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Articles Conference Reviews |
Session D31Digital Currents: “Best Practices” in Composition during the First Two Years This session focused primarily on information technology in the form of electronic tools for accomplishing traditional tasks. In “Performing Distributed Peer Response in Internet and Digital-enhanced Composition Courses,” Kip Strasma discussed how he uses small groups of three to five “spotlight students” to post their essay drafts to a discussion board utility for each assignment, then he has all students respond to the drafts of the smaller “spotlight” group. Thus, each student gets a chance to receive comprehensive feedback, though not for every assignment. The class works together to create a review checklist and post comments for the spotlight writers who then synthesize the comments they have received in a write-up that is emailed to the instructor. Strasma then confirms, challenges, or adds more comments to the student responses before the spotlight author revises. The spotlight students also have the chance to rate the usefulness of each response they received from their peers using a Likert-type scale. At the end of the course, all students in Strasma’s class complete a meta-analysis of the review process and how it affected their revision process. From Strasma’s presentation, I can certainly see the value of having students synthesize and reflect on the peer review process, and it seems that the electronic format facilitates response and feedback. Strasma emphasized the value of having students synthesize and reflect on the peer review process and how the electronic format facilitates response and reflection. Xiao Wang’s “Constructing E-Portfolios in Composition Courses Online,” presented an example of adapting traditional classroom practice for online students. Wang’s students write multiple drafts, which they submit to smartthinking.com, peers, and Wang for feedback. Wang grades a third draft, which students may revise as part of a comprehensive final portfolio that also includes a one-hour essay reflecting on their writing development and the portfolio process. Wang noted that these portfolios highlight writing as a process, increase students’ sense of ownership, and improve their organizational skills, as students create a folder for each paper as part of the combined portfolio submitted via email using zip files or on a flash drive. Because my program is engaged in research on the reflective and rhetorical possibilities of electronic portfolios, I’ll admit that I was hoping to hear about a more innovative approach to portfolios that takes greater advantage of digital technologies. Wang’s presentation didn’t touch on how going digital might improve on old-school text portfolios, but her pedagogy and examples demonstrated good practice in process and file management for online courses. Suzanne Labadie dealt more with intrinsically digital phenomena in “Revising Research in the Age of Wikipedia.” Labadie discussed how the critical and purposeful use of Wikipedia and class wikis can help students overcome problems with academic tone and objective reporting, teach students about plagiarism and documentation, and challenge superficial research methods. Labadie argued that Wikipedia, especially with its addition of warning icons about style and citations, can demonstrate effective research and writing practices, while having students create well-developed wiki research sites can challenge the assumption that digital writing is all casual and superficial like texting or emailing. A lively discussion ensued about the benefits and drawbacks of wikis, and questions suggested that the audience was more interested in the analysis and production of these digital texts than they were in technology tools that primarily digitize traditional instruction. |