Assessment?

My own experience with assessing students always frustrated me, for a number of reasons:

• the requirement to assess a product, especially in comparison to that of other students
• my desire to encourage students who worked hard on the project / paper / essay, even if the final product does not 'meet the standards'
• my urge to nitpick (esp. grammatical errors), but without it influencing students' grades
• my unwillingness to 'ruin' students' grades in a high-stakes exam
• the fact there will always be students unhappy with their grade (either in comparison with other students or with their own previous works)
• my fear of making a mistake by either grading too high or too low (which I am afraid could depend on my mood and physical condition, attitude toward students, their attitude to me, time of the day, weather, time constraints, or power issues).

In my context, assessment is mostly product-oriented, often high-stakes; and I think in any context it is highly subjective. Students perceive it this way, too: The grade depends on the teacher. That is why it is the grade that is often the goal, not the skills or knowledge or learning, whatever the course is.

Therefore, if given a choice, I would rather have informal low-stakes grading or no assessment at all in my class. I like the example given by Casanave (2004) about her assessing the students in Japan, with them investing in projects they were interested in or were involved in in other courses. Unfortunately, it is not possible in my teaching context, since students are not using writing English outside the English class, except informally, online, or filling out application forms for study abroad scholarships. Coming up with the projects they could be whole-heartedly involved in outside their overloaded school work is also problematic, but is worth trying.

However, there are still other problems with that approach that were mentioned both in Casanave's chapter and in Hayat's blog: institutional requirements, students' needs (e.g., preparation for TOEFL iBT), and students' expectations.

Speaking & Writing

Speaking and writing in L2 are interconnected, which is clearly shown in the Chapters from The Oral – Literate Connection (2008) book. According to Williams (2008), writing can facilitate speaking because writing allows for more experimenting with less familiar forms, since it implies planning and is usually less threatening than speaking. Williams (2008) also discusses the research focused on how speaking can influence writing. The main idea in all three areas of research she covers (student-teacher conferences, peer review, and writing centers) is that "talking about writing improves the overall quality of writing" (p.17).T

he connections are also confirmed through my own experience of learning the literacies: Most of the secondary school classroom instruction was "from writing to speaking", i.e. students had to write grammatically accurate sentences or paragraphs or dialogs and memorize them for oral reproduction. At the university level, it was similar in the way that students were supposed to use certain vocabulary and grammatical structures, which could not happen spontaneously. Many students were fluent in speaking English, so it was natural to avoid unfamiliar or just learned structures, especially in speaking. It took thinking and elaborating sentences in writing to be able to produce the required structures in speaking. However, there was also the reverse process: "from speaking to writing". Prior to assigning a short essay, the teacher discussed it in class. Students would go through the whole required organizational structure, offering possible development of an essay, suggesting contextual / genre-appropriate use of connectors, vocabulary, and grammar structures.

Here, in the MA program, I also employ both processes. I often use "writing into speaking" when I want to ask a question during class or at the conference. I usually do it for two reasons: 1) writing (whether in L1 or L2) does help to focus thinking and put my thoughts into making-sense words and sentences (Hirvela, 2004); 2) seeing the words on paper helps to make sure that the sentence is "grammatically correct". The "speaking into writing" process has a slightly different role. It is similar to Seloni's (2008) doctoral students' negotiating the meaning among themselves. I usually try to talk to someone about the writing I need to complete. In the course of explaining the topic, I myself learn to understand it better, plan the organization of a paper, and get to answer questions that I would not think to ask myself or would disregard as self-explanatory. In other words, speaking with other students about my writing helps me to write.

 

Belcher, D., & Hirvela, A. (Eds.). (2008). The Oral-Literate Connection: Perspectives on L2 Speaking, Writing, and Other Media Interactions.

Hirvela, A. (2004). Writing to Read. In Connecting Reading & Writing in Second Language Writing Instruction, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 71-109.

Seloni, L. (2008). Intertextual Connections between spoken and written text: A microanalysis of doctoral students' textual constructions. In D. Belcher & A. Hirvela (Eds.), The Oral-Literate Connection: Perspectives on L2 Speaking, Writing, and Other Media Interactions, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 63-86.

Williams, J. (2008). The speaking-writing connection in second language and academic literacy development. In D. Belcher & A. Hirvela (Eds.), The Oral-Literate Connection: Perspectives on L2 Speaking, Writing, and Other Media Interactions, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 10-25.

Discussion Questions on Hirvela, Chapter 3

1. 1. Hirvela (2004) discusses three models developed by Eisterhold (1990), which represent reading-writing relationships (pp.72-73), but he uses only directional model for pedagogical implications. How would you use other models?
2. 2. Which writing-to-read techniques (summarizing, synthesizing, and responding) did /do you use as a reader? Do you find them useful?
3. 3. Which techniques would you as a teacher use in your context with your students? Why? (Would a writing instructor choose writing-to-read approach? Is it common to see a student as a reader rather than a writer in a composition class?)
4. 4. Why do you think summarizing, synthesizing, or responding might be difficult for L2 readers/writers?
5. 5. Paraphrasing and quoting are described as complex processes of reading and writing as a student “locates and reconstructs or appropriates material from the source texts” (p.94). It has never been presented like that to me. Rather, paraphrasing and quotations were technicalities that were practiced on the sentence level. Could you share your experience as language learner and language teacher? Do you agree with Hirvela’s position regarding these two aspects of synthesizing?
6. 6. For me, the idea of writing as a facilitator / foundation for reading as active and meaning-making process is quite new. Hirvela (2004) lists many benefits of using writing-to-read approach with L2 readers/writers. What would be the limitations of applying writing-to-read techniques in the classroom?

Connections between Reading and Writing (Hirvela, Chapter 1)

Coming from EFL background, I found some assumptions about teaching reading and writing in English mentioned in the chapter not relevant. The author emphasizes the initial separation and disparity between how reading and writing were perceived and taught. Since I never had a writing course in school, I cannot really say that reading and writing were completely separate. They were two skills that were taught at the same time, within the same class sometimes.

However, while reading the chapter I realized that even though the two skills were never taught as separate courses, they were still treated as two separate skills. This becomes especially clear after analyzing Tiernye's tables on pp. 29-30. Even though writing and reading occurred in the same class (with writing usually being a home assignment or an in-class test), reading was indeed the way of receiving the information, while writing was (re)producing it. Reading was seen as a necessary skill preceding writing. Often the same text was used for reading (=getting the information and understanding it) and writing (=summarizing the understood information, sometimes adding something new to it). Reading was never seen as an "act of composing"; in fact, writing was not always composing either. Following the conventions of spelling and sentence structure was more important than the meaning.

So, there are a lot more connections between reading and writing than I thought would be relevant and applicable. I also believe that in EFL contexts, even more connections can be made, due to the differences in viewpoints about teaching English in different countries. This could lead to elaborating Reading-Writing Connections Models for every country or for every context. In this way, the absence of a single (=universal) model can be seen as an advantage.

Problems with Defining “good writing”

Casanave (2004) emphasizes the importance of defining improvement and good writing before discussing what works and what does not when teaching ESL writing. She divides improvement into two categories: improving quality of writing and developing L2 proficiency (p.66), which represent broadly the two constructs of L2 writing. Depending on which of these is a teacher's (and institution's) belief and goal, the teacher will see and pursue improvement in different ways identified first and foremost in assessment criteria. According to Casanave (2004), assessing quality of writing can be too ambiguous and non-satisfying for teachers, who tend to focus on criteria that are easier to count and correct (i.e., vocabulary and grammar). However, the question that I would ask is why is L2 proficiency necessarily related to grammar and vocabulary? Definition of language proficiency is problematic in itself (e.g., fluency vs accuracy debate), and choosing the countable ways of assessment does not always imply that the teacher aims for developing L2 proficiency in (through) students' writing.

Besides their own beliefs about good writing, English teachers should also take into account students' beliefs and institutional policy. Within our department, good writing was seen first and foremost in relation to accuracy in using language elements (grammatical and organizational features and vocabulary items) being targeted and studied at that particular time. Fluency was expected to increase with practice of writing and re-writing the essays. So, error correction and feedback played a very important role.

I would like to share two interesting cases I had. One was when I tutored a student (I will refer to her as Marina) who was accepted onto the major where students were expected to have studied English at school. However, Marina's foreign language at school was German and she had studied English only for two summer months with a tutor prior to the beginning of the school year. In other words, she had little acquaintance with English (e.g. extremely limited vocabulary), while certain level of knowledge of and about the English language was expected. For her, learning to write (as well as read and speak) implied translating and learning almost every word in the textbooks, understanding absolutely new grammar rules and sentence structure. Our tutoring sessions often involved my going through her draft, negotiating the meaning and discussing the word choices and grammar issues. Nevertheless, while the required vocabulary was often more difficult and sophisticated (e.g., reciprocate) for other students (who had studied English before), for Marina it was often the only vocabulary at her disposal. Therefore, she had no problem using that vocabulary and structures in her essays if she understood their function and meaning, while her peers sometimes resisted using the imposed forms. This meant that Marina ended up getting good grades according to the construct of good writing promoted by the department, even though her overall language proficiency, general fluency and probably quality of writing were not "good". Within the given definition, her writing improved dramatically over a semester. Her style of learning and department policy implied a lot of error correction on my part and re-writing and submitting a perfect product on hers.

Another case was the tutoring of Anna, who had studied English before, was confident in using English both in speaking and writing, but 99 % of her writing was impossible to understand. In spite of the fact that we shared L1 and her handwriting was intelligible, the sentences for some reason did not make much sense. Part of it could be attributed to spelling, but only part. Her choice of words, sentence structure and grammar was beyond comprehension, sometimes even for her. In order for her to be able to pass the English course, Anna had to be confined to a very rigid paragraph and sentence structure. In the end, she got a passing grade.

So, in the first case, the restrictions in form and content were taken up voluntarily, while in the second case, they were imposed. In the first case, the language learned served as a springboard for the student to strive for fluency, in the second – fluency was controlled by the rules which denied any freedom of expression. However, both cases showed improvement in students' performance, at least in accordance with the department's definition of improvement.

Reflections on “Writing Development & Biliteracy” (Chapter 1)

Most of what Fu and Matoush (2006) describe in their chapter, I have experienced myself as a bilingual Russian-English speaker: the reasons for code-switching, "language errors," non-linear pattern of the four stages of acquiring English writing skills, lack of confidence as an English writer. I did not go to a bilingual school or to mainstream classes in the USA, though. My context is different – I learned English in Russia. So, I do not know how applicable the approach offered by the authors would be in EFL context. However, while reading the chapter I noticed that nothing is mentioned about the existing or potential problems associated with implementing this approach in an American school.

I can see at least three challenges that come with the biliteracy approach suggested. First, the teachers of English in schools should know students' L1(s) to see students' development and to be able to communicate with them and help them. The authors do not mention assessment, which also should be negotiated with school administration. Second, I would assume that students' and their parents' expectations might be different, and they could be resistant to the approach. This could also be an alternative explanation why students in the study made an effort to write in English at first, even when given options to do it in Chinese. Students can be pushed by parents to stick to English. Some teachers having to use the approach would also resist if they disagree with the approach, especially if they teach other subjects and are forced to accept students' L1 writing. Finally, the third challenge would be the lack of community of practice if all students are with different L1s or forming exclusive communities of practice, if a few students do not share their peers' L1. The reason is that students will not be able to exchange much of their expertise, as they will not be able to understand their peers' writing in first through third stages.

Fu, D., & Matoush, M. (2006). Writing development and biliteracy. In P.K. Matsuda, C. Ortmeier-Hooper, & X. You (Eds) The Politics of Second Language Writing: In Search of the Promised Land. West Lafayette: Parlor Press, pp. 5 – 29.

L1 Composition & L2 Writing

Leki (2006) describes ESL writing as having prevalence in university courses aimed at helping ESL students succeed academically, while other skills are being ignored or deemed unimportant. She partially attributes this attitude to L1 composition legacy and the position it secured in many US universities, i.e. a required course for undergraduate students. In this light, it is definitely a positive development to recognize the needs of ESL students and have a separate writing course for them. It also seems to explain the lack thereof in my teaching context: Since we do not require all majors to take L1 composition courses, English writing courses seem redundant. In fact, the way (academic/college) writing is defined and viewed is quite different. In the US, as far as I know, most of the exams both on graduate and undergraduate levels, are taken in the written form (a test or a paper). In Russia, the preference is given to oral exams (which has its own drawbacks) that can be preceded by a requirement to submit a paper, however, a lot less attention is paid to the problems of plagiarism. Similarly to Yang's nursing classes, the content and the information rather than form is given priority when grading. Without seeing academic writing as a skill to be required of all students in their L1, it is understandable that L2 writing is perceived in the like manner.

In the USA, L1 composition classes resist being perceived and treated as a "service course" (Leki, 2006, p.68) in university programs. As far as ESL writing courses are concerned, it seems that they are meant to be "service courses", teaching students academic writing literacy that would be used in all their majors and all of their courses. In Russia, writing in English is even less independent. It is still used as a "means of reinforcing the acquisition of grammar and vocabulary" (Leki, 2002, p. 60). At a more advanced level, it includes particular sentence structures and linking devices. In other words, the content is irrelevant, especially because it is the language that is taught, not the subject. So, when writing is evaluated, it is usually accuracy and complexity of grammar structures and vocabulary that are graded, not the students' creativity. It also needs to be taken into account that students do not write papers in English; the maximum length of an essay would be two pages. Nobody (at my home university) writes research papers in English. Upon graduation, students are more likely to use English to take an exam (TOEFL or IELTS), to search for information, to translate or interpret than to write papers. Hence, the position of EFL writing – there are no exclusively writing courses.

So, I would say that the way L1 and L2 writing is treated at a university level does not merely hint at the university's attempt to define writing (Leki, 2006). It is the other way around: the way writing is defined at an institution (or country) determines the position (and existence) of writing courses at that institution. This is exactly the case presented in Chapter 4 by Kubota and Abels(2006): it took comparing the definitions of ESL literacies with those of foreign languages acquired by American students abroad to see the double standards and discrepancies (e.g. favoring monolingualism and monoculturalism)

Leki, I. (2002). Second language writing. In R. B. Kaplan (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Applied Linguistics (pp. 60-69). New York: Oxford University Press.

Leki, I. (2006). The legacy of first-year compostion. In P.K. Matsuda, C. Ortmeier-Hooper, & X. You (Eds.), The Politics of Second Language Writing: In Search of the Promised Land (pp.59-74). West Lafayette:Parlor Press.

Kubota, R. & Abels, K. (2006). Improving institutional ESL/EAP support for international students: seeking the promised land. In P.K. Matsuda, C. Ortmeier-Hooper, & X. You (Eds.), The Politics of Second Language Writing: In Search of the Promised Land (pp. 75-93). West Lafayette:Parlor Press.

Reflecting on Canagarajah’s Challenge to Teaching Critical Writing

The chapter is very good at helping teachers see their responsibilities and difficulties when adhering to teaching ESL and EFL students critical writing. I agree with all of them, except that am overall picture is that a teacher is an all-powerful agent able to implement any changes he or she wants. Canagarajah chooses not to talk about the limitations and constraints we have as teachers in our contexts. For instance, he keeps repeating that "students are generally taught…", and we should teach them or they have to be taught. However, students have their own beliefs and goals that might contradict with some of our aspirations in terms of teaching them to write critically. In fact, they might not even want to be critical writers and thinkers, they might be taking a course to merely pass a test or to fulfill some requirement. They might resist anything non-traditional you are trying to bring into a classroom. Moreover, if we are to help them write critically, they have to do their part as autonomous learners.

Another factor that is not mentioned in the chapter is the institutional authorities, who might have a different perspective on what to teach and how. In my context, we do not even have English writing courses per se. There is also attitude toward English. Canagarajah mentions only one aspect, i.e. English as imperialistic language.

In no way I am saying that these constraints should be used as excuses for not teaching critical writing, but it is important to be aware of them. In fact, they should be added to the challenge that Canagarajah outlines in his chapter.

 

Canagarajah, A.S. (2002). Understanding critical writing. In Critical academic writing and multilingual students. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1-22.

Pennycook on Plagiarism

Pennycook raises a lot of issues related to the ideas of textual ownership and plagiarism. Here, in the USA, plagiarism is indeed seen as an easily defined term, which Pennycook (1996) argues is far from being the fact, especially from the point of view of people from non-Western culture. I have encountered situations, similar to the one described by Pennycook (1996, p.213) when due to power relations the works to be published had to include the 'famous' names and/or the names of supervisors. I witnessed the hypocrisy of professors when the lectures were chapters from books, and yet students were not allowed to do the same in their final papers. I read books that copied paragraphs and pages from other books (either by the same author or by different ones) and got away with it. What I found more interesting though, was the students' justifications for plagiarizing. I felt very close to some of their comments, even though Russian culture and understanding of the world is quite different from those of Hong Kong.

I agree that when learning a second (third, fourth, etc) language, the author's language may sound much more powerful than the one a language learner uses (Pennycook, 1996, p.223). Paraphrasing might obscure the meaning. I remember writing down phrases, words, sentences, and paragraphs I admired in order to improve my English (German or French). When learning a language, I do not really care about plagiarism. I learn patterns, words and phrases in context. I admit that the next step would be to use those phrases and grammar patterns in a different context, but it all starts with somebody's text. Therefore, the more you learn, the more influences you have from different authors (or maybe just few, depending on student's and teacher's preferences). In the end, once you are proficient in language, you might not even remember where you got ideas and phrases from. In Bakhtin's terms, you have appropriated them; in Western terms, you plagiarize them.

I learned English by repeating, memorizing, and appropriating. Or plagiarizing?

To quote one of the students, "Perhaps, plagiarism is a way of learning" (Pennycoook, 1996, p.225).

Pennycook, A. (1996). Borrowing others' words: Text, ownership, memory, and plagiarism. TESOL Quarterly, 30(2), 201-230.

Ivanic & Camps’ Voices

This is an interesting article, both in the way it is written and in the claims the authors make. What I liked most was that I could not completely agree or disagree with it. Very often I had to say, Yes, but… In the article, voice is defined not in terms of individuality, but rather in terms of person's associating with certain groups and communities (e.g., academic, professional). Voice is seen as not entirely unique; people "draw on the repertoire of voices they have encountered in their experience of participating in genres and discourses" (Ivanic & Camps, 2001, p.6), and the uniqueness is in how they put together these voices. It is like quilting.

I agree that our voice is in any piece of writing, whether we mean it to be there or not, whether we think about it or not, whether we have certain requirements to follow or not. However, I do not think that Ivanic & Camps (2001) provide enough evidence in support of their statement, "All writing contains "voice"" (p.3). They do have markers of ideational, interpersonal, and textual positioning that can be easily found in the Examples they present. Nevertheless, each of the examples can be interpreted in several different ways, depending on what the reader or the authors of the article find more convincing. Ivanic and Camps (2001) not only admit it (the choices can be the result of translating from L1, perceived writing requirements, assignment details, etc.), but they claim it to be insignificant – it does not matter if a writer indeed is militant regarding a certain issue or seeks membership in a certain community. What is important is that the writer is perceived as such because of the lexical and grammatical choices made in the writing. The problem I see here is that every reader will see a different voice in the same writing: what a professor reads in that writing will be different from what a researcher sees there; a monolingual speaker of English will perceive it in a different way than a native speaker of English knowing the writer's L1 or another L2 writer.

I also understand that the authors chose to present their findings in a very particular way of writing. The participants are treated as human beings, not as subjects; and the authors did that deliberately: "out of respect for them as people, we want to examine the extent of their agency in this process of subject-positioning" (Ivanic & Camps, 2001, p.6; text formatting is mine). I think this also shows the intended positioning of the authors themselves towards us, their readers: rather than displaying power by being categorical in their analysis of the data, the authors chose not to provide a variety of possible interpretations for a particular word choice. This shows respect to the readers.

Ivanic, R. & Camps, D. (2001). I am how I sound: Voice as self-representation in L2 writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10, 3 - 33.

Reflections on Connor (2008)

Having read the article, it does make sense why some linguists "refer to contrastive rhetoric as if it has been frozen at the stage of Kaplan's (1966) article" (p. 304). Most of Connor's (2008) article is about numerous things that NEED to be changed, from the definition of rhetoric and the term contrastive rhetoric to the foci of research and research methods. So, it was a little confusing where contrastive / intercultural rhetoric is at present and what is more of Connor's desire for it to be.

Nevertheless, the idea of mapping was very interesting. The interconnectedness and overlapping within and of different frameworks constituting (or influencing) contrastive / intercultural rhetoric reveals complexity and potential for developing contrastive rhetoric. I found the difference between cross-cultural and intercultural dimensions especially interesting, with the former being more abstract (on the level of notions, like politeness strategies, compared in different cultures), and the latter being more individualized (e.g., studying face-to-face encounters between people from different cultures). Cross-cultural studies are presented as valuable achievements of the past, with a cautious hint on the danger of stereotyping; while intercultural studies are seen as more contemporary, especially those focusing on writers' divergence from and / or accommodation to the language of people they interact with. I often find myself accommodating my speaking and writing in English to the language I think is expected from me by the audience. I cannot say that it is completely devoid of my personality and cultural background, but it is definitely not the same language as the one I use with my L1 interlocutors (even if the communication is in English).

Reflection on Casanave’s Chapter 1: Beliefs and Realities

This chapter reflects much of what I learned during my first year in MA / TESOL program: why I teach the way I do and how to make my teaching more effective. Casanave discusses three major areas essential for informed decision making: teaching (and learning) philosophy, knowledge of relevant issues, and awareness of context and constraints. During this year I have often been thinking, speaking, and writing about my language learning and teaching experiences (or literacy autobiography as Casanave puts it) in order to understand my underlying beliefs and assumptions about teaching English. Interestingly, I had a slightly different version each time I wrote my literacy autobiography, depending on what my focus was at that particular time. This exercise did reveal a lot about what I perceived as normal in teaching / learning and what I considered to be important.

As far as the second area is concerned, getting acquainted with the trends in teaching and the latest publications is definitely one of the requirements of graduate study. For instance, while I was teaching writing at a university in Russia, I had no idea about product or process writing, let alone post-process. Simply being aware of the existing theories and research could have made developing our own writing part of the curriculum easier and probably more efficient.

Finally, knowing about the context of teaching and the limitations I have was not actually something I learned in the US. I had been aware of that area since I started teaching. However, what I have learned is how to look at the constraints: not as the closed doors, but rather puzzles to solve. Naturally, often there cannot be perfect solutions that bridge the gap between what you would like to do as a teacher and what you actually can do. That is why I like Casanave's use of the term dilemmas instead of problems. Sometimes, all you can do is make the best of what you have, by making decisions based on all three areas. They might not be perfect, but they will make teaching (and learning) more efficient.

Casanave, C.P. (2004). Controversies in Second Language Writing: Dilemmas and Decisions in Research and Instruction. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.

 

L2 Literacy Autobiography: (Re)Discovering My Beliefs & Experiences in SLL

I grew up in the peripheral part of Russia, where the use of English outside the classroom was limited to the Internet (which became available to me only after I began studying at the university). I started learning English when I was about 7-8 years old, as an extra-curricular class. First, I learned some rhymes and English-Russian poems. Since there were no audiotapes to listen to and imitate, I had to write the English words using Russian letters so that I could memorize the poems. Then, I learned to read (and write) transcribed words along with their translation, and after that began grammar (sentence structure and grammar tenses). The classes that I had in school (grades 4 – 11) consisted mostly of reading (first, sentences; later, texts), translating, retelling / summarizing texts, and asking and answering questions based on sentence structure. We usually did not have fill-in-the-blanks or multiple-choice tests, but accuracy was the major focus. Every grammatical error was corrected (whether spoken or written). We did not learn conversational English. Most of what was spoken had to be written down first. On the contrary, in the English course that I continued attending outside school at that time, there was little emphasis on writing. Speaking – my biggest fear and challenge – was paid more attention to, and for me the progression was from producing simple questions and answers and memorizing sentences and parts of the texts to more extensive conversations and monologues. So, in my case accuracy preceded fluency and gave me sufficient confidence to actually use English.

At the university, during my first two years my English (both written and spoken) was evaluated mostly on the complexity of grammar structures and vocabulary used, as well as grammatical mistakes. The exceptions were classes taught by native speakers of English (we had a couple of Peace Corps volunteers at that time). Their teaching usually constituted some part of the course. During my third through fifth year, the focus was on writing different formats of essays (e.g., for-and-against essays and problem-solution essays) based on newspaper articles pertinent to my major (i.e. US & Canadian Studies). Essay-writing was more process-oriented, involving several stages of writing and several drafts. At the same time, the content was limited to the information in an article(s) and possible foci were discussed in class prior to writing. In fact, content was a by-product of writing. It was essay structure and logical development of ideas that were evaluated. This experience formed most of my original approach to teaching English.