Teaching English in the Two-Year College - Volume 41, Issue 3, 2014

This article explores students’ responses to a formal self-assessment assignment, situating their views within the context of the texts they produced, identifying connections to scholarship on self reflection, and proposing a rethinking of pedagogical practices around reflective writing.

This article presents a digital, multimodal reflective essay assignment based on Geoffrey Sirc’s “box logic” that asks students to fill a series of boxes with images, found text, and their own commentary as they critically and creatively engage with their writing experiences through media artifacts, digital technology, and design decisions.

A Response to Lindsey Harding’s “Writing beyond the Page: Reflective Essay as Box Composition”

Rachel Ihara

A Response to Rachel Ihara’s “Student Perspectives on Self-Assessment: Insights and Implications”

Lindsey Harding

In an effort to better understand how to help students engage more fully with the feedback process, this article examines the role of the writer as solicitor of feedback in composition textbooks, noting that textbooks don’t appear to offer sufficient tools to move students from “Do we have to?” to “Can we, please?” in peer review, and includes pedagogical suggestions that will encourage students to become engaged writers who are able, and willing, to solicit feedback and participate in peer review.

The article provides suggestions for using a grading contract/portfolio approach to assessing writing for introductory composition classes comprised of basic writers.

Students revise a course assignment prompt in a dual-credit class to develop their conceptions of the meaning of revision.

Hassel invites readers to think about how to frame a research question that will lead to a fruitful investigation.

Reviewed are:

RAW (Reading and Writing) New Media, edited by Cheryl E. Ball and James Kalmbach; reviewed by Suanna H. Davis

Listening to Our Elders: Working and Writing for Change, edited by Samantha Blackmon, Cristina Kirklighter, and Steve Parks; reviewed by Patricia Wilde

How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, by Paul Tough; reviewed by Jeffrey Klausman

Redesigning Composition for Multilingual Realities, by Jay Jordan; reviewed by Michelle LaFrance