Digital Feedback

“[W]e need to employ different criteria for evaluating digital communication, but we also need to employ digital communication tools that themselves enhance teachers’ and peers’ uses of multimodality, hypertextuality, and interactivity in providing feedback to students. Producing, reading, and assessing digital texts, then, emphasizes the ways that communication itself is inherently social, formative, and evolving”(158).

Digital feedback readily allows writers to interact with teachers and peers throughout the writing process in a way that is more practical and efficient than passing hard-to-read drafts to a neighbor in class. Using digital tools allows a conversation about writing that encourages a dialogue rather than simply sticking on a grade at the end or a few comments once during the process that may or may not lead to follow-up questions by the author. It becomes a more fluid conversation where we ask questions of each other with the expectation of further conversation. Beach does warn that this can become less efficient for teachers because it is easier to open the communication channels and we can find ourselves spending more time and sometimes giving more than students may be able to handle; these are potential pitfalls or at least need some mindful consideration. I know that I get sucked into giving more comments when I use google docs and am working to set strict limits for myself. In the end, we are seeing students more invested in the revision process, thus becoming stronger, more engaged writers.

Before reading this article I had already written that new criteria needs to be incorporated when assessing digital writing. Most of the overarching ideas about writing assessment stays the same, but in looking at coherence, for example, one must widen the definition to incorporate the coherence of links, images, etc (or add an additional label). The rub is finding the language and examples to make those expectations clear to our students. While they are lifers in the digital realm, they do not necessarily look for the same attributes online that we will be looking for in their digital productions. In that way, we are navigating this new landscape together.

I have seen tremendous growth in writers when we work through the process within Google docs. When they are able to get timely feedback as they write, they are more apt to make improvements than if they turn in a completed draft and I inform them they need to go back and make substantial changes. It just feels too hard, and I seem like an outsider jumping into the process in the middle or nearing the end. When I make comments early in the process, we engage in dialogue, and they often come back with specific, thoughtful questions about what they have and how to proceed. When I assigned moodle discussions for my juniors and seniors, I appreciated having the time and space to hear from the students who were often silent in class conversation. This medium gave them the thinking time and took away the pressure of being “in person,” and I learned more about them as people and thinkers in those few online conversations than I did in the rest of the semester. It also allowed them to respond to each other when maybe we wouldn’t have had the time in class for such an extensive dialogue. In my last grad class, we had a lot of discussion around portfolios with questions about digital portfolios but little more; I am very interested in learning more about potential resources for online portfolios and would love ideas from those of you with experience.

I'm planning to start the year in creative writing with my memoir unit. My students will still be writing memoirs/personal narractive but then will go a step further by creating digital memoirs or trailers for their memoirs. Here is the rubric I may use; I would like to have my students help me in creating the project's final assessment rubric.

Digital Memoir

Common Core Standards:

·       11.7.2.2b Develop the topic thoroughly by selecting the most significant and relevant facts and concrete details

·       11.7.3.3 Write narratives and other creative texts to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chose details, and well-structured event sequence

·       11.7.4.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience

·       11.7.5.5 Use a writing process to develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, drafting, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose or audience

·       11.9.5.5 Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.

·       11.9.7.7 Adapt speech to a variety of contexts, audiences, tasks, and feedback from self and others, demonstrating a command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.

Digital Memoir Rubric

	4	3	2	1
Topic Development	Topic is thoroughly developed	Topic is developed	Topic is clear but lacks development.	Topic is needs clarification.
Storytelling technique	Engages the audience with careful selection of details and effective narration. Language is vivid and pulls the audience into the piece	Engages the audience with appropriate detail and attention to language choices	More consideration needed in selecting story details and language.	Details and/or langauge are lacking or take the reader away from the purpose.
Coherence/ Organization	Style and organization demonstrate sophistication and clearly consider the audience.	Organized and coherent; the audience has been considered.	Generally coherent; organization needs to be revisited. Audience needs greater consideration.	Lacking coherence
Writing Process	Feedback was considered and self-reflections demonstrate thought and self-awareness as an author. Thoughtfully revised and polished.	Self-reflections demonstrate thought. Revisions were thoughtful.	Self-reflection was done in a largely superficial manner. Some revision is seen.	Writing process was lacking.
Digital Media	Digital media (images and music, et al) have been strategically used to enhance the story and experience of the audience.	Digital media add to the experience of the audience	Sometimes the digital media choices detract from the storyline.	Digital media is distracting, divergent from the rest of the piece or not included
Audio/Tonal Qualities and Speech Choices	The speech used adds to the audience’s experience and understanding of the piece. Thought has clearly been given to how to affect the audience through vocal qualities and choices.	Speech is clear and adds to the audience’s experience of the piece.	Speech is generally clear and does not detract from the audience’s understanding.	Speech is often unclear.

The biggest additions to this rubric in terms of considering how the digital aspects are assessed are in the final two rows. Despite having done projects with technology embedded in them, I don't know that I've actually written my own rubric with those qualities in mind. I foresee that the first time I use this (or a similar rubric) I will discover the holes in my thinking. The bigger change for me is that while I do address language choices and organization, I am not actually assessing the student's writing here. That will be a tough one for some of my students and their parents to reconcile and a challenging piece for me to take in, as well. Now, I told you above the rubric that this digital memoir will be in addition to the written piece, but perhaps after a year or two of this idea, the written aspect will be part of the planning but not a product for assessment. Interesting to think of the directions this will take!