A dinner with Elbow and Belanoff would probably consist of medium rare steak, their choice of wine, and a whole lot of questions.
As I was reading this piece, questions kept popping into my mind. Probably because as a teacher, I am always looking for procedures to use in the classroom and so many of these methods seem amazing. However, I have to be taught the 'right way' before I teach it the 'wrong way'. This led to the collections of questions I had.
As I started drafting the questions, I started to realize that this thought process leading to these questions were pretty similar to the procedure "What Do You Want to Hear More About?" This made me feel that at least some of my writer instincts are internal.
As for my questions, they are including but not limited to:
-Are these recommended for the classroom too?
-What age group are these appropriate for?
-Are there some techniques that work better for different types of grades?
-If there are some that aren't suitable for the little ones, are there recommended modifications?
-What are some steps that can be used to set up a culture for this kind of feedback atmosphere?
-Are there resources/worksheets that can help these methods go smoothly?
-Can you tell me more about the "Descriptive Outline" method?
-What do the metaphors represent? Are they individual to each person?
-Are they methods that work better with fiction/non-fiction/essay?
-Are there methods that work better in groups/pairs?
-How often would you use these methods in a classroom?
-What is your favorite method?
-What methods do you find people tend to lean towards?
-You said as a teacher, not to force feedback. What would you do if no one has feedback?
-How does the writer ask for feedback if their peers do not give feedback?
-How long should a piece be when asking for feedback?
-Are there methods that work for shorter pieces vs. longer pieces?
-Who wrote those two essays that were used for examples? (Age, gender, rhetorical situation)
-Who were the readers? (how many, same readers, experienced or new to these methods)
-Who's picking up the check?
I imagine that my medium rare steak would go untouched as I would be more interested in the answers to these questions than satisfying my appetite. This brings me to my last few questions:
- Does the writer respond to the questions when they edit their writing or when they are asked?
- Does the rest of this book(?) answer my aforementioned questions?
I also left this text with quite a few of those questions, especially regarding the feedback. As you wondered, "What would you do if no one has feedback?" and "How does the writer ask for feedback if their peers do not give feedback?" I had those same questions. If we are not forcing feedback, then what do we do? Do we wait it out to see if someone will eventually speak up? Or do we specifically look at certain passages that the writer might be especially curious about? I'm sure the answer might be along the lines of "what ever feels right" or "that depends on the piece" however I feel that those are not strong enough answers for what we are looking for. I do wonder if these questions are answered in the rest of the book, although I almost doubt they are. The answers are probably left to us as teachers to determine what works in our classrooms.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, we probably will have to force the readers for feedback, whether it be in uncomfortable silence waiting for their reply, or looking into a specific area of the text. Hopefully though, that will only happen the first time and after that the students will get the hang of it and want to respond.
After reading your questions, especially the one regarding group work, I began to think of possible answers. I think that methods such as "Movies of the Readers Mind" or creating an outline would work well in groups, as students could collaborate with their responses of the piece of writing to create a well-rounded outline or picture for the writer to best understand the information that multiple people got out of their writing.
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you made a list of questions, as someone who doesn't really blog ever or know what can be included in them, I feel as though your post here gives me a better idea about the things I can include in my future posts. I also enjoy the creativity in your blog posts. Asking so many questions I think forces us to think about what our own answers would be to your questions, or to think up questions of our own.
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