aversion to working with his partner a personal issue with that student- or some other 'just don't want to do the work' kind of thing? Do you think he would have been more motivated to work if he had a different partner?... COuld he have worked solo the entire time and still benefited from the lesson?
I paired Brian with a more serious student because he tends to fool around with his classmates. I think he may have had a personal issue with his partner that I am unaware of. After class, I wondered if the reason he did not participate was because he felt uncomfortable sharing his work with this student. He could not have worked alone on this activity because the strategy being practiced was listening to someone else read your work and having someone else listen to you read your own work aloud in order to find and correct errors.
ReplyDelete