Teachers Teaching Teachers 247 High School-College Transition and the “Framework for Success in Post-secondary Writing” 5.18.11

Post-Show description: 

On this week’s Teachers Teaching Teachers, we have some of our current and former students on the podcast to talk about the high school-college transition. We are also joined by a couple of National Writing Project teachers who have been involved with the “Framework for Success in Post-secondary Writing” that came out a few months ago. These frameworks include this amazing list that we invite you to explore:

Habits of Mind

The Framework identifies eight habits of mind essential for success in college writing—ways of approaching learning that are both intellectual and practical and will support students’ success in a variety of fields and disciplines:

  • Curiosity: the desire to know more about the world.
  • Openness: the willingness to consider new ways of being and thinking in the world.
  • Engagement: a sense of investment and involvement in learning.
  • Creativity: the ability to use novel approaches for generating, investigating, and representing ideas.
  • Persistence: the ability to sustain interest in and attention to short- and long-term projects.
  • Responsibility: the ability to take ownership of one’s actions and understand the consequences of those actions for oneself and others.
  • Flexibility: the ability to adapt to situations, expectations, or dema157118nds.
  • Metacognition: the ability to reflect on one’s own thinking as well as on the individual and cultural processes used to structure knowledge.

Our guests on this podcast include:
What is College Readiness in Writing? and How Do We Get There? 

Every year, we have far too many students like Ian. They aren’t the AP kids (though they might be), and they aren’t the students who fail our classes. They do OK, even sometimes receiving excellent grades in our high school classrooms. But when they get to college, they place into Developmental English classes, or worse (like Ian) they crash and burn and drop out of college. They fall off the bridge between high school and college. This site is devoted to local efforts to help more students graduating from high school place directly into college level writing classes, and importantly—do well in freshman composition. It is meant both as a resource and a professional community of practice dedicated to doing more to prepare our students for college and for helping these students do well once they are in college, for “college readiness” and “student success” in college are really two sides of the same coin.

  • Kirsten Jamsen whose affiliations include being the co-director of the Minnesota Writing Project. Kirsten 278172presented on the “Frameworks for Success in Postsecondary Writing” at the National Writing Project’s Annual Meeting in November, where she discussed the statement’s purpose, and recounted the process of composing it. We’ll ask her do some of that again. We’ll also use some of her questions from that session to guide our discussion on Wednesday evening: “What is your response to the statement? How might you use it to promote effective writing instruction at your school? How could this statement help you design thoughtful professional development?”

  • David Pulling whose students at Louisiana State University, Eunice, have been posting Musique+de+Bayou+Techeon Voices on the Gulf this year. David is the Director of Continuing Education at LSU Eunice, and will share his insights into what it takes to be a successful college writer as well. David is also an active member of the The National Writing Project of Acadiana.

Enjoy!

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.



20:39:20 SusanEttenheim: hi mmt welcome
20:40:49 mmt: thanks, looking forward to tonight's topic
20:41:13 SusanEttenheim: have you joined us before?
20:41:22 mmt: no
20:41:38 SusanEttenheim: welcome! where and what do you teach?
20:41:55 SusanEttenheim: We'll be broadcasting at 9 although I may check the sound now
20:42:06 mmt: twin cities -- college in the schools composition
20:42:19 SusanEttenheim: wow I used to live in St. Paul!
20:42:29 SusanEttenheim: do you know how to get the sound?
20:42:40 mmt: no
20:42:59 SusanEttenheim: ok I'm testing now so you might actually hear this
20:43:05 SusanEttenheim: click on edtechtalk a
20:43:13 SusanEttenheim: are you on windows or apple?
20:43:24 mmt: windows
20:43:42 SusanEttenheim: ok click on edtechtalk a and it should open the sound
20:43:50 SusanEttenheim: in whatever app is your default sound app
20:44:49 SusanEttenheim: ok I'm stopping the test now but you'll be able to hear us at 9 :)
20:54:31 SusanEttenheim: hi martha - welcome!
20:54:39 SusanEttenheim: I'll be calling everyone in a few minutes
20:54:40 Martha: hi
20:56:32 SusanEttenheim: hi nick - is it nick or nic?
20:56:48 nholt: Hello, its Nick
20:56:57 SusanEttenheim: or do you prefer your whole name?
20:57:17 nholt: Nick works great
20:57:22 SusanEttenheim: ok great -we
20:57:41 SusanEttenheim: we're just waiting for Mr. Allison to fix his headsets then I'll be calling everyone into the call
20:58:01 nholt: okay, am standing by.
21:01:02 PeggyG: Hi everyone.
21:01:10 Chris Sloan: Lots of voices tonight
21:01:24 Lennie: Hello
21:01:55 PeggyG: it's actually raining in Phoenix AZ!! A rare, delightful occurence!! :-)
21:02:16 PeggyG: are you streaming yet?
21:02:24 PeggyG: not rushing you--just wondering...
21:03:44 PeggyG: hearing the stream now :-)
21:03:53 PeggyG: listening in itunes
21:03:57 SusanEttenheim: hi everyone - you should be able to hear now?
21:04:47 SusanEttenheim: hi peggy - welcome!
21:04:47 PeggyG: always love hearing from the students!
21:05:24 PeggyG: are Jake and Michael in the chat room?
21:05:34 SusanEttenheim: I don't think so..
21:05:46 PeggyG: school will be out next week in AZ :-)
21:06:01 PeggyG: great question Paul!!!
21:06:22 PeggyG: welcome Lennie!!
21:06:33 Lennie: :waves hi
21:06:43 PeggyG: what an awesome lineup!!
21:07:26 Paul Allison: http://paulallison.tumblr.com/post/5594645674/high-school-college-transi...
21:07:36 Chris Sloan: Hi Michael
21:07:38 PeggyG: can we see the document you're mentioning? is it on that link Paul?
21:07:58 MIGreenberg: Hey, I think I may be having some mike issues. I will be back in just two minutes.
21:08:04 Chris Sloan: ok
21:08:31 SusanEttenheim: hi fred! welcome!
21:08:40 fred haas: Hello there.
21:08:41 PeggyG: wonderful writeup for the show Paul! Thanks!
21:08:51 PeggyG: Hi Fred. Welcome!
21:09:00 fred haas: Hi Peggy
21:10:00 PeggyG: wow! 10,000 writing consultations!! Impressive!
21:10:34 MIGreenberg: Alright, I think I fixed the problem.
21:10:44 SusanEttenheim: goooo minnesota! I used to live in St. Paul!
21:11:41 PeggyG: sound like some really well-rounded students!
21:11:55 SusanEttenheim: fred - how are you? just give a shout when you want to join in!
21:12:04 SusanEttenheim: welcome back mmt - do you have the audio?
21:12:23 mmt: yes!
21:12:39 SusanEttenheim: great- please feel free to ask questions and join in the discussion
21:12:49 PeggyG: time management is such a huge issue for everyone! :-)
21:12:58 mmt: thanks -- it is just great to listen!
21:13:18 SusanEttenheim: please introduce yourself with everyone here what do you teach and where?
21:13:30 SusanEttenheim: and welcome jacqueline. brown
21:13:34 SusanEttenheim: where and what do you teach?
21:14:26 [email protected]: HI, going to school for teaching.  Just wanted to check out this site to see what it is about....
21:14:41 SusanEttenheim: welcome jacqueline
21:14:51 SusanEttenheim: where are you attending school?
21:15:57 [email protected]: snhu.  Went to a cyberbullying panel tonight and learned about the complications of bullying in school today.  It was interesting....
21:16:07 PeggyG: one of my colleagues was expressing the same concern about time for everything so I told her to google it :-) Some great ideas there... http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en&q=help+me+find+mor...
21:16:22 SusanEttenheim: thank you peggy!
21:16:43 PeggyG: that sounds great jacqueline! would love to hear about the cyberbullying panel.
21:17:27 PeggyG: that's such a great point--hard to know how much time it will really take to write an essay :-)
21:18:04 fred haas: Is there a link for the document? I don't have one at the ready.
21:18:22 PeggyG: I'm a huge fan of Teachers Teaching Teachers! I'm a retired elementary principal and university preservice instructor in Phoenix AZ
21:18:41 SusanEttenheim: ahh peggy - do you have it handy?
21:18:51 PeggyG: Paul's blog post?
21:18:58 [email protected]: Lots of homework tonight.  This is a great site thanks for letting me in....
21:19:02 PeggyG: http://paulallison.tumblr.com/post/5594645674/high-school-college-transi...
21:19:27 SusanEttenheim: the document
21:19:29 fred haas: Thanks
21:19:40 SusanEttenheim: I'm worried about doing anything with so many on the call!
21:19:45 Paul Allison: http://paulallison.tumblr.com/post/5594645674/high-school-college-transi...
21:19:58 SusanEttenheim: thank you :)
21:20:06 PeggyG: http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/3479 Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing
21:20:14 SusanEttenheim: exactly!
21:22:41 Paul Allison: http://www.sanantoniowritingproject.org/crosstocollege/default.html
21:22:56 fred haas: One of the things I have been trying to emphasize lately is the more moving parts there are in a task the more prewriting, planning, and thinking is required to produce anything good. Although I have been doing it less explicitly but modeling the processes and coaching them just to do it.
21:23:08 PeggyG: thanks for that link Paul
21:26:00 MIGreenberg: I don't know if it is worth jumping it, but I think one reasons people struggle writing in college is that the nature of the material they are writing. For instance, I rarely write an essay for a class besides English that is critiqued for style along with substance.
21:26:18 PeggyG: who does the grading/scoring on the TAKS writing tests?
21:26:56 PeggyG: great point MIGreenberg!
21:27:04 Lennie: I think people hired by the testing company--holistic
21:27:25 PeggyG: thanks
21:27:51 PeggyG: calibrating scorers with holistic scoring can be quite a challenge :-)
21:28:27 MIGreenberg: For instance, I go to a Catholic school and have had to take religion for four years. I may have written more essays for religion than for english, surprisingly. But none of those essays are graded based on my literary techniques. I assume that it will be different in college.
21:29:32 PeggyG: it's so hard to know. Sometimes it all depends on the instructor and how they evaluate/critique/grade your writing.
21:29:54 mmt: it's interesting that they haven't said much about the 5 paragraph essay!
21:30:04 PeggyG: yes that is interesting!!
21:31:01 mmt: I was concerned that too many of the high school students would only know that approach -- since they can pass the state tests that way!
21:31:05 MIGreenberg: The teacher for whom I TA for is very critical of the five paragraph essay. He says that it has its place in high school writing, but almost no where else.
21:31:36 mmt: certainly formulaic and a problem if they don't know other approaches
21:32:27 PeggyG: what a wonderful example of a successful student!! taking initiative and responsibility for advocating for your own needs! a dream student!
21:32:34 Lennie: I agree
21:33:06 MIGreenberg: Jake brings up a great point which I have heard echoed again and again: if you have the chance to be a part of an honors program, take it.
21:33:23 Chris Sloan: Not only that, but take advantage of mentors
21:33:35 PeggyG: excellent advice!
21:33:38 MIGreenberg: I am going to Seattle University in the fall and I am excited to be a part of the honors program.
21:34:43 PeggyG: so many students are only concerned with the feedback from the instructor who will be grading them--so valuable to get the perspectives from peers and mentors!
21:36:20 Chris Sloan: different roles for different writing situations really is a big adjustment from high school to college
21:36:29 Lennie: yes
21:36:30 PeggyG: http://www.amazon.com/Rehearsing-New-Roles-Students-Rhetoric/dp/08093244...
21:36:38 PeggyG: link for Rehearsing New Roles
21:36:49 Lennie: Thanks Peggy. Great book
21:36:50 PeggyG: Looks like a great book!
21:37:18 PeggyG: refreshing to find a great college book that doesn't cost $100 or more
21:38:29 PeggyG: a heavy breather :-)
21:40:16 PeggyG: oh wow David!
21:43:38 MIGreenberg: Feeling the pressure of talking. Pretty easy to lose my train of thought.
21:43:57 PeggyG: no worries MIGreenberg! you're doing great!
21:44:24 SusanEttenheim: also tonight is challenging with so many voices!
21:47:27 PeggyG: for sure Susan! it's hard to make sure everyone gets to speak but as a listener I'm really enjoying this!!
21:49:14 Chris Sloan: Actually Michael, what you said, you said well. Thanks
21:51:08 mmt: the writing center that Kirsten is speaking about is an option for the students in our College in the Schools comp sections
21:51:12 SusanEttenheim: absolutely!
21:51:36 SusanEttenheim: have you been part of that mmt?
21:51:50 mmt: yes -- my office is in the center
21:52:56 SusanEttenheim: wonderful - do you have any thoughts/experiences that you'd like to share?
21:54:30 mmt: making these opportunities available to high school students is one of the great options of our program -- although I don't know how many of the students have taken advantage of it
21:55:41 mmt: It is great that he is mentioning digital/tech now -- I think we need to open up that option more.
21:56:13 SusanEttenheim: mmt remind of what state you're in?
21:56:30 mmt: Minnesota
21:56:32 SusanEttenheim: are you connected to a Writing Project there?
21:56:37 mmt: yes
21:56:45 SusanEttenheim: ahhh do you work with Kirsten?
21:56:51 mmt: yes
21:57:02 SusanEttenheim: of course because I said before that I had lived in St Paul :)
21:57:09 MIGreenberg: The best English teachers I have had have had the students keep some sort of journal.
21:57:27 SusanEttenheim: we'd love to have some of your students and teachers joining us at youthvoices.net
21:58:00 mmt: I enjoy the connection between college in the schools composition, the writing project, and the writing center
21:58:21 mmt: tell me more about youthvoices.net
21:58:30 SusanEttenheim: take a look at it!
21:58:47 SusanEttenheim: we'd like to connect students to students through shared passions and interests
21:58:53 mmt: I will definitely share it with the teachers
21:59:04 SusanEttenheim: great!
21:59:13 Paul Allison: Join YV... and let us know you are in there. [email protected]
21:59:25 SusanEttenheim: so if they have questions, they can also ask in person Wednesday evenings here
22:01:02 mmt: now that I have experienced this chatting -- and not found it too intimidating, I will
22:01:15 PeggyG: good for you @mmt!!
22:01:32 SusanEttenheim: great!
22:02:06 Chris Sloan: I like Youth Voices because it's open and my students communicate in a larger academic community
22:03:21 PeggyG: are any of the students experiencing collaborative writing using something like Google docs with multiple contributors?
22:03:23 mmt: thanks for a great evening
22:03:38 SusanEttenheim: thank you for joining us mmt!
22:04:24 Lennie: I have my students collaboratively compose with google docs!
22:04:49 mmt: many of our CIS teachers are using it, too
22:08:10 PeggyG: this has been a fantastic conversation with both student and teacher voices!
22:08:27 SusanEttenheim: thank you peggy for joining us as always!
22:09:07 Chris Sloan: Agreed. Thanks so much Peggy
22:09:53 Lennie: yes to reading
22:10:23 Lennie: fostering independence--good
22:11:29 Chris Sloan: Thanks to the students
22:11:33 PeggyG: I always leave so energized