Making it happen: Best practices in writing in Spanish upper-level courses
Cristina Ortiz
Teaching Scholars II
2005-06
Background:
Upper-level Spanish courses require significant writing on the part of the student
under the premise that a) the more you write the better writer you become; b) writing in a
second language (L2) reinforces grammar and vocabulary learned in previous courses
and at the same time moves students to a higher proficiency level and c) reading and
writing as linguistic skills are closely integrated with cognitive skills.
Pedagogical concerns:
There are number of curricular dichotomies that appear when addressing the issue
of writing in upper-level courses in L2. For instance, typically lower-level courses use
simplified, short texts while at the upper level students face predominantly literary
selections. Another important issue is that there is a linear, developmental approach to
language acquisition at the lower level that leads to an erroneous assumption that students
have “mastered” the language by the time they enroll in the upper-level courses.
When I initially started looking at this issue as a result of my participation in the
Teaching Scholars seminar, I realized that my focus was too much on corrective and
evaluative measures. In a sense, I think that my original approach was to communicate to
the students what they were not doing right.
Here is what I wrote in my preliminary statement about what I saw as the
question/problem I wanted to address, and what I wanted to do:
In the Upper-level Literature Seminar (400-level) most of the corrective measures
widely employed in other L2 courses to improve students’ writing skills are less
efficient. For instance, mapping, drawing or other visualization exercises used at
the 200 or 300-level are not longer valid since students are already assigned long
pieces of literature and are required to look for complexity and nuance in the
ideas presented in the text. Peer-review also used at the 200 and 300-level is
usually ineffective at this 400-level because students perceive that “peers” have
the same linguistic deficiencies in L2 as they have and therefore their comments
usually do not allow them to improve their writing and analytical skills. Drafts
and re-writing exercises are also not adequate forms of improvement because one
of the seminar’s goals is for students to be independent writers. However,
students at this level are still in need of strategies to improve their writing.
Another added difficulty at this level is that students writing in an L2 Literature
Seminar are required to quote secondary literature in their essays and advance
their ideas and analysis in within the framework of other critics’ ideas about a
piece of literature. Refereed articles usually contain jargon or a level of linguistic
proficiency that exceeds that of the students. Students find themselves with lack of
examples to model their writing (from the students’ perspective “peer” writing is
“equally in need of improvement” while critics are “excessively good”).
I have traditionally graded students’ essays at this level following general
evaluation rubrics for college papers. I give the students the list of criteria that I
will be looking for in their essays. These criteria outline basic elements of a good
essay and how their papers will be graded. However, this system makes students
focus too much on the grade they get in their essay and little in the developmental
aspect of becoming a good writer in L2. Therefore, I want to try a couple of
different pedagogical methods to see if I can achieve a shift of the students’ focus
while encouraging better writing techniques from them.
Then I realized that in order to change students’ focus, MY focus needed to change as
well. Rubrics in general focus on the adherence to standards of linguistic perfection, and
in the case of L2 courses these standards engrain in the mind of the student an artificial
model of a “monolingual native speaker” as a target toward which the students must
strive (Crozed and Liddicoad 1999; Kramsch, 1997, 1998), which clearly conflates with
their own situation raising an awareness that they will never come close to that ideal.
Therefore, rather than enforce imitations of this unachievable model of linguistic
perfection, I wanted to create and implement writing strategies that validated students as
learners of a L2. Therefore, I shifted the focus of my approach and began looking for
strategies that moved the students from a static, prescriptive view of language use to a
more engaging examination of textual models that required them to make meaningful
connections and that could be appropriated for their own communicative purposes
beyond the classroom use.
Course changes:
Prior to implementing any changes, I realized that I needed to make a distinction
between “learning” and “acquiring” good writing skills, understanding “acquiring” as
creating learning environments that will provide the students in my class with the tools to
become more self-regulated learners. With that pedagogical distinction in mind my goal
for SPAN 498 Spanish and Latin American Writers was for the students to self-assess
their writing progress and be active participants in their own learning development.
1) I maintained the use of the rubrics, because overall they help to set clear
expectations for the students from the beginning of the semester. I handed out
writing rubrics along with the syllabus, as well as the explanation about the
different writing assignments that students needed to complete during the
course.
2) I developed self-assessment strategies that promote a reflective-revision and
self-growth of the students as writers. At the same time, I wanted to pay
attention to strategies that will generate students’ awareness of their
individualized learning progress.
In that regard, one of the most successful strategies that I implemented this
semester helped to move the student away from the “grade focus” attitude to
the “acquisition of competence” paradigm. In the second written assignment
for this course, I read, commented and corrected the grammar and syntax of
the students’ essays and returned the assignment to them without a letter
grade. I, then, requested the students to write a self-assessment of their own
writing (taking into consideration my comments, but also incorporating their
own perceptions of their writing abilities). At the end of the “self-assessment”
essay each student needed to make an individualized list with specific
suggestions to themselves to be implemented in the following written
assignment. They submitted a copy to me and they kept a copy for
themselves. This exercise allowed us to do different things:
2.1.a. First, it allowed for the students to be recognized as individual
learners (obviously each student self-identifies a different area of
improvement). Differently than “rubrics,” which homogenized
achievement goals, a self-assessment exercise allows for individual
growth and agency in the learning process.
2.1.b Second, the exercise created a “chain” or domino effect in the
different written assignments, which now were coherently linked by a
purpose of betterment established by the students themselves. My role
as the instructor was to check if the student actually followed his or
her own recommendation for improvements and to add some of mine
to the list, if needed.
Overall I was satisfied with the results of this exercise. I think that the large majority of
the students showed a gradual but significant improvement in their writing skills. In
addition I felt that the exercise retained and fostered individuality in the learner,
incorporated the students in the assessment process in an active manner (thus, rendering
agency and a sense of control over the process), and encouraged self-growth rather than
the “grade focus” attitude.
These are some of the students’ comments excerpted from the evaluations (In a scale
from 1 to 10, the minimum rate was 7, the maximum 10 and the mean 8.69):
Very good. The best class I have taken at this university. I learned a lot about literature,
culture and how to write much better (student emphasis). Suggestion: It would be helpful
to have written requirements/expectations sheets for the first paper, so we have a good
idea of what the teacher expects. Otherwise, wonderful! (10)
I thought Cristina was a very good professor. The course was very difficult, but Cristina
really cared about making her students better writers. She was willing to help when help
was needed and put in extra time to tell students what they needed to improve. I feel that
Cristina has made me a better writer. (10)
The main grade for this class is writing. Why is the class not a writing emphasis class?
Perhaps quizzes could give students a better change at a good grade. Cristina is helpful
with the readings and class material. (7)
This course was really frustrating some times because we moved very fast and a lot of the
literature that we read was really hard to comprehend. It was also some times frustrating
because we did not really learn how to improve our writing and that is what our grade is
based on. It was discouraging having some who could speak really fluently and writing
was easy for them because they have studied abroad. Overall, though, the teacher was
very effective and really promoted learning in this class. (8)
Although the overall satisfaction of the students with the class is high, I felt that I needed
to work harder at communicating to the students what we were trying to achieve and
incorporate more reflective activities to increment the students’ responsibility in their
own learning process. Whether the students wrote positive or not so positive comments,
most of the evaluations reflect on writing as an integral part of the learning outcome for
the course.
3) Another goal for this course was to situate the students’ learning experience
within a larger framework of general/ personal educational development. In that
regard, two students from this class presented their work at the UWGB’s Fifth
Annual Academic Excellence Symposium:
Katie Allen “Latin American Identity expressed in Literature”
Amy Harter “Pintando con Palabras”
I required all the students in the class to attend the symposium and write about it.
Other changes:
As a result of my experiences the first semester, I approached the second semester with
the intention of continuing to work on students’ writing, but I decided to incorporate
strategies that will enhance the students’ understanding of writing not only as linguistic
proficiency, but also as means of incrementing their cultural sensitivity and global
citizenship. Thus, I wanted to see the students using their writing skills in the context of
language as a social semiotic. I decided to experiment in a new class that I was assigned
to teach –due to the lack of other instructors—SPAN 345 Advanced Spanish Grammar.
As the title of the course indicates, this is a course that is designed as in-depth coverage
of Spanish grammar. Typically advanced grammar courses combine short selections of
texts with lists of new vocabulary, grammatical explanations followed by several
examples, and numerous drill exercises as their most notable features. Students’
expectations for these types of courses are to finally “get” some formula to use and
understand correctly difficult grammatical structures in L2. Therefore in approaching
this course I had to juggle these expectations with the new goal I wanted to give to the
course, that of contextualizing writing assignments to increment students’ linguistic and
cultural literacy simultaneously.
In addition to covering the content of a standard grammar textbook during the
semester, I asked the students to create a student-led newspaper in Spanish. Students had
to read the news (local, national and international) related to the Spanish-speaking world,
and create a monthly newspaper. They chose the name “La Voz del Mundo” and they did
all the work (from selecting the news, writing, editing and distributing the paper).
The creation of the newspaper was the aspect of the course that we all enjoyed the most.
Students presented a portfolio of their different writing pieces for the newspaper as part
of the assessment measure, and wrote a self-evaluation of their learning. However, in
addition to the creation of the newspaper, we followed a standard advanced grammar
textbook and program. This part of the course was not as successful primarily due to the
students’ divergent levels of proficiency. Because of this issue, I needed to revise the
syllabus several times during the semester. Consistently, the positive comments of the
students’ evaluations refer to writing and creating the newspaper articles, while the
negative comments refer to moving “too fast” or “too slow” (depending on the students’
proficiency) in covering the textbook material. I had 20 students in the class, with a mean
evaluation score of 8.70.
Conclusions:
As I look more into writing in L2 I realize how multifaceted and complex the nature of
writing is. In fact, there is an increased interest in the study of L2 writing and its teaching
with a number of journals devoted exclusively to it. In reflecting on the results of the
exercises I implemented in the courses last year, I conclude that students tend to perceive
their writing assignments as more “meaningful” when they are culturally and socially
situated (such as the student-led newspaper in Spanish). Breaking down writing into
component skills (grammar, syntax etc) often eliminates portions of the task that are
important to the personal and cultural significance of the language learning experience. I
think that as a result of this reflection I will continue implementing writing assignments
in the L2 classes to assist students with their ability to reflect on their own writing and to
produce more effective and appropriate texts in the target language.