How do you teach people to teach writing?
posted by bitchphd
So my university is currently working on getting more writing into the non-English disciplines, and I'm all for it. In my own department, we're thinking about what this means in terms of training our TAs; we want to give them more information about teaching and assessing writing than we've given them in the past (read: none). Guess who volunteered, like the idealistic dolt that she is, to be in charge of this?
I know that I want the TAs (and undergrads) to think in terms of process; one thing our department doesn't do nearly enough of (read: none, except for me) is have students revise their written work. And I want them to think rhetorically, as well--that is, in terms of the effectiveness of a piece of writing, rather than mechanical crap like grammatical correctness and spelling (I know, I know, but I swear to you that there are profs in my department for whom those are the primary criteria they use to grade student writing). So, in training the TAs to assess student writing, I'm pushing uphill a little bit, because they're going to need (among other things) to assess the content even though some of their supervising faculty are going to want them to be correcting grammar, grammar, grammar.
So. Help me out, oh blogosphere, especially those of you who teach writing or specialize in comp/rhet. What are some good, basic readings on composition and assessment that I can give my TAs in a 2-3 week training course? I need at least one good article demonstrating that correcting grammar isn't the be-all and end-all; I remember learning this myself, and have found it to be true, but since comp isn't my field, I don't know what a good source on it is. (None of our students are ESL, so that's not an issue.) What are the good composition readers that will work for graduate students to give them a basic handle on writing pedagogy without expecting them to have any background in it? Is there a good practical text that discusses things like developing assignments and grading schemes (not that the students will be doing much of this, but I think it would be helpful for them to think about)?
And finally, if anyone has run a program like this, and has advice, feel free to lay it on me.
I know that I want the TAs (and undergrads) to think in terms of process; one thing our department doesn't do nearly enough of (read: none, except for me) is have students revise their written work. And I want them to think rhetorically, as well--that is, in terms of the effectiveness of a piece of writing, rather than mechanical crap like grammatical correctness and spelling (I know, I know, but I swear to you that there are profs in my department for whom those are the primary criteria they use to grade student writing). So, in training the TAs to assess student writing, I'm pushing uphill a little bit, because they're going to need (among other things) to assess the content even though some of their supervising faculty are going to want them to be correcting grammar, grammar, grammar.
So. Help me out, oh blogosphere, especially those of you who teach writing or specialize in comp/rhet. What are some good, basic readings on composition and assessment that I can give my TAs in a 2-3 week training course? I need at least one good article demonstrating that correcting grammar isn't the be-all and end-all; I remember learning this myself, and have found it to be true, but since comp isn't my field, I don't know what a good source on it is. (None of our students are ESL, so that's not an issue.) What are the good composition readers that will work for graduate students to give them a basic handle on writing pedagogy without expecting them to have any background in it? Is there a good practical text that discusses things like developing assignments and grading schemes (not that the students will be doing much of this, but I think it would be helpful for them to think about)?
And finally, if anyone has run a program like this, and has advice, feel free to lay it on me.
Posted at 3:19 PM
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