Hi LMWP Fellows,
As you respond to each teaching demonstration, please tell each presenter:
- What they did well
- What were the most significant “take aways” or “a ha moments” for you
- How you might use something from the demo in your own teaching context next year
- How they might revise if they were to give the demo at a conference or school PD opportunity.
Lindsay Maddox Ellis 
Lindsay, this was tremendously useful for me. I had never really thought about the way traditional thesis-first essay structures force a particular type of ungenerous thinking in students, a practice which has serious, concerning implications for lifelong learners. There’s been a gap in my AP Lang students’ research writing process, and I am very excited to have them write a thesis-last processing sort of piece first. Thank you! Well done!
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Lindsay,
Thank you for presenting with Lynn and I! I appreciated your different examples of the confirmation bias in the real world. The way you presented this and connected it to the way students sometimes (okay, often) approach their research papers was thought-provoking. I would like to discuss this with my students next semester as they think about finding sources for their I-Search papers. Rather than seek information that confirms what the writer already knows/thinks, they need to be attentive to other perspectives that may challenge their own. The confirmation bias gives me language to explain the way our brain works.
The thesis-first/thesis-last activity really stretched me. One suggestion might be to have a model prepared to show an audience before sending them off to write their own. Overall, you left me with lots of great question to ponder! Thank you!
Michelle
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Lindsey,
Your part of the presentation made me think about revision in an entirely new way: The way the format influences your thinking.
Thanks,
Maria
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Lindsay,
I am amazed at your ability to make me think and learn in new ways. You seem to have the ability to help me frame my messy thinking in a freshly organized way. Our spontaneous discussion was even better than yesterday’s, which I didn’t think was possible. Thank you for your work with research and also for sharing your insights.
The most significant take away was the idea of writing a thesis last essay. I am often frustrated when students write a claim without having done any research; however, our discussion today made me realize that type of thinking is what we typically set up in our classrooms. I also love the idea of placing more value on the “pre-writing” and realized the term itself might diminish what it actually is. Lynn’s suggestion to call it “invention writing” is something I plan to employ in my classroom.
I plan to have students complete a thesis last draft first and then write a thesis first draft.
It was brilliant, but as you identified, it might be good to include time for discussion.
Thank you!
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Lindsay,
Because the two presenters before you were each research and activity-heavy, respectively. I thought it felt very organic to have you come in last, mingling both research AND activity. I will say that I was initially quite confused as to the protocol for the pro/con format, and I only really wrapped my head around it once I saw WHAT you were using it to illustrate. (Ironically, that was sort of thesis-second, and my brain wanted thesis-first!) When I got there it was very rewarding, but it did take some wandering. So perhaps doing an example together would be warranted. Overall though I had some great takeaways on the confirmation bias and just how widely applicable revision is! Thank you!
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Lindsay,
I wish I had been here to experience your demo. I am learning volumes from you and your teaching style– a very nice blend of do and discuss and learn. Thank you!
Jen
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Lindsey,
I loved that you addressed confirmation bias. This is a huge issue considering people have much more say with regard to the information they seek and accept and the information they choose to ignore. Politically speaking, a number of folks seem to live solely in these echo chambers.
In terms of confirmation bias in student writing and research, I wonder how we sometimes unintentionally push our students into this kind of thinking. Speaking from personal experience, I remember times I had a research paper to write in the midst of a mountain of reading and writing from other courses, and I set out to skim and scan research to find support for claims I developed prior to doing any research on the subject. How do we create an environment where students do not feel the pressure to engage in this type of shallow reading?
Denis
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Lindsay,
I loved that you addressed confirmation bias. This is a huge issue considering people have much more say with regard to the information they seek and accept and the information they choose to ignore. Politically speaking, a number of folks seem to live solely in these echo chambers.
In terms of confirmation bias in student writing and research, I wonder how we sometimes unintentionally push our students into this kind of thinking. Speaking from personal experience, I remember times I had a research paper to write in the midst of a mountain of reading and writing from other courses, and I set out to skim and scan research to find support for claims I developed prior to doing any research on the subject. How do we create an environment where students do not feel the pressure to engage in this type of shallow reading?
Denis
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Lindsay,
I enjoyed the teaching demonstration that your group presented. I was especially interested in the activity in which we worked to write a piece in the “thesis last” format. Initially, the format was confusing for me because I am accustomed to the opposite type of structure. I was wondering how this would be applied in my fifth grade classroom, but I had an “a ha” moment when you talked about having writers do a draft first in one format and writing the final piece in another format. I would love to try this with my students when we are researching for an opinion piece. Using this format allows the researcher/writer to actually form his or her opinion based on the information gathered rather than gathering information to support the opinion. I am excited to try this in my classroom next year.
If I were a participant in a conference session or school professional development session on this topic, I think it would be valuable to practice with information on a topic about which I am less likely to have an opinion formulated. That would make it easier to first write in a thesis-last format.
Thank you.
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Lindsey:
I don’t even know where to start. We’ve talked often about your particular contribution to the Teaching Demonstration Presentation, and I can’t stop thinking about it. There is definitely a deeply rooted issue related to your observations, hypotheses, and possibly solutions, and I want to investigate them all! The way you presented the information to the group, however, rallied up my cluttered thoughts on the matter, and I so appreciate the new structure.
In regards to that which stands out the most to me after watching your portion of the presentation, I would say your assignment idea shines the brightest. I’m sure we’ll discuss this in full at a later date, but WE NEED to advocate for this assignment at GVSU. I wouldn’t say your idea was new to me at the time of your presentation, but watching the reactions among my colleagues was eye-opening and reaffirming in my belief that your assignment COULD WORK for A) valuing the writing process in a system students are used to (i.e. grades and credit), B) modeling revision at its most intended form, and C) constructing a tangible form of critical thinking, which is so important for college students to have…especially if the K-12 standardized testing regimen makes that difficult to teach and learn.
Can we work on turning this into a presentation for a conference? I’d like to try this out with the Writing Center…in some way or another. I can’t quite see how it would work in this context (unless we advocate for the consultants to suggest this model in the WRT 150/098 contexts), but I think it could become a presentation worth giving.
Overall…I want to say a big thank you for choosing this topic. It means a lot to me. (I’m going to say this to all of your co-presenters as well…but that doesn’t make it any less genuine).
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Lindsay, your presentation inspired me and gave words and voice to some of the thoughts I have been wrestling with lately. Working on my thesis, I have been struggling to come up with the structure and perform this large body of research, all before beginning to write. During your presentation, I had one of those aha moments, where I realized that I can write my first draft starting with a question and as a journey to the answer. For whatever reason, this thought helped make sense of all of the advice and research methodology I have read over the last year. I feel re-energized and a new sense of direction.
In terms of my students, I have been working with an inquiry format for a while, focusing on question formation rather than a thesis. I loved the idea of having a second draft because typically we stick with what would be a first draft in your presentation. This way of writing and researching is much more conducive to long term work and natural curiosity. I will most definitely incorporate this into my teaching and am considering adding the second draft to my current question centered research essay assignment.
My only bit of feedback would be that this lesson was definitely something that deserved more than 30 minutes. The 30 minutes did not quite do it justice, and it would have been wonderful to move more slowly through some of these ideas and let them marinate.
Thank you for sharing your ideas, and I am excited to hear more.
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Lindsey,
I like working backwards. I like that you said it was ok to work backwards. You wrestle with real problems and you never stop learning. It showed in your demonstration. I like that you noticed that I didn’t understand something and you asked me if I need help. Noticing is your gift.
My take-away from you was that working backwards gives more clarity.
I can only think that with the graphic organizer that you are talking about, your lesson would have been more clear for me. If you need guinea pigs for your ideas, the students at the Cook Library Center may be able to assist!
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Lindsay,
Thanks for being an excellent teammate! I enjoyed getting to know you better and spending time preparing. Thank you for making extra efforts to meet before and during the ISI to confer and blend our content and ideas. I appreciated your guidance and willingness to be flexible with your portion of the demo. You have a relaxed and thoughtful manner of facilitating that makes people comfortable to think and take risks. This is evidenced in the amazingly rich and engaged discussion that happened during your portion of the presentation. I admire how you can take great amounts of data and research and boil it down (like maple syrup) to be poignant and powerful for your audience. You model excellent teaching and mentoring. As for the final portion, I loved being a “student” and experiencing your activity first-hand. It helped me to actually do it and not just hear about it. It has really impacted my thinking and how I can alter (revise, ha ha!) the creation of my assignments to enable my students to create more thoughtful, authentic exploratory writing experiences. Way to go!
Thanks for all your hard work!
Lynn
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Lindsay, thank you for your enlightening presentation piece on confirmation bias. It is something I’ve sensed on many occasions but had no name for. I’m pleased to now be able to clearly describe or name it when I see it! I also greatly appreciated the opportunity to write in both thesis-last and thesis-first structures. When I was completing my GVSU grad project a year and a half ago, the thesis-first structure I was required to follow felt entirely backward, forced, and inauthentic right from the start. It was not what I thought the thesis experience would be. I wanted to enjoy the process of researching and discovering and synthesizing new, exciting information about a topic I was passionate about until I naturally drew a conclusion. I couldn’t believe that ,instead, I had to come up with an unresearched thesis statement right off the bat, within a matter of a few days, in order to complete an assignment for a professor. I knew I could change my topic or my thesis if I really wanted to, but redoing all of my hard work was too discouraging to think about. Instead, I swiftly invented what I thought might be a reasonable solution to my initial question, researched, wrote, researched, wrote, researched, wrote while constantly going back to revise my initial thesis until it fit all that I was learning. The inauthentic process of manipulating research and thoughts and conclusions to fit a prescribed mold was confusing and frustrating with many tears shed.
I loved the discussions that resulted from your presentation which allowed teachers to be THINKERS–Why do we do what we do? What makes sense for our teaching of writing? What makes sense for our student writers? I want to teach my students to THINK about the genre, audience, and purpose of their writing and then reflect upon what organizational structure MAKES SENSE and will be helpful for their particular piece.
When presenting in the future, projecting your reflection prompt(s) on the screen and preparing the thesis-first/thesis-last outlines as a double-sided handout might be helpful to fellows/audience members from a logistics standpoint.
Thank you for your thought-provoking presentation!
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Lindsay,
I really appreciated your close look at confirmation bias. From my experience, it is the greatest challenge for writers who are developing their critical thinking skills. (It’s also a challenge for many news commentators and politicians, particularly those who don’t know the difference between assertion and evidence, but that’s another topic for discussion.) I will definitely incorporate your thesis first vs. thesis last activity in my writing instruction to help students see and feel the difference between asserting their preconceived opinion and exploring a thoughtful question. Thank you!
Mary
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