RAFTS and a TIP

Last Friday I did a presentation at Region 20 for their Keystone Conference on college and career readiness. I spoke basically about Bean's "Two Dimensions of a 'Meaning-Constructing' Task," and I personally am finding this approach to designing writing assignments to be the most significant thing I am getting out of reading his book. I can attest to the truth of his contention (from my own assignments and viewing the assignments of others and hearing their frustration with their students' writing) that the design of a writing assignment is a very very important factor in how well students are able to write on that assignment.

Based upon research derived from the National Survey of Student Engagement (the 4 yr. college/university version), three features of well-designed writing assignments were identified:

1. Interactive components
2. A meaning-construction task
3. Clear explanations of writing expectations

On page 99, Bean summarizes the parts of an effective writing assignment handout, but I want to write on the second feature of a well-designed writing assignment--a meaning construction task. RAFTS and a TIP.

Role
Audience
Format
Topic
Strong Verb

and

Task as Intriguing Problem

Bean's contention all along is that interesting problems or questions are like doorways leading students to think critically about subject matter. What RAFTS offers is some guidance and purpose behind pursuing the problem. The role playing may not always work, and certainly it can become stifling or even artificial, but in many ways we are seeking to get students to evolve from who they currently are into what we might call "disciplinary" insiders. If we get them to play the role of an "insider" with insider knowledge, then the hope is that they actually begin to develop that identity and knowledge.

The other thing I like about RAFTS is that they can be fun. I love the Physics writing assignment example on page 112 where the writer takes on the role of a boyfriend (or I guess girlfriend) in an argument with his or her partner about a physic question. It sounds like the disputes that come up on Car Talk sometimes. If student writers enter into the role playing of the assignment, they have a strong purpose and direction for their writing. They understand what they are after in terms finding a thesis with tension. Bean references a great book that might work as a supplemental text in any class asking students to write and argue from source materials called They Say/I Say.

"Many people think X, but I am going to argue Y"
or
"Before reading my paper, my reader will think X. After reading my paper, my reader will think Y."
(Bean 99).

Most students by long practice write to the teacher alone but following a fiction that they really are writing to "the world." It is like they are addressing the sky. RAFTS gets them to think much more rhetorically, and I love them for that. I've used RAFT-like assignments for years, but reading Bean is getting me to think more deeply about crafting this kind of framework for my writing assignments.

In fact, I am crafting a final exam essay assignment for my Summer I class, and I already know that I will RAFTS it.

The other wonderful thing about RAFTS, and my audience at Region 20 all were nodding their head in agreement, is that it is easily translatable to any discipline.

Linked here is the handout I created for this presentation. In addition to a general description of RAFT assignments, I have helpful resources for designing your own RAFT with a TIP writing assignments:
 http://www.lirvin.net/RAFTassignshandout.pdf

Enjoy!

First Response to Engaging Ideas

I approach the Bean book as a teacher of developmental mathematics and the two part course Fundamentals of Mathematics I and II for Elementary Teachers.   

I enjoyed reading Beans’s description of the writing process as a tool for thinking.   He writes that “writers produce multiple drafts because the act of writing is itself an act of problem solving.”   This has definitely been my experience with writing, and it’s nice to hear someone articulate it so well.    It’s taken me some time to write this, but I feel that I have begun thinking through some issues involved in applying writing to mathematics classes. 

Mathematicians create and write proofs.  This is much like the writing process described by Bean.   Prior to writing a proof, the mathematician must come up with a question, explore and come up with a proposed answer to the question.  They need to have an idea on how to logically show that this is true.  In the process of writing down this idea, they may find that the logic does not hold.  They may find that there is a more clever way to obtain the proof or just a more concise way to get through parts of the logic.  It is even possible to end up disproving your initial hunch.   Mathematics differ from other disciplines in that no one attempts to disprove what already has been proved.   This is because mathematics does not try to understand the world, but merely tries to expand upon something human made.    

The classes that I teach do not ask students to write proofs.  They do ask students to communicate their reasoning.  This is nearly always done through a series of steps using mathematical symbols.  Unfortunately students tend to memorize procedures rather than trying to make sense of them.  Students generally do not appreciate alternative procedures, nor do they attempt to devise their own.  This not only turns mathematics into a excruciatingly dull subject; it also impedes their ability to progress in mathematics.

I believe that writing can help students make sense of mathematics. The text that we use for our teacher classes quotes Einstein as saying  “a description in plain language is a criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.”  I believe that this is the case, but I am not sure how to get my students to buy into it.    

Two frustrations in assigning writing:

  

   1) Valuing writing in math class

Students simply see any writing in mathematics class as a needless and annoying diversion from the bottom line of applying a procedure to obtain the correct answer.  Something as simple as using a complete sentence for the answer to a word problem is frequently ignored.   Without the sentence, it is difficult to determine whether the student understood the question.  The idea of asking my developmental students to write a complete explanation of how they solved a problem, using Polya steps for example, seems daunting.

My students who plan to be elementary school teachers are more open to writing.  They realize that they need to work on communication.   Unfortunately, what they feel they need to communicate is a simple way for children to perform procedures.  

   2) Challenging students to get beyond procedures

As much as teachers try to emphasize that mathematics should “make sense” and the student’s job is to play around and struggle with it until it makes sense to them, most students resist this.  A major theme of our mathematics for teachers course is the difference between the “how” and the “why”.  Nevertheless, at final exam time many students persist in stating the steps of an algorithm rather than providing meaning to those steps.  In a sense they are giving me the “And Then”  when I have asked for some critical thought.   

The assignments and tests that we typically employ in developmental mathematics classes often allow students to get by largely through memorizing procedures.  I plan to focus on one developmental course this summer.  I think that I can come up with assignments that fit most of Bean’s criteria.  What I hope to get from the book are ways to communicate to students what I am expecting of them and a means to provide constructive feedback.   Although I am convinced that some of students’ difficulty comes from a minimalist approach to studying, I think Bean is correct that other factors also come into play.  I would like to try to identify what these factors are in mathematics writing.   I hope to also apply this to the writing assignments that I already use in my teacher courses.

Critical Thinking is higher order thinking. I didn't know I did it until a neurologist pronounced me "high-functioning." I had no idea that less thinking was so appealing for others until I began teaching. I just thought people were a bit lazy.

I know that most of my students do not get enough practice in problem solving at the higher levels.  Routinization and standardization distill education into a list of facts unreflected upon, as well as encouraging students to accept others' assertions without question. And often students are not pushed,, so I push.

What have my assignments provided for my students? I ask for application of a method of understanding, beginning with knowing the nuances of definition (course terms) and finding examples in the text about which we may discuss attached ideas.  I require that they use higher order thinking by prescribing some of the writing assignment, then allowing the student to choose the focus.  Without using and applying correctly the course terms, the initial assessment always requires that the professional language of the course must be included. in future revisions.

Tutors tell me that my assignments are difficult, but I think that some difficulty is really good.  It sets my courses apart in that I really want thinking to be shared.

For Freshman Comp I, I like to start with a paragraph which asks the reader to consider what the the writer is saying.  Sometimes I use a quotation from a philosopher considering the human condition. What does it mean? What is fact, assumption, unknown to the reader?  What methods might be used to open the door to understanding (and moving on to the next step)? This part becomes quite Socratic, and seems to appeal to students: question authority, perspective, bias, and apply self-reflective strategies. I rarely correct their observations, only in fact, when it's really off the mark. Once we work this as individuals, then I set up groups.  I ask that each group member speak up and share what they think.  I have them draw numbers to set up an order, and I think that this encourages "shy" folks --

For my humanities class, I ask students to consider six themes throughout the American Minorities course: individualism, civic responsibility, spirituality, community, family, and (I can't remember -- brain vacation). Each of these ideas allows them to focus when they write in their journals -- each week  they have to write at least 500 words about what we are learning, discussing, what has blown their minds.  Their reflections are quite intriguing.

I want to know what my students believe, practice in terms of logic. And this is where it gets interesting sometimes. As Bean says, "When students learn to wrestle with questions about purpose, audience, and genre, they develop a conceptual view of writing that has lifelong usefulness in any communicative context" (42). I do make them wrestle, ask questions, seek a tutor, converse about the assignment. And wrestle again. These methods prepared me well for transfer when I was an undergraduate, and I want to share that experience with my students.

Critical thinking is a process by which one may discern the quality of thought through discovery.  The discovery part is difficult -- it means that one must ask precise questions, discover problems, assess information, interpret (perhaps using abstract ideas), reasoning and testing (to overcome biases because we're ego- and socio-centric).

Metacognition: yes.  I love thinking about thinking, but labor-intensive describes this part of my teaching. I am enjoying Bean, and I'm rethinking a lot of what I've been doing.  I am also considering whether I've worked out the assignments well enough, but I know that if I continue to show students how to do this while we're in class together, more of them adapt and apply the model in their writing for our course.