Writing-Group Guidelines

Use these two pages to create constructive writing groups in your classroom. All too often, writing groups provide little helpful feedback ("I like it," "It's okay, I guess," "It's not very good; work harder") or actually become destructive because of the inability of members to offer tactful criticism or the unwillingness of writers to receive it. As you can see, the fault can lie on either side, or both.

Have a volunteer read aloud the first bullet and example. Then indicate what you don't want to hear: "Here's my paper, for what it's worth" or "One of my favorite topics of all time is the Spanish-American War because it is a war that we don't really talk about that much but that expanded U.S. territories in surprising places like for example the Philippines which is where I have a cousin from and my uncle was stationed over there in the Air Force. . . ." Your mocking examples will serve a number of purposes: They will contrast with what you do want to hear, they will make your students laugh, and they will give you a chance to set your expectations about effective and ineffective group interactions.

Present the rest of the bullets on this page in the same fashion.