Pedagogical Articles
Beck, Edward J., and Kristen A. Roosa. “Designing High Structure Courses to Promote Student Engagement.” HAPS Educator, vol. 24, no. 2, Aug. 2020, pp. 58–63. EBSCOhost.
Beck starts by saying it’s the job of a teacher to be able to teach a wide variety of students with different backgrounds and experiences, that teachers need to set aside bias in order to be able to do this properly. More so, it is the job of the teacher to make every student feel safe and welcome. Citing the U.S. Dept. of Education in 2018 and 2019, Beck says that that “The makeup of our institutions continues to change. Fifty-six percent of US undergraduates are white, 19% report disabilities and at least 40% are first generation college students” (pg 1). With this outlined, Beck states that the structure of a classroom and the use of activities makes a student feel even more comfortable and at ease when attempting to do the task at hand because the teacher has given them practice to do so without the fear of making mistakes. But therein lies the issue that a good majority of students don’t use these strategies, so that is where creating the high structure course comes in. Upon providing more research as to why STEM degrees and other types of hands-on career work is seeing a decline, Beck proceeds to outline what a good structured course looks like. These courses have clear learning outcomes, and there are plenty of course activities that are both inside and outside the classroom. With these couplings, Beck states this provides the foundation for making higher education, especially in fields that students are often lacking like science and math. By stating what a good course looks like, Beck states that “structured courses provides a starting point for making higher education” (pg 62) and that this sort of pay off is good to help encourage students that we as teachers want them to succeed.
Bishop, Wendy. “Options in Design.” Released into Language: Options for Teaching Creative Writing. Urbana, IL, NCTE , 1990. pp. 39-58. EBSCOhost.
In earlier chapters, Wendy Bishop explicates her concept of a Creative Writing “transactional writers workshop” inspired by the writing processes of Composition studies and of professional writers. In Chapter 3, “Options in Design”, Bishop notes the laundry list of needs for an introductory Creative Writing course, and instead of suggesting curriculum, outlines seven modes of class structure in order “to release all students into language and in so doing to seek the dramatic results promised by several teacher-writers”(42). The modes offer “expanded roles for both student and teacher” in which the teacher often works alongside students in the process of thinking and writing (41).
The modes or practices for an efficacious and egalitarian Creative Writing classroom include “teacher and student lectures, teacher and student-led discussions, sharing in-class and out-of-class writing, full-group and small-group critiques, one-to-one conferencing (student to teacher and peer to peer), performances (writers reading writing) by class members and visiting writing, and publication through class, department, and public media” (44). There are several examples for making each approach work.
Bishop balances theory and practice nicely in this chapter, specifically focusing on providing instruction that allows the teacher to become leader and facilitator. The modes allow the students access to many different learning opportunities past the “write, workshop, publish” mantra typically found in Creative Writing classrooms and refines the very needed areas between the three steps of the old model. Due to advancing technology, this text is dated in its approach to sharing work or publication; fortunately, the classroom exercises and structures are sound practices that will help students “enter into discourse that matters”(60).
Bizzaro, Patrick. “Research and Reflection in English Studies: The Special Case of Creative Writing.” College English, vol. 66, no. 3, Jan. 2004, pp. 294–309., doi:10.2307/4140750.
Patrick Bizzaro argues in his article, “Research and Reflection in English Studies: The Special Case of Creative Writing,” was the importance of purpose in teaching creative writing. In addition to teaching creative writing to students, research and pedagogical approaches to teaching also need to be taught. He argues that most creative writing students become creative writing teachers after receiving their doctorate and that even though most students go on to be teachers, there is very little instruction on how to teach these students to become teachers. He even goes on to say that current “methods of instruction have produced a disturbing likeness between creative works produced by students and works in the same genre produced by their teachers,” (306). Because there is no pedagogical instruction, teachers often teach their students how they would write, leaving limited exposure to strategies and skills. Rather, Bizzaro argues that creative writing teachers need to learn how to teach a variety of skills and “must consider teaching students how to obtain these skills,” (297). He starts his article by stating the problem and issue at hand then discusses what type of research creative writing students need to conduct in order to solve this type of issue. He believes that if certain research on theory and pedagogy is conducted by creative writing students, then they will be best prepared to teach creative writing themselves.
While this article was particularly informative, I am not sure how it ties into creative writing in the composition course. It sparked the possibility of introducing approaches to creative writing to students but this article mainly focuses on creative writing graduate students. In addition, Bizzaro makes a lot of claims of what needs to happen in order to better the teaching of creative writing, however, provides very little advice on how to get to that point.
Brunzell, Tom, et al. "Shifting Teacher Practice in Trauma-Affected Classrooms: Practice Pedagogy Strategies within a Trauma-Informed Positive Education Model." School Mental Health, vol. 11, no. 3, Sept. 2019, pp. 600-614. EBSCOhost.
With up to 40% of students having experienced traumatic childhood experiences, this article and study seek to bolster the teacher's capacity to teach effectively given the likelihood of vulnerable students in the classroom. Strategies include embedding character-strength education, practicing a growth mindset, encouraging goal setting, and practicing trauma-informed teaching. Character-strength education gives students the opportunity to define their own strengths, and embedding this strategy into the classroom increases student achievement and well-being. With growth mindset instruction, students learn that intelligence and personality can change and improve. Teaching with trauma-informed practice also involves building classroom relationships, especially with the use of attachment strategies when the teacher co-regulates students with body positioning and vocalization to de-escalate students. Another aspect of this trauma-informed approach includes increasing psychological resources for wellbeing. The study's authors note the challenges involved in trauma-informed teaching while encouraging these practices as proactive steps to foster student wellbeing, even as they argue that teachers need the opportunities to learn and reflect on these practices.
Carello, Janice, and Lisa D. Butler. "Practicing What We Teach: Trauma-Informed Educational Practice." Journal of Teaching in Social Work, vol. 35, no.3, Jan. 2015, pp. 262-278. EBSCOhost.
As with several other articles about trauma-informed teaching, this one cautions against retraumatization as teachers work with students, while it reiterates five principles of good trauma-informed pedagogy: ensuring safety, establishing trustworthiness, maximizing choice, maximizing collaboration, and prioritizing empowerment. Emphasizing the first principle, the essay delineates practices that enhance classroom safety such as assuming trauma in some unknown subset of students when beginning a course, previewing material so students know what to expect along with conducting check-ins about difficult content, creating policies and practices that help students avoid shame, engaging in respectful discourse with no dismissive or ridiculing language, plus a strengths-based perspective in communication.
Consilio, Jennifer, and Sheila M. Kennedy. "Using Mindfulness as a Heuristic for Writing Evaluation: Transforming Pedagogy and Quality of Experience.” Across the Disciplines, vol. 16, no. 1, Mar. 2019, pp. 28-49. EBSCOhost.
The practice of mindfulness is at the center of this discussion of contract grading and its use in the classroom. The Mindful Grading Agreement Process (MGAP) integrates the key components of mindfulness (relaxation, present-moment awareness, non-judgment, intentionality, concentration, and compassion) into the language and features of a traditional grading contract. These changes brought about several positive changes in the classroom, including improvements in students’ “intrinsic motivation and creative agency,” metacognition, self-assessment, and transfer of knowledge. It also improved the instruction by strengthening teacher-student relationships, removing the power inequity found in traditional grading systems, and making the teaching process more enjoyable for students and teachers alike. Integrating mindfulness also allowed teachers to better meet students where they are and to honor their students’ lives and experiences through the writing process. Sample contracts are included at the end of the article as well to illustrate the changes made and how they compare to traditional contract grading agreements.
Edwards, Rebecca L., et al. “Exploring Student Engagement Factors in a Blended Undergraduate Course.” Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, vol. 11, no. 3, Dec. 2020. EBSCOhost.
The case study starts by defining student engagement by defining it as “student’s active involvement and participation in school-based activities” (pg 1) and even outline several factors that more narrowly define what student engagement looks like. The authors, by citing some research, even say that the positive educational outcomes to student engagement is greater academic performance, and that the link between behavioral engagement and cognitive engagement have strong ties to performance (pg 2). The authors proceed to move into what measuring student engagement looks like and how this data is collected and read, also identifying types of measures and how these were measured with using trace data. The authors even gave context as to the study and the research, outlining how long the class was, who was being taught, and what the goals were of the classes and how the research was actively done and read. The article also tends to provide tables and explanations of said tables over the data collected. Upon entering into the actual data part of the article, there were explanations that stated which type of student was more or less engaged, how they felt, ect. Limitations were also listed saying “The current study aimed to understand a small population in a particular context during a limited timeframe: Sample size was limited to students who entered our course with a low GPA during one semester” (pg 14). The study concluded that students who were in the mover category were more successful than those who weren’t, even jumping into the emotional engagement that differed between the two groups, and that “higher achieving students show up to class more, interact more with the online course components, set higher quality goals, and complete more work” (pg 17).
Elbow, Peter. "Getting Along Without Grades--And Getting Along With Them Too." Mar. 1996. EBSCOhost.
For many reasons, grading is challenging in the Creative Writing classroom. Peter Elbow sums up the mentality of many teachers who struggle with grading in this statement: “I don't trust my efforts to measure learning, and I hate pretending to do so. I'd rather put my efforts into something I do trust and do enjoy: trying to specify activities and behaviors that will lead to learning" (3). To ease the struggle, several changes to grading can be made without doing away with grading completely. First is the use of portfolios or contract grading to minimize the sheer number of grades being taken. Next is to remove the evaluation mentality from grading by opening up the way writing is looked at in the classroom through the use of a variety of analytic questions instead of evaluating whether the writing is “good” or “bad.” Additionally, grading can be more meaningful by minimizing grading levels and changing the stakes of assignments to allow for increased freedom for both students and teachers. These changes allow teachers to focus less on the differences between student papers and more on whether each particular paper meets the established criteria. Teachers can then use specific feedback on the individual criteria to help students improve future writing. Grading cannot be examined with an all or nothing attitude. Instead, small changes can be made to make grading more meaningful for both students and teachers.
Ellsworth, J’Anne. Learner Centered Courses in the University: A Powerful and Meaningful Addition. 1 Jan. 2002. EBSCOhost.
Annotation: The text introduces the benefits of learner centered pedagogy. While it points out that learner centered teaching is not necessarily for everyone, it can be extremely successful in the classroom and even alter retention rates. The text analyzes the benefits of assessing each student’s individual gifts and allowing those skills to shape teaching methods in a learner centered manner. The text argues that education exists for the student and provides supporting evidence to demonstrate why moving away from lecture should be the modern answer to learner centered teaching. The text concludes by reminding the reader of the importance of teaching with the motivation to develop critical and creative thinking skills in students as well as encouraging teachers to reevaluate their thinking and teaching methods to work for and with the students.
Foltz-Gray, Dan. "Responses to Error: Sentence-Level Error and the Teacher of Basic Writing." Research & TEaching in Developmental Education, vol. 28, no. 2, Spring 2012, pp. 18-29. EBSCOhost.
In this article Dan Foltz-Gray argues that Basic Writing classes should give students opportunities to write rather than working to focus on grammar. A distinct focus on grammar through review of the eight parts of speech and diagramming sentences is viewed as common practice even though multiple researches conducted have indicated that the approach is not effective. The use of workbooks and building up writing skills from sentences, to paragraphs, then to essays also create cause for concern as they may created additional errors in grammar as students focus too heavily on one mistake and begin making others to avoid them. This article suggests that English instructors accept that “only English teachers know when to use lie and when to use lay” (27). Teachers, along with other positive feedback and marking only very glaring errors, “write on your student’s paper, one positive, thoughtful comment, in just the right voice, one that he can remember for forty years” (27). This article covers several studies done over the past 126 years focusing on grammar in courses; however, there very attention is given on discussion of how to help students avoid glaring grammar errors using formative techniques.
Graham, Robert J. “The Self as Writer: Assumptions and Identities in the Writing Workshop.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, vol. 43, no. 4, Dec. 1999, pp. 358–64. EBSCOhost. Accessed 8 July 2019.
This article examines commonly held assumptions surrounding writing and writers. Graham first states his process for identifying assumptions. Then, he explains why these assumptions may be problematic and presents methods he used to change writing students’ views about writing. Generally, the assumptions held before completing the writing workshop were that writers are naturally talented, creative people, and the purpose of teaching writing in schools is for students to be able to function in society. Graham argues writing is difficult to teach due to writing being viewed as an innate talent but maintains that writing teachers have a responsibility to change the way students think about writing.
During the workshops, Graham modelled his own writing process to help students realize that writing is a laborious process and to help them “become more metacognitively aware of their own processes as writers” (359). Collaborative workshop techniques were also employed during the semester, which resulted in students realizing that writing is a discipline, a social activity, and that it can be used “to describe who they are and how things are with them and their world” (363). This article is useful to learn about commonly held assumptions about writing, both in and out of classrooms, but outside of modelling and requiring students to write a variety of genres, specific strategies and writing workshop activities are not included.
Hanewicz, Cheryl, et al. "Creating a Learner-Centered Teaching Environment Using Student Choice in Assignments." Distance Education, vol. 38,no. 3, Jan. 2017, pp.273-287.
This article highlights the need for transitioning to a learner-centered approach in online teaching, citing the transition to virtual teaching as a key indicator for this need for change. The text begins with a literature review on both the learner-centered methodology as well as ways researchers have found to prepare students to engage in such a shift in education. The text then presents the study’s theoretical framework based on Maryellen Weimer’s model for a learner-centered approach but applied in an online course format. In the course, students were provided a myriad of different assignments to select from in order to accumulate the points necessary to pass the course. At the end of the course students were surveyed and provided positive feedback regarding the model. Students felt that the best part of the model was the flexibility that enabled them to engage more effectively in the class. Implementation of a learner centered approach requires an understanding of the model as well as how learners perceive the transition to this new way of learning. This article builds off of Weimer’s model by providing yet another manner of implementation as well as information regarding student attitudes that can help to inform a course design.
Hesse, Douglas. “The Place of Creative Writing in Composition Studies.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 62, no. 1, Sept. 2010, pp. 31–52.
In the article, “The Place of Creative Writing in Composition Studies” by Douglas Hesse, the inclusion of creative writing in a composition course is discussed. The entirety of the article focuses on and discusses creative writing’s place in the composition classroom without changing the goal of what composition tries to accomplish. Hesse discusses that creative writing can be seen in the form of different genres that students can engage in and write on. It would serve a purpose by teaching students how to write in various forms thus teaching them purpose and other skills they can take away from the composition course. Hesse also discusses how creative writing mixed with a composition curriculum can allow for political and social action to take place, thus creating better writers. He breaks these arguments up into parts in his article, justifying why creative writing could help the composition classroom. “The purpose of teaching creative writing is not to produce professional writers, ‘but to satisfy a human need to speak in a variety of ways,’” (Hesse 38). Hesse argues that creative writing allows for variety in communication which can help students in their majors.
While the article brings up good points for creative writing, it really does not go beyond suggesting certain genres. It also has many small anecdotes that are unnecessary to the main points of the article. This opens up an opportunity for further research on genre writing and how creative writing can further place itself within the composition classroom.
Howard, Cosmo, and Michelle Brady. “Teaching Social Research Methods after the Critical Turn: Challenges and Benefits of a Constructivist Pedagogy.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology, vol. 18, no. 5, Jan. 2015, pp. 511–525. EBSCOhost.
This article is about constructive pedagogy and shows detailed support for teaching methods that are less authoritative. It explains that constructivism encourages students to create their own learning experiences (Cosmo & Brady 512). The text argues that students don’t learn adequately from courses that are less modern and that simply direct students what to do and details the results of a case study of undergraduate students at a Canadian public research university. The study suggests that professors should take into account, their students’ attitudes and feelings towards course content (Cosmo & Brady 515). The article argues and provides supporting evidence that students are bored and disconnected in current research courses that don’t implement constructive pedagogy and include students in the course structure and outcomes. The text summarized the ways in which constructivism should be implemented based on the study. These methods include considering the course content in a larger context, looking at data, understanding the student's relationship with the course content, and presenting research as a conversation.
Kazemek, Francis E. “`A Gathering of Individuals’: A Longitudinal Study of a Writing Workshop for Older Adults.” Adult Basic Education, vol. 9, no. 1, Spring 1999, p. 3-20. EBSCOhost. Accessed 7 July 2019.
This article recounts a three-year study about elderly adults participating in a voluntary writing group. An introduction to the study is followed by a description of the methodology and findings. A section about the group’s impact on the participants’ personal lives and psychological well-being is also included. Kazemek argues the writing group positively impacted the participants’ well-being and broadened the range of reading and writing in which they engaged. Kazemek also asserts that reading and writing are social activities. Consequently, participants had to be comfortable with one another before taking risks while writing. To build a sense of community, the workshop met regularly over an extended period and “highlighted the social over the individual,” which “helped each individual flourish in a supportive environment.” Instructors planning to start an adult writing group will find the strategies and structures utilized in the study beneficial as a model.
While this article contains useful information about the overall benefits of writing workshops and the structure of workshop meetings, one weakness of the work is that all participants are of European descent who live in the upper Midwest. Therefore, this study does not accurately represent most populations, and the need for further study using more diverse populations is apparent.
Moore, Lisa Jean. “The Manifesto Assignment: Study with Women Prisoners.” Feminist Teacher: A Journal of the Practices, Theories, and Scholarship of Feminist Teaching, vol. 26, no. 2, Jan. 2016, pp. 115–125. EBSCOhost.
Lisa Jean Moore examines the role of education in a troubled American prison system while building an effective and profound lesson that allows her students to address many of the societal ills that may have led them to incarceration. As she outlines the many hardships or restrictions to teaching this challenging set of students, Moore adds insight to our privatized prison systems and then advocates for the voices of those students who are trapped, but not completely silenced inside.
True to her training as a sociologist, Moore first examines the larger setting, describing the “school-to-prison pipeline” that reflects the injustice of our educational systems, our courts, and our larger society(116). Her students who have been caught by poverty and impossible choices are largely women of color as well as parents. She notes with “rigorous reflexivity” that she is part of the cycle, paid by those who incarcerate her students (116). After noting the physical and temporal restrictions to communication and instruction, Moore argues that the limitation of the prison can be both positive and negative. These limits preclude communication, demand more thorough preparation, yet produce more focused and deliberate scholars. Moore insists that this is a perfect example of the “undercommons” the place where study really happens(119). This examination of undercommons leads to the classroom lesson for the written and spoken manifesto.
Many teachers could utilize Moore’s lesson plan, regardless of setting. After reading and analyzing parts of Marx’s Communist Manifesto with the class, Moore supplies a list of possible topics, a working outline, three example manifestos, and sample student feedback that can move easily into the secondary Writing or Social Studies classroom. She ends the study with a manifesto of her own, a reminder that education is more than the institution that supplies it, “it’s important to remember that study has always been what’s stolen out from under the conditions of discipline, power, and hierarchy”(124).
Nielsen, Danielle. “Universal Design in First-Year Composition--Why Do We Need It, How Can We Do It?” CEA Forum, vol. 42, no. 2, Jan. 2013, pp. 3–29. EBSCOhost.
In the article "Universal Design in First-Year Composition - Why Do We Need It, How Can We Do It?," Professor Danielle Nielsen of Murray State University argues that faculty teaching first year composition at the college level may find real difficulty in ensuring students feel both comfortable in the classroom and can demonstrate mastery of the skills. These problems occur for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons she suggests is that "Student learning styles and skills are brought to the fore during classroom discussions, peer review sessions, and individual conferences with instructors," which can be very unlike the other classrooms students experience in campus (4). Throughout the piece, she argues that Universal Design for Learning is one of the best ways to create an inclusive classroom and help students experience success. Perhaps most importantly, however, Nielsen devotes several paragraphs to both the complications of implementing Universal Design for Learning and the limits it actually has. Those teachers considering implementing this for any type of composition unit will want to consider these. She concludes by suggesting “With diversity in teaching and assessment styles, students learn that even though they may not excel at each assignment, there will be those through which they demonstrate competence and in many cases mastery” (22). This work is significant because it looks at how Universal Design for Learning can work well when students are dealing with the composition process and what pitfalls to avoid as teachers begin to implement it in a classroom space.
Olivier, Jako. “Exploring Autonomography: The Development of a Self-directed Writing Self-rating Scale.” Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research, vol. 7, no. 1, January 2019, pp. 1-22. EBSCOhost.
In this study, Olivier surveys a group of students and determines the factors associated with student self-assessment in writing. With the results, Olivier argues that, for students to achieve the ability to self-assess, important areas to develop are metacognition, expressive language, and being self-directed (especially with the ability to set their own writing goals), among other factors. It should be noted, however, that part of the proposed autonomy involves seeking out peers and teachers as resources, making the learning take place not in a vacuum but “in an interdependent rather than a dependent manner” that “implies academic socialization" (9). After explaining the broader theoretical framework, the article presents the details of the survey, from the participants to the areas of study within self-assessment, before showing how the participants responded to each area.
Olivier mentions that the study was only conducted on one group, Afrikaans-speaking student teachers, as “the purpose of this research was to validate the instrument for a single population and not reach a standardized instrument” (12). As a result, some of the information is specialized, and less applicable to most teaching situations than other pieces of information. The study also has the broad focus of writing as a whole, but does separate and highlight creative writing within the broad context at times, mentioning that “the research participants who preferred creative writing to more functional writing had a higher level of autonomography” (16).
The applicability of this study to teaching is not immediate, for it must be considered an incomplete piece to a larger context, but the article is useful in “testing” the theory of self-assessment on students and providing a broad roadmap toward achieving it. With the knowledge of the data, teachers who wish to pursue expressivism and process pedagogies, as well as elements of self-assessment, could proceed with more confidence and more scientific evidence of its value.
Oosta, Allie and Rori-Leigh Hoatlin. “Developing Stronger Peer-to-Peer Feedback in the Undergraduate Creative Writing Workshop.” Young Scholars in Writing: Undergraduate Research in Writing and Rhetoric, vol. 9, 2012, pp. 64–76. EBSCOhost.
This article presents a study on creative writing peer feedback at the undergraduate level, filling in gaps in workshop research (65) and focusing on the issue of vague feedback that is “discard[ed]” by the student-writer (64). In doing so, Oosta and Hoatlin argue that the most deficient areas for the peer-reviewer are specific, technique-based comments (especially positive feedback of this nature) that can be tangibly applied by the student-writer. They begin by giving an overview of the rise of workshop-based classes at the undergraduate level before going into the methods of the study, the results at 200, 300, and 400-levels, and the implications of their findings. One interesting note in the trends between levels is that, while the percentage of technique-based comments increased with the levels, these comments were mostly negative, while the positive comments remained “vague and generalized” (71).
The article provides a strong presentation of its information, giving clear detail about the difference between “vague” and “specific” feedback, as well as “technique-based” and “reaction-based” comments, and providing great examples of each type. With data from both the reviewers and student-writers about the comments, the article has a good scope of the value of each type of comment. This is specifically applicable for teachers, who can lean on this data in addition to their personal experiences to better guide students in their feedback, which is useful for both the student-writer’s ability to revise and the peer reviewer’s ability to provide criticism.
Suzanne. “Teaching Creative Nonfiction: The Transformative Nature of the Workshop Method.” New Directions for Teaching and Learning, no. 147, 2016, pp. 67–73.
Suzanne Cope, a journalist, nonfiction writer and post-secondary instructor, explores how creative nonfiction is taught at the post-secondary, graduate and community levels through studying how 13 instructors approach the curriculum. The focus of her study is how the workshop method, used as creative writing pedagogy in many creative writing classes, aligns with American sociologist Jack Mezirow’s Transformative Learning Theory (TLT), is predicated on the idea that discourse brings new insight and learning opportunities for learners. Cope observes that both writing workshops and transformative learning help students to “make better sense of the world” (68). She emphasizes that a common practice in writing workshops is for the student to take in others’ perspectives of their work and for those to help the writer to adopt a more critical view and make revisions with newly gained insight (69). Cope includes testimonials of those who participated in the study, who state that writing workshops didn’t just lead to the transformation of their story (72), but to their personal perceptions of past events and their career aspirations. She ultimately argues that writing instructors should use TLT as a pedagogical framework to support the workshop method and that the workshop method could be used in other disciplines, including science, business and the social sciences (73). While Cope makes a compelling case for training more writing teachers in TLT, the sample size for her study seems very small. The article also lacks much of a rationale or explanation of how the study was conducted and how the author recruited the participants. Additionally, not a lot of quantitative data or helpful workshop practices are shared as part of this article, which limits how useful it may be to writing instructors already using this technique.
Taggart, May Rupiper, and Mary Laughlin. “Affect Matters: When Writing Feedback Leads to Negative Feeling.” International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, vol. 11, no. 2, July 2017, pp 1-11. EBSCOhost, doi:10.20429/ljsotl.2017.110213. Accessed 7July 2019.
In the journal article “Affect Matters: When Writing Feedback Leads to Negative Feeling,” the authors discuss a study that they conducted to see the impact that teachers’ feedback has had on students by surveying the students involved in the study. The article begins by listing several different surveys that they reviewed and follow by discussing the survey they created. Both open ended questions and clear concise questions were used to survey individual students of writing courses. The authors state, “We concerned ourselves primarily with those moments when students expressed that their agency or authority had been usurped rather than when productive collaboration, negotiation, and integration of new perspectives occurred” (1). The responses of the survey and study covered many topics, but the majority discussed what students wanted to see from their teachers. Some responses they received are listed such as students general desire to receive feedback on their writing with indications of how often the students want to see feedback. Some results were used to discuss how students felt about responses and the impact the negativity would have on students’ relationships with teachers and moving forward in writing classes.
Tayles, Melissa. "Trauma-Informed Writing Pedagogy: Ways to Support Student Writers Affected by Trauma and Traumatic Stress," Teaching English in the Two Year College, vol. 38, no. 3, March 2021, pp. 295-313.
Tayle's article is the most specifically aligned article with writing practices from a trauma-informed theoretical underpinning. Warning against retraumatization that can occur when students write about their trauma, the article advocates seven practices to help students learn and remain resilient: instructor as buffering role model, safe classroom space, trustworthiness and transparency in classroom routines and evaluations, peer support through the writing process, regulated classroom community collaboration, self-care and growth mindset as part of the writing process, and finally, cultural, historical, and gender-based trauma-informed practices
Thomas, M. Shelley, Shantel Crosby, and Judi Vanderhaar. "Trauma-Informed Practices in Schools Across Two Decades: An Interdisciplinary Review of Research." Review of Research in Education, vol. 43, March 2019, pp. 422-452. DOI: 10.3102/00091732X18821123.
This research followed this guiding question: What is the dominant framework used for promoting and practicing trauma-informed care in schools, and how effective are school supports for trauma-affected students? From the authors' literature review of 33 articles, they found no dominant framework nor common evaluative structure for defining effectiveness. Still, the article advocates for the following: broaden the recognition and understanding of trauma and its impacts among educators, shift away from deficit notions of trauma and into positive and nuanced perceptions of complex lives, center culturally responsive instruction, organize support to promote staff well-being, and most importantly, promote a systems-wide discussion of research-informed practices in schools and for teachers.
Zeiser, Kristina, et al. "Maximizing Student Agency: Implementing and Measuring Student-Centered Learning Practices." American Institutes for Research, American Institutes for Research, 2018.
This report shares the results of a study conducted by the American Institutes for Research in collaboration with New Tech Netweork high schools. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of student-centered teaching strategies and their impact on student agency. Beginning with an overview that defines student agency as "the ability to manage one's own learning," the text then outlines the study's research questions and the subsequent findings. These research questions focus on teaching practices utilized to promote student agency, the influence of contextual factors, and the effectiveness of surveys as a tool to measure student agency over time. The results of the study point to three broad categories of teaching practices that influence student agency: student opportunities (students make the primary decisions regardin their learning), student-teacher colaboration (students and teacher share the authority and decision making power) and teacher-led approaches (the teacher makes the primary decisions regarding student learning). The text then identifies several challenges that prevent the development of student agency including the constraints of time and the attitudes of teachers. This text concludes by stating that teacher attitudes and perspectives ultimately determine the extent to which opportunities are provided to students to develop agency. Student agency is a critical element in a learner-centered classroomm. Consequently, insights regarding how teachers can practically develop student agency are necessary for the effective implementation of such a model.