Scaffolding%20Writing%20Assignments%20Joonna%20Trapp%20Emory%20University

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Scaffolding Writing AssignmentsJoonna
TrappEmory University

• Photo by Ian L

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• What concerns do you have when giving a writing
  assignment to your students?
• Take a few minutes and jot down
• a few notes then share with your
• neighbor and discuss your concerns.

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Teachers Worry Students will

• Fail to come up with a suitable topicnot too
  big, not too narrow
• Fail to find something worthwhile to say
• Procrastinate, fail to revise/edit
• Fail in finding an organizational pattern
• Fail to research wellpoor sources, few sources,
  misuse of sources
• Engage in academic dishonesty
• Complain about their grades, blame the teacher
  and/or the assignment

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How does this assignment invite the problems we
just discussed?

• Write a 15 page paper on a topic relevant to this
  course using primary and secondary sources.
  Obtain approval for your topic by mid-term. Use
  APA documentation. Your paper is due on December
  5th. Include with your paper proof that you
  visited the Writing Center for assistance with
  your writing.

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How can we..

• Transform students into undergraduate
  researchers?
• Help students do more than regurgitate (or
  plagiarize) sources?
• Engage in real academic inquiry?
• Make a writing assignment energizing and
  enjoyable for both teacher and student?
• Stop throwing up our handsMy students just
  cant write

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The Reality of What We Askor What Students
Dont know

• The kind of writing standard in our fields
• How experts talk and think in our fields
• How an academic essay is built
• Who reads academic writingstudies show they just
  think it is people who are already expertsthis
  impedes writing
• What counts as evidence
• We know that increased complexity in the
  assignment affects grammar, structure, and other
  features of the students writing.

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Scaffolding

• Wood, Bruner, and Ross
• Developed the metaphor to
• describe assistance a teacher or
• peer gives that supports the
• learning of the student
• The support is the scaffolding which allows the
  learner to do new things gradually. As competence
  and experience grows, the scaffolding is
  gradually removed.

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Scaffolding

• Scaffolding is actually a bridge used to build
  upon what students already know to arrive at
  something they do not know. If scaffolding is
  properly administered, it will act as an enabler,
  not as a disabler.
• Sequenced or stepped assignments

Benson, Beth Kemp. Scaffolding (Coming to
Terms.) Construction Silhouette courtesy of
photowizard at FreeDigitalPhotos.ne t
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Scaffolding

• Breaking task into smaller, more manageable parts
• Verbalizing thinking processes in tasks
• Cooperative learning
• Concrete prompts
• Questioning

• Providing instructions and/or tips, strategies,
  cues, procedures
• Coaching
• Modeling
• Activation of previous knowledge

Lipscomb, Lindsay Janet Swanson and Anne West.
Scaffolding.
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Scaffolding

• Breaking up a writing assignment into a series
  of steps or stages can dramatically improve
  student performance. At a minimum, intervening
  during writing prevents students from turning in
  last-minute, poorly considered papers and gives
  students feedbackwhether from you or from other
  studentsat useful points in the development of
  their papers.

Benson, Beth Kemp. Scaffolding (Coming to
Terms.)
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Several Approaches to Scaffolding Assignments

• Breaking down research projects with shorter
  projects that lead to formulation of the bigger
  project
• Guiding students into the kinds of research and
  writing they will do with low stakes steps
• Structuring the assignment so that students are
  writing parts that can be woven together at the
  end of the project

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The Research Paper.

• Ritter (2005) survey
• Found that most first-year students think
  research is going to the library and finding
  books and articles to use in my paper. (628)
• Teachers want them to see research as critical
  inquiry--We want them to be curious.

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Classic Research Scaffolding

• Develop a topic/question
• Do some reading and searching for information
• Prepare an annotated Bibliography
• Write Proposal or Prospectus
• Write paper
• Prepare visual to accompany paper
• Deliver a presentation

Lipscomb, Lindsay Janet Swanson and Anne West.
Scaffolding.
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Modulating Difficulty

• Teacher designs easy research problem and provide
  sources
• Teacher gives another similar problem providing
  major source and asks for a few others from
  students
• Students find all sources and design their own
  research problems
• Build gradually in cognitive complexity

• Control the level of difficulty and move into
  research graduallyfirst shorter assignments
  building to larger.

Adapted from John Bean Image http//gamerfitnatio
n.com/2012/06/game-difficulty-has-not-changed/
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Help Students Stage use of Types of Sources

• Argument Sources the viewpoints and scholarship
  surrounding the writers writing project
• Method or Theory Sources reference to the
  methods or theories the writer is using (implicit
  or explicit)

• Background Sources non-controversial materials
  that provide context for writing
• Exhibits data, images, observations,
  documentsthe evidence for writing

Adapted from J. Bizup BEAM J. Bean
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ExamplesShort Intermediate Assignments

• Background Sources non-controversial materials
  that provide context for writing
• For your writing project on Hawthorne, read this
  short essay on the Puritan community. Write a
  short 2 page essay that compares the community
  Hawthorne imagines in Young Goodman Brown with
  the essays historical perspective on the
  Puritans. What license does Hawthorne seem to
  take? What does he get right?

Adapted from J. Bizup BEAM J. Bean
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ExamplesShort Intermediate Assignments

• Exhibits data, images, observations,
  documentsthe evidence for writing
• Teacher provides data (or asks students to
  research data) regarding the witch trials in
  Salem. Students write a paragraph or two
  summarizing data and drawing inferences. Or they
  could prepare visuals based on the data.

Adapted from J. Bizup BEAM J. Bean
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ExamplesShort Intermediate Assignments

• Argument Sources the viewpoints surrounding the
  writers writing project
• How are we to understand Hawthornes presentation
  of the Puritans? Students read two essays which
  take differing viewpoints. Write an introduction
  that sets up the controversy by summarizing the
  points in these essays. Try to do each in about
  250 words or so. Do so without adding your own
  opinion.

Adapted from J. Bizup BEAM J. Bean
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Other Composing Activities

• Stage a debate in class over the controversy
• Schedule a poster presentation day when students
  share the hard data they have found before they
  write the actual paper
• Have student record an audio or visual
  explanation of some of these sources to put on
  Blackboard or a website.
• All of these and the short assignment help grow
  the students writing projects and their
  expertise.

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Review of Ideas for Scaffolding Activities

• Use problem-based assignments
• Ask students to defend or refute a proposition
• Build assignments that ask students to speak,
  design, compose data charts
• Have students submit drafts, notes with
  projecthave the pre-writing be important to the
  final project
• Make revision and peer review part of the writing
  process

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Review of Ideas for Scaffolding Activities

• Provide models of good examples of the kind of
  writing you want from students
• Work with library and/or writing center for part
  of the process
• Add reflection of the students writing/learning
  process at various times or to the final project

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• Think about a complex writing project you ask
  students to do (or one youd like to require).
  How could use sequencing to help them break down
  the assignment in more doable parts? (see
  handout)
• Take a few minutes and jot down
• a few notes or share with the
  group.

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Scaffolding Like Ideas

• The Iterative Pattern Repeating the Same
  Assignment, Varying it by Topic
• Students repeat the same type of assignment,
  varied by subject matter. minor or small
  assignments (close readings, response,
  experiment reports). Give multiple opportunities
  to master a particular genre or skill.

http//writing.wisc.edu/wac/node/107Home
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Scaffolding Like Ideas

•  2. The Scaffolded Sequence Moving from Simpler
  to More Complex
• Students begin with fundamental ways of thinking,
  then move to more difficult over the course of a
  semester. (one-page summary of one source a
  two-page summary and critique of a source a
  four-page review of two sources a six-page
  review of four sources). Give opportunity to
  build their skills and their confidence in
  shorter lower stakes assignments.

http//writing.wisc.edu/wac/node/107Home
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Scaffolding Like Ideas

•  3. Divide and Conquer Breaking Complex
  Assignment into Smaller Parts
• Make a challenging, complex assignment one of the
  central activities of your course, breaking that
  complex assignment into a series of smaller
  assignments that all contribute to that final
  project. Students have time to concentrate on and
  master various stages in the process of writing
  the paper.

http//writing.wisc.edu/wac/node/107Home
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Scaffolding Like Ideas

•  4. The Grand Tour
• Vary the genre with each new assignment. (book
  review, letter to the editor, policy analysis).
  Taps into different strengths and interests
  students bring. Teacher must help students
  understand each genre. Teaches flexibility in
  writing and thinking.

http//writing.wisc.edu/wac/node/107Home
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Aristotles Five Canons of Rhetoric

• Invention
• Scaffolding aids students in finding something
  valuable to arguedeveloping it broadly and
  deeply
• Arrangement
• Scaffolding helps students envision the different
  parts of a writing assignment
• Style
• Scaffolding allows students to write in different
  styles and then find the voice that is most
  appropriate for that assignment
• Memory
• Scaffolding encourages writing in stages, thus
  relieving the writer from remembering and merging
  ideas at the end of the project
• Delivery
• Scaffolding provides spaces to delivery the
  writers insights in various waysvisual,
  written, digital, verbal

• Roman copy in marble of a Greek bronzebust of
  Aristotle by Lysippus, c. 330 BCE.

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References Further Study

• Bean, John C. Engaging Ideas The Professors
  Guide to Integrating Writing, Thinking, and
  Active Learning in the Classroom. 2nd Ed. San
  Francisco, CA Jossey-Bass, 2011.
• Benson, Beth Kemp. Scaffolding (Coming to
  Terms.) English Journal 86.7 (1997) 126-7.
• Bizup, J. BEAM a Rhetorical Vocabulary for
  Teaching Research-Based Writing. Rhetoric Review
  27.1 (2008) 72-86.
• Hughes, Brad and Rebecca Schoenike Nowachec.
  Sequencing Assignments Over the Course of the
  Semester. http//writing.wisc.edu/wac/node/107
• Lindemann, E. A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers,
  4th ed. New York Oxford University Press. 2001.
• Lipscomb, Lindsay Janet Swanson and Anne West.
  Scaffolding. Emerging Perspectives on Learning,
  Teaching, and Technology. Michael Orey, Ed.
  Association for Educational Communications and
  Technology, 2001. http//projects.coe.uga.edu/eplt
  t/.
• Ritter, K. The Economics of Authorship Online
  Paper Mills, Student Writers, and First Year
  Composition. College Composition and
  Communication 56.4 (2005) 628.
• Wood, D. Bruner, J.S., and Ross G. The role of
  tutoring in problem solving. Journal of
  Psychology and Psychiatry (1976) 17. Print.
• The WAC Clearinghouse at Colorado State
  University has a wealth of resources to support
  faculty http//wac.colostate.edu/