It's true that writing is an inherently individual act and a great deal of the work/assessment in a comp. class is inescapably individual and should be.
That said, there are fundamentals in any discipline which students must be able to identify and discuss in the language of the field. Basic concepts, discriminations, vocubulary and even trouble-shooting skills. These are things that students can help each other learn in a team-based way.
For a writing class, here are a couple questions/question formats that popped into my head:
1) Which of the following is the best example of an enthymeme? Why?
2) What is the *worst* problem with this paragraph? Why? (Of course "worst" would depend upon many different criteria--depending upon what you were studying)
3) A student was asked the following question: “List (in order) and briefly describe x, y, and z.”
The student wrote:
Blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
The student’s answer:
a) Lists all of the pieces in the correct order and with accurate descriptions.
b) Lists all of pieces but they are either out of order or some descriptions are inaccurate.
c) Does not include all of the pieces, or they are out of order, or some descriptions are inaccurate.
. . . that's all I got off the top of my head. Anyone else?
-M
________________________________________
From: Team Learning Discussion List [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Chuck Killingsworth [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2008 3:26 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Freshman composition
As a 'newbie' to TBL, I may be a bit off in the following response to
Lance's question, but here goes - how about as a part of the writing
learning process you have the small groups critique (as in try to find and
correct) papers written either by current students or previous semester
students. I doubt you'll have any problem finding samples of papers that
have been poorly written; just make sure the names have been removed. So
it would go something like this: you do a lesson on the correct way to
write a title page, the students form small groups and critique samples of
incorrectly written title pages, then write their own individual title
pages. Each component/lesson could be designed this way.
What do others think?
Chuck Killingsworth
> I teach Freshman composition. I.e. a class that has individual papers as
> the primary grading
> criteria, and frankly, as the entire point of the class. Team learning
> sounds fascinating, but
> antithetical to the nature of my class. A person must learn to write a
> paper on their own.
> To do otherwise is to breach academic integrity, at least of this class.
> (One cannot
> represent as one's own work the work of someone else, nor of a
> collaboration.) Is there a
> work around to a class that demands individual projects as the fundamental
> grading criterion.
>
>
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