Pairing Students
After reading different writings about the process writing and its corresponding group work, I found a discrepancy between two writers’ opinions on placing students into groups.
In Barbara Carney’s article “Process Writing and the Secondary School Reality: A Compromise�, she addresses the issue of pairing students to read each others’ writings and offer each other guidance in their draft work. Carney suggests three options for pairing students: pairing students with similar ability levels, allowing students to choose their own partners, and having opposite sex partners.
In James D. Williams’ book Preparing to Teach Writing, however, Williams suggests contrary views on how to pair students in the peer editing process. For example, he believes that students should not be paired by ability level, “It isn’t a good idea to have all strong writers in one group and all the weak ones in another because collaboration thrives on input from different voices� (132). Williams also does not agree with allowing students to choose their own partners for fear they will become off task, “Groups composed of close friends usually fail just as surely as groups composed of enemies� (133).
It is interesting to note these two obvious differences in opinion between both writers, because both give good support for their opinions through their own experiences. I believe that both writers are correct in their suggestions because I am almost positive that all of these situations can work and also may not work. One must look at the class dynamics and learn about the individual students before making a decision on how to place them into pairs or groups. Some students may not like each other but can still work constructively together, whereas others do not have that same temperament. Teachers may have to experiment to discover what works best for each individual student.
Click on the link below to read a description of peer editing in partners and how different students can collaborate their knowledge to make each others' writing more effective. This may come in handy for teachers as they think about the possibilities of pairing different students:
Comments
I too, found this discrepancy to be interesting. Although I agree with Williams somewhat, that working with friends can lead to more social time than work time, I have also found that friends often feel more comfortable to push each other and provide real criticism. Also friends don't always have the same skill levels so they help each other in that way too. Your suggestion to observe the class dynamics when deciding grouping techniques sounds smart.
Thanks also for the great resource link; the checklist is helpful for setting a critique mindset.
Posted by: Candance | January 22, 2007 11:31 AM
This is an interesting discrepancy. I think you are right when you say the decision here must ride on the teacher to use his or her pedagogical knowledge to form the groups. When I was in a freshman comp class the professor has us pair off by how interested we were in the subject. Her idea was that if you weren't going to take it too seriously, she didn't want you hurt a group of students who will be working hard.
I think the more important question here is, how do we get all of our students, strong and weak, to participate in this process?
Posted by: Jeff | January 23, 2007 4:04 PM
I commented here, but for some reason it didn't appear! Basically, I said I think you are right that teachers needs to use their know-how to form the groups. Then work toward getting all students, strong or weak, to make meaningful contributions.
Posted by: Jeff | January 23, 2007 4:06 PM
I agree that there is no one right way to form groups. From my experience friends are not always effective, not because they don't get work done, but if they are all fighting to get the A in the class will cut eachother down. In a personal way too. Also I did not think Carney's idea of making co-ed pairings is necisarially a great idea either since there could be some interesting tensions there too. I guess it all just comes down to knowing your students.
Posted by: Kari | January 23, 2007 10:17 PM
I agree with Williams more on the issue of pairing students. I definitely agree with him that student of the same ability shouldn't be paired together. I beleive that by placing students of different writing abilities together they will be able to learn more from each other's writing. But I do agree with you that you have to get to know your students before you start to pair them. Even Williams mentioned that a teacher shouldn't just use a writing sample as the basis of how they are going to group students together.
Posted by: LeShon | January 24, 2007 12:59 PM
I had a great conversation with my cooperating teacher about this issue this week. It's something that we definitely need to continue to think about as teachers.
Posted by: Emily | January 25, 2007 12:35 PM