Revisiting Conferencing

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The most recent “Composition Conversation” focused on conferencing. Participants discussed not so much the advantages of conferencing but the realities of it. The benefits of writing conferences have been known for years, and most teachers of writing have been trained to incorporate them in their course design. The problem most instructors encounter, however, is the difficulty of maintaining a conferencing model given increasingly larger composition classes.

Out of the conversation emerged a list of common conferencing practices used by the participants themselves or known to be used by other instructors. Participants noted that class size and workload tempered the use of conferences and if used how they were implemented. Some instructors, for example, conducted conferences only with those writers with the most serious problems. Others began with writers with the most serious problems and saw other students only if time permitted. Some had cancelled classes and set up conference times, but all acknowledged that these “conference days” were difficult at best and grueling at worst for instructors with 60-80 writing students.

Generally, the timing of conferences fell into common patterns. In developmental classes instructors wanted to set up conferences both early and late in the term. Early conferences established rapport and enabled the instructor to make clear his or her expectations. Late conferences allowed for more focused work on specific writing issues, especially at the level of sentences and paragraphs. In ENGL 101 and ENGL 102, the use of conferences has been made difficult by class sizes greater than 25. The result is most ENGL 101 and ENGL 102 instructors either use only one conference per quarter usually around the middle of the term, or none at all. Some instructors make conferences optional, a practice which certainly cuts down on the numbers.

Given the realities of class sizes and workload, participants also discussed alternative strategies to conferencing. One participant suggested the use of audio. Students record themselves reading their papers and the instructor records his or her comments in response. This practice, made increasingly easy through the use of digital sound files, recreates the personal and human aspect of conferencing, which is arguably one of its most important benefits.

Another strategy involves placing students with similar writing issues in small groups. These group conferences save time by allowing the instructor to work with more than one student on similar problems. A related strategy is to combine conferencing with peer review groups. The instructor meets with two or three students alternating between setting tasks for some students while working directly with others. These “multi-tasking” sessions, while efficient, were generally conceded to be very taxing on the instructor.

Finally, participants discussed the importance of having a focused conference. All agreed that conferences are most successful when focused on a few key issues and when students set the agenda. Some instructors have students write down their goal(s) for a conference, what it is that they want to accomplish. Others have students write specific questions on their draft to which the instructor replies either on the draft or in conference.

The next Composition Conversation will be on Tuesday, November 3 on the topic of “Peer Review and Scoring Guides.”

Types of Conferencing

Most teachers of writing are familiar with the traditional writing conference. Other kinds of conferencing discussed at the Composition Conversation include:

Small group conferencing—the teacher meets with small groups of students who share similar writing issues.

Journaling or Student-Initiated Questions—students keep a journal about their writing and/or ask specific questions to which the instructor responds. Instead of a journal, instructors also use the essay draft to exchange questions and responses.

Computer-Mediated Strategies—Email, Blackboard chats and other computer-mediated strategies were discussed as was the use of audio recordings, but for the most part these strategies were merely digital or internet-enabled versions of existing practices.

Conferencing Strategies

1. Set reasonable goals. Avoid trying to discuss everything.
2. Have students bring two copies of their essay; while you read one copy, they can take notes on the other.
3. Expect students to set the agenda of the conference.
4. Have students do something in the conference, such as revising a sentence, or reformulating a thesis.
5. Ask students to prepare a set of questions, or give them a list of questions that they must answer before the conference.

Assessment and Scoring Guides

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Beloved of accrediting bodies, scoring guides (or rubrics as they are sometimes called) are all the rage. A well-designed scoring guide can streamline the grading process by making clear to both the instructor and students what constitutes different levels of work. Scoring guides can ensure consistency in grading practices and transparency in the grading process by serving as a shared understanding of both the requirements of a project and the expectations of the instructor.


What exactly is a scoring guide? Briefly, it is a set of scoring guidelines for evaluating student work. The scoring guide indicates both the criteria that will be used to judge the work and distinguishes between different levels of performance. By identifying the criteria to be used to judge the work, a good scoring guide clearly ariculates the instructor's expectations. And by distinguishing between different levels of performance a good scoring guide helps students determine how to meet those expectations. And when a scoring guide is shared with students early in the process, students become better judges of the quality of their own work and in peer review the work of others. The scoring guide also provides the instructor with language to give feedback on the quality of work.


All four composition courses at CSULA have scoring guides. The ENGL 095 and 096 scoring guides are used for evaluating end-of-the-quarter portfolios, while the ENGL 101 and ENGL 102 scoring guides are used for assigning grades to individual essays.

095 and 096 Scoring Guides

Since grades for ENGL 095 and ENGL 096 are determined by the student’s portfolio scores, the scoring guides for these courses represent not simply an instructor’s idiosyncratic do’s and don’ts, but program and university expectations. Most experienced 095 and 096 instructors distribute the course scoring guide to students, spend class time reading and interpreting it, organize “norming” sessions to help students apply it, and use language from the scoring guide in their comments on student writing.

This last point is perhaps the most unappreciated, but possibly the most important. After having spent some time in class discussing the scoring guide, an instructor might note on an 096 student’s draft that at present it does “not respond to the text at all (see ‘3’ score),” or that it “consists mostly of generalizations without support (see ‘3’ score).” The scoring guide gives both student and instructor a shared language of assessment, which the instructor can invoke in his or her comments.

101 and 102 Scoring Guides

Assigning grades to individual essays is not an objective activity and yet it is also not purely subjective and idiosyncratic. Experienced teachers of writing tend to apply similar criteria and arrive at similar assessments and grader consistency is improved when a common scoring guide is used. The scoring guides for ENGL 101 and ENGL 102 ensure that students in different classes with different instructors will receive comparable grades for comparable work.

As in ENGL 095 and 096, the scoring guide is most effective when it is made available to students early in the course, is the subject of class discussion, and is specifically referred to in instructor comments.

Using Scoring Guides

• Make the scoring guide available to students, preferably early in the term
  
• Devote class time to discussing the scoring guide
  
• Provide students with sample essays that exemplify the scoring guide
  
• Consider “norming” students by having them read and score sample student essays (or each other’s essays) as part of an extended peer review
  
• Refer to the specific language of the scoring guide when commenting on student essays
  

Recap of Composition Conversation: Responding to Student Writing (Oct 7, 2009)

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Last week a small (but select!) group of writing instructors met in the English Department Seminar room for the first “Composition Conversation.” The topic was responding to student writing and faculty discussed the type and timing of their responses to student writing and shared ideas about managing workload. The conversation revealed general agreement about the basic underlying principles (see below), but also a diversity of approaches used to achieve those ends.

The first distinction that emerged was between responses that attempted to help students revise and develop drafts and those concerned with assessment. This distinction has a long history in composition pedagogy, with the emphasis both in theory and practice on responding to early drafts to facilitate effective revision. Ideally, teachers read drafts and offer immediate feedback, which writers use to improve the effectiveness of their drafts. The reality, however, is complicated by a range of factors.

First, discussion participants noted the tendency to “slip into marking” grammar errors and other local issues and thereby lose track of the larger, global and rhetorical issues that were probably of greater importance (see below for a discussion of this problem). Second, participants called attention to the problem of class size. While it is possible (and advisable) to comment with some frequency on early and intermediate drafts in an ENGL 095 or ENGL 096 class of fifteen to nineteen students, instructors struggle to continue this practice in ENGL 101 or ENGL 102 with class sizes of 27 or 28. In these larger classes, the instructor’s response to student writing tends to come at the end of the process as a final assessment of the student’s work. As everyone acknowledged, it is unclear how effective these “final comments” are in helping students become better writers.

Instructors offered several strategies for making final comments effective. One instructor avoids handing back essays at the end of class and instead sets aside class time during which students are required to read through their commented-upon drafts and are encouraged to ask questions about the comments. Another instructor suggested that we could make more explicit our expectations (as teachers) that the comments on one essay be “carried forward” to the next writing assignment. A third instructor shared her strategy of using different color ink for different kinds of comments, a practice that helps students see the different ways in which readers respond to their texts.

Besides making sure that students read and understand our comments, participants also discussed strategies for easing the workload. First, instructors noted the importance of avoiding excessive marking, a time-consuming process that produces very limited results. Second, instructors reiterated the importance of peer review and peer responses as appropriate and effective interventions in the writing process. Third, some instructors shared their use of checklists and rubrics to simplify commenting and evaluation. Finally, some instructors discussed an in-class activity that trained students to become the “graders.” Both the use of rubrics and the use of peer groups to assess student writing are topics of their own and so will be treated in subsequent articles.

The next Composition Conversation will be on Tuesday, October 20 on the topic of “Conferencing.”

Basic Principles for Responding to Student Writing

1. Students benefit more from responses to “in-progress” writing than from responses to “finished” writing.
2. Students benefit more from responses that focus on form and content than from responses that focus on mechanics.
3. Instructor comments (ideally) should help students understand their weaknesses and strengths as writers.
4. “Marking” grammar, style and other mechanical problems should be limited to only a portion of the essay and carried out with the aim of moving students towards independence (i.e. helping students become better editors and proofreaders of their own work).
5. Instructors should be prepared to respond differently to student writing depending on the timing of the intervention. Early responses should be facilitative, helping students to discover their own solutions. Later responses might become more directive if students are unable to respond effectively to earlier guidance. Final responses can be evaluative, but should still focus on what the writer can do to improve the draft, even if there will be no opportunity to revise.

Making Reading Explicit

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Most composition instructors agree that many first-year students need help with reading and the statistics back them up. About 90% of first-year CSULA students are required to take the English Placement Test (EPT) and only about 10% of them score above 151 (the “cut score”) on the reading section. In the CSU system, well more than half of all test-takers score below 151 in reading. While we, as teachers of English and teachers of writing, might feel (correctly) that reading is the responsibility of all departments and courses, the university looks to the English Department to provide leadership in literacy education. But given the level of writing skills in our composition classes, how can we find time to teach reading too?

Experienced instructors already know the answer: we are already teaching reading, at least minimally by modeling for our students the practices and strategies of good readers. What many of us might not be doing is making explicit our assumptions and practices. As writing teachers we probably don’t think twice about talking with students about strategies for developing an argument, and yet we probably rarely discuss with students how we approach a text for the first time, or how we skim a text looking for clues about its organization, or how we decide what to write in the margins as we read. All of us bring to our reading a wealth of expertise that we could make explicit for our students to help them become better readers.

Talking About Reading

What do good readers do? First, they read frequently and for a variety of purposes, including pleasure. Second, they are active readers who seek for ways to understand a text. They read with purpose and attempt to understand the writer’s purpose in writing. And good readers recognize that just as writing requires revision, reading requires re-reading.

If we had to summarize these practices, we might begin by saying that

• Good readers preview the reading by reviewing the table of contents, chapter titles, headings and subheadings. They attempt to understand how the text is organized before they start reading.
  
• Good readers identify a purpose for reading: Why am I reading? What do I hope to get from the reading (information, ideas, pleasure)? How will I know when I’ve accomplished my purpose?
  
• Good readers place the reading in context. When was it written? By whom? For what purpose? What genre does it belong to and what conventions are associated with that genre?
  
• Good readers read quickly but are prepared to re-read. Does the writer always use topic sentences? Are paragraphs mostly filled with different kinds of evidence all supporting the same claim? Can parts be skipped or quickly skimmed?
  
• Good readers engage with the text, ask questions of the text, agree with it, disagree with it, relate it to other readings, and note when it confuses them.
  
• Good readers are able to summarize the text and frequently will reflect on the experience of reading. What is its main point? What was most/least effective about it? What problems did I encounter while reading?
  

By making explicit our reading expertise we can help students become more effective readers.

What Do Good Readers Do?

1. Read for a variety of reasons including (or especially) pleasure
   
2. Read at different speeds and intensities: skim, scan, or study depending on need
   
3. Read actively carrying on a conversation with the text
   
4. Read with an awareness of the text’s genre and associated conventions
   

What Do Good Readers Note About A Text?

1. Table of contents, chapter titles, index, introduction, headings, subheadings, and any other hint of global organization
   
2. The genre of the text (i.e. narrative, academic essay, and so on)
   
3. Thesis, topic sentences, transitions and other focusing devices that help identify the writer’s preferred method of local organization
   
4. Biographical information about the author, time, place and purpose of writing, and any other information that might help contextualize the text