PKY students, UF preservice teachers help each other learn in online writing partnerships
Posted December 14, 2010
PKY English teacher Jennifer Cheveallier(standing) observes as UF education master’s student Angela Mulkin (center) leads ninth-graders Jarrod Mayberry (left), Justin Hagin (right) and other classmates in a writing exercise.
Ninth-graders at P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School are partnering with UF preservice teachers in a mutually beneficial Online Writing Partnership program that helps improve the high school students’ writing skills while providing real-world experience in writing instruction to UF’s teachers-in-training.
The arrangement finds 27 College of Education preservice teachers, enrolled in Associate Professor Jane Townsend’s “Teaching Language and Composition” class, forging a semester-long relationship with some 120 students in teacher Jennifer Cheveallier’s ninth-grade English classes. Each UF student-teacher leads a small group of four or five P.K. Yonge students. (P.K. Yonge is UF’s Pre-K-through-grade 12 laboratory school.)
“The ninth-graders form an online community with their respective group instructors from UF, giving the preservice teachers their first experience in online course management,” Cheveallier said. “Two on-site writing workshops also are held at P.K. Yonge early in the semester to help the high school and college students get to know each other better, face to face.”
In Townsend’s UF class, her student-teachers learn to both write and teach the narrative and persuasive genres of writing, who then pass on their knowledge to their ninth-grade partners and critique their writing assignments based on grading guidelines set by Townsend and Cheveallier.
“Similar classroom activities are conducted in both courses, which helps the preservice teachers anticipate their younger partners’ potential challenges in their writing assignments,” Cheveallier said.
The UF teachers-in-training use the “comment” feature of Microsoft Word software to give individual, customized feedback on multiple drafts of each student’s assignments.
The Online Writing Partnership program is now in its third year. Townsend and Cheveallier added a new twist this year, having the ninth-graders fill out a “feedback quiz” to assess their writing partners’ instructional comments.
The quiz asks the ninth-graders questions such as: “What was least helpful about your partner’s feedback?” and “What is one question you have for your partner about your writing.” The preservice teachers can see how their comments are received by their young writing students and find ways to improve their own writing instruction.
“The quiz makes the partnership truly collaborative, with both parties offering each other assessments relevant to their respective learning needs,” Cheveallier said.
Townsend said that with the current emphasis in public schools on standardized tests and formulaic writing, “the teaching of authentic writing through workshops that support deep revision has become a sadly rare event.
“The (UF-P.K. Yonge) partnership provides a unique opportunity for my students to mentor developing writers through multiple drafts of their writing, and engage in a collaborative, substantive, and supportive re-viewing and re-shaping of the piece.”
(PHOTO CAPTIONS: INSET IN ARTICLE–UF preservice teacher Matt Hazel, left, makes a point in his small-group lesson; ABOVE, LEFT: Katherine McGrath, UF elementary ProTeach master’s student, reviews a worksheet with her PKY ninth-grade writing partners; ABOVE, RIGHT: UF master’s reading student Camerine Patterson, left, goes over an online writing assignment with partner Aerin Davison.)
CONTACTS
SOURCE: Jennifer Cheveallier, instructor, P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School;jcheveallier@pky.ufl.edu
SOURCE: Jane Townsend associate professor, UF College of Education, jst@coe.ufl.edu
WRITER/PHOTOGRAPHER: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu
