Susan

Passage: Pg. 113 2nd Paragraph under **Visualizing the Writing Process** This chapter builds on earlier ideas about expressive writing, as well as the design of assignments and rubrics. As you know, informal expressive writing is often ungraded- the work students use to understand the concepts and issues in your field. Such writing promotes active learning- a rehearsal of ideas- that students draw upon when challenegd with more complex tasks, as described in Chapter 6. In this chapter, we focus on helping students succeed with graded academic assignments.

My Comments: I feel that as a class, without even knowing it, William Strong has scaffolded us through this process. We started with not grading what we did as built them up, moving on to rubrics and now we are talking about how to grade finished products (but not their rough drafts).

I agree. As I commented on my wiki, it was much more difficult for me to comfortably give writing assignments. Now I feel like I can grade them a bit too. I like the term scaffolding, by the way. Even the chapter that didn't do much for me in the beginning became more clear and important as I went back to it again. Although I still don't like the Darth Vader part! We are actually participating in "Active Learning", a process we are learning to do in our classrooms!
 * Susans comments:**

I notice that you have picked up on the importance of the building that Strong is doing throughout the chapters. It is a good analysis of the work we have been doing. I wonder about the complex tasks you mentioned in Chapter 6. What would be a jumping board to achieving those tasks?
 * Mark's Comments:**

MJ comments: I continue to love the idea that all student writing does not need to be graded yet it can be a valid way for them to learn. I also love that someone decided that we should read this text in this order because the order of the chapters has made a lot of sense. More so than in we had read them in order. Learning how to grade academic assignments in my non-tested class is something in which I need a lot more scaffolding experience.

Karin's comments: I also agree that the way we have read this book made perfect sense to me. I don't think Mary Jo should worry that her area is not tested, it does not devalue what she has to teach. Her test is the real life usage of her material. I love not grading student writing at this point. Grading writing can be so subjective. I think students can be freer to express themselves. However, my expectation is that students continually improve their writing via my comments to them.