DOCUMENT RESUME ED 372 389 CS 214 413 AUTHOR Brooke, Robert; And Others TITLE Small Groups in Writing Workshops: Invitations to a Writer's Life. INSTITUTION National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, REPORT NO ISBN-0-8141-4483-7 PUB DATE 94 NOTE 211p. AVAILABLE FROMNational Council of Teachers of English, 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1096 (Stock No. 44837-3050: $14.95 members, $19.95 nonmembers). PUB TYPE Guides Classroom Use Teaching Guides (For Teacher) (052) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC09 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Classroom Environment; Elementary Secondary Education; Higher Education; *Small Group Instruction; Teacher Student Relationship; Teaching Methods; Undergraduate Students; Writing (Composition); *Writing Instruction; Writing Processes; *Writing Workshops IDENTIFIERS Writing Contexts ABSTRACT Providing personal yet professional guidelines for introducing students to the life of a writer, this book provides a rationale, a set of principles, and some possible methods for using small groups in writing workshops. The book discusses how small groups can provide growing writers with the four essentials which all writers need: time for writing; ownership over their topics and processes; ongoing responses to their writing; and exposure to the writing of others. Chapters in the book are:(1) "Invitations to a Writer's Life: Guidelines for Designing Small-Group Writing Classes" (Robert Brooke); (2) "Our Students' Experiences with Groups" (Robert Brooke and others);(3) "Teaching from Experience, Claiming Small Groups" (Robert Brooke and others);(4) "Model Groups and Un-Model Writers: Introducing First- and Second-Year College Students to a Writer's Life" (Ruth Mirtz);(5) "Individualization and Group Work: A Small-Group Writing Workshop and Individualized Invitations to a Writer's Life" (Robert Brooke);(6) "Changing the Frame: Writing, Reading, and Learning about Writing in Small Groups" (Rick Evans); (7) "A Conversation about Small Groups" (Ruth Mirtz); and (8) "Exhortation: Beyond the Small Group--Personal, Pedagogical, and Professional Lives" (Robert Brooke and others). An annotated list of 11 recommended readings is attached. (RS) *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** _ 0 111 THIS U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 'PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE Office o' Educational gesearth and Intprovemont MATECIIAL HAS BEEN GRANTEDBY EDU ATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received horn the person or organuatton originating it 0 Miner changes have been made to improve reproduction quality 10 THE EDUCATIONALRESOURCES Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not riecessanly represent NFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)" official OERI position or policy BEST COPY AVAILABLE 2 Small Groups in Writing Workshops .3 NCTE Editorial Board: Rafael Castillo, Gail Hawisher, Joyce Kinkead, Charles Moran, Louise W. Phelps, Charles Suhor, Chair, ex officio; Michael Spooner, ex officio NCTE College Section Committee: Cynthia Selfe, Chair, Michigan Technolog- ical University; Pat Belanoff, SUNY at Stony Brook; Lil Brannon, SUNY at Al- bany; Doris 0. Ginn, CCCC Representative, Jackson State University; Jeanette Harris, University of Southern Mississippi; James Hill, Albany State College; Dawn Rodrigues, Colorado State University; Tom Waldrep, University of South Carolina; H. Thomas McCracken, CEE Representative, Youngstown State Uni- versity; Louise Smith, ex officio, Editor, College English, University of Massa- chusetts at Boston; James E. Davis, Executive Committee Liaison, Ohio University; Miles Myers, NCTE Staff Liaison 4 Small Groups in Writing Workshops Invitations to a Writer's Life Robert Brooke University of Nebraska-Lincoln Ruth Mirtz Florida State University Rick Evans University of Nebraska-Lincoln National Council of Teachers of English 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, Illinois 61801-1096 5 Manuscript Editor: Humanities & Sciences Associates Production Editor: Michael G. Ryan Interior Design: Tom Kovacs for TGK Design Cover Design: Jim Proefrock NCTE Stock Number: 44837-3050 © 1994 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. It is the policy of NCTE in its journals and other publications to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brooke, Robert, 1958- Small groups in writing workshops: invitations to a writer's life / Robert Brooke, Ruth Mirtz, Rick Evans. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8141-4483-7 1. English language--RhetoricStudy and teaching.2. Forums (Discussion and debate)3. Small groups.I. Mirtz, Ruth, 1959- II. Evans, Rick, 1951- . III. Title. PE14( 4.B7531994 808'.042'0711dc20 94-16963 CIP 6 c: Contents Acknowledgments vii I. Principles 1 Introduction 3 1. Invitations to a Writer's Life: Guidelines for Designing Small-Group Writing Classes 7 Robert Brooke 2. Our Students' Experiences with Groups 31 Robert Brooke, Ruth Mirtz, and Rick Evans 3. Teaching from Experience, Claiming Small Groups 52 Robert Brooke, Ruth Mirtz, and Rick Evans H. Pedagogy 81 Introduction 83 4. Model Groups and Un-Model Writers: Introducing First- and Second-Year College Students to a Writer's Life 85 Ruth Mirtz 5. Individualization and Group Work: A Small-Group Writing Workshop and Individualized Invitations to a Writer's Life 112 Robert Brooke 6. Changing the Frame: Writing, Reading, and Learning about Writing in Small Groups 154 Rick Evans 7. A Conversation about Small Groups 172 Ruth Mirtz 7 vi Contents 8. Exhortation: Beyond the Small GroupPersonal, Pedagogical, and Professional Lives 185 Robert Brooke, Ruth Mirtz, and Rick Evans Appendix: Recommended Readings 189 Works Cited 195 Index 199 Authors 205 Acknowledgments The authors gratefully acknowledge the help of many small andlarge groups who gave us invaluable encouragement,insight, and advice as we drafted and revised this book: TheComposition Colloquium at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, especially Kate Ronald, JoyRitchie, Gerry Brookes, Tom O'Connor, and Bob Haller; AnneWhitney, Margrethe Ahlschwede, Judy Levin, Devan Cook, JimSwingle, Mark McBride, and many other instructors at the Universityof Nebraska-Lincoln and Florida State University who read the manu- script or listened to our ideas; Michael Spooner, DavidJolliffe, and the reviewers at NCTE; and the department staffs at both universities.We owe more than thanks to our spousesfor their patience, support, and understanding. Finally, we thank all the teachers and students who, with openhearts and minds, generously offered their stories and their writing tothis project. This book is possible only through their belief that oneperson's experience can be valuable to many others. vii 9 I Principles 10 Introduction This book provides a rationale, a set of principles, and some possible methods for using small groups in writing workshops. Using our stu- dents and ourselves as examples, we'll show how we've achieved suc- cess in using small groups to provide growing writers with the four essentials which we believe all writers need: time for writing, owner- ship over their topics and processes, ongoing response to their writing, and exposure to the writing of others. Small groups, we'll show, are an integral support to these four essentials, because weekly small-group discussions of drafts-in-progress surround growing writers with the re- sponse and exposure they need, while creating strong social pressure to maintain adequate writing time and to address the ownership issues of what to write about and why to write at all. We were motivated to write this book by the questions we are con- tinuously asked about small groups and teaching, by such diverse pro- fessionals as participants in the Conference on College Composition and Communication, new teachers of composition at the University of Nebraska and Florida State University, and secondary and elementary teachers we've worked with in the National Writing Project. Again and again, we've heard the same questions: "How often should my classes meet in small groups?" "How should I form the groups?" "How can I keep them on task?" Occasionally, we've even heard the most chal- lenging question of all, "Why should I use small groups, anyway?" On the basis of our nine years' work with small groups in first-year and ad- vanced writing classes, National Writing Project groups for practicing secondary and elementary teachers, faculty and graduate student col- loquia, and our own collaborations as writers, we believe we have de- veloped useful answers to these questions and have therefore written a book that meets a real need of teachers. As we worked to develop our answers to these questions, however, we found we couldn't explain them easily through either the scholarly tradition of educational research or the textbook tradition of uncritical advice for teachers. In contrast, we discovered the principles and prac- tices in this book through other methods: personal examination of our pedagogy, close participant observation