Writers Select Their Own Work

Writers Select Their Own Work

Students can write first drafts of articles for several different Learning Circle projects. Each student selects one or two drafts for more careful polishing. Students might want to read each others papers and offer advice on which has the most potential for publication. Since the selections are likely to represent a wide range of topics, redundancy will be low. Also, since students work at different rates, the number of messages ready for the weekly transmission is likely to be manageable for both the sender and the receivers.

Editing Team Work

Some teachers may prefer to have students initially write alone so that the essay can be used as part of regular class work to assess their individual skills. Suppose, for example, you want all of your students to respond to a request for information about a specific topic. Some of these essays may be very unique, but most of them are likely to be quite similar

You are now faced with a dilemma. What should you send on the network? If you send all of their papers, you will be sending a large number of redundant messages. One way to solve the dilemma is to create a cooperative editing team.

The students can work in groups to prepare final drafts of their essays. Students who wrote similar ideas can work together to combine their ideas into a single essay that will be more complete, but not necessarily much longer than any single essay. Students who wrote very unique essays could work together to improve the quality of their individual papers. Have the students read each other's papers, and underline unique points or well-written sentences. This evaluating, analyzing, and editing experience will help them develop new writing strategies and extend their ideas.

At the end of this process, the class will have a smaller number (4-6) of well-written essays to send. All of the students will benefit from the experience and the smaller number of well-written messages will be eagerly received and read by students in other locations.

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