Essay Development
A 3 Week Process
In this Unit, we went throught the process of writing our 1st essay of the semester.
Self Reflection
Unit 1 Reflection: I believe that Unit 1 was a good refresher for the Essay Writing process. As a native speaker, I tend to write a lot, and in the past my essays have been rather long. This time, I wanted to write a short but very informative essay that didn't dance around the subject like I tend to do. This time I felt like I improved my abilty to be precise and exact in what I wanted to say.
Problem Statement
I wish to learn more about intermediate-advanced ESL learners that lack motivation when completing creative writing activities because I want know how implementation of creative writing activties through reciprocal teaching and peer feedback improves ESL learners' poetic and rhyming abilities in order to help ESL teachers apply diverese writing activities in ESL classrooms where learners are stuck with basic writing abilities and lack the motivation to go beyond their creative comfort zone.
Thesis Statement and Skeleton Outline
Thesis statement
Therefore, ESL teachers whose students struggle with motivation when completing creative writing activities should integrate peer feedback into poetic writing activities because students can practice new vocabulary, connect on an emotional level, and gain perspective on (or awareness of) their own ability to write a text in the L2
Skeleton Outline
1. students can practice new vocabulary
- Unique culture perspective
- Increased writing skills
- Able to describe the world around them to their classmates.
“Third, learners are armed with “new” tools they can make use of for more expressiveness or rhetorical purposes in daily communication situations.”
“Using postcolonial writing strategies, students easily recognize subjects, societal issues, cultural concepts, or character types that are known to their sociocultural surroundings. Given the emphasis on bilingual creativity, poetry as a product of learning and creative processes, represents many of the students' localized cultures and beliefs.”
2. connect on an emotional level
- Authentic text
- Motivation increased.
- Emotional connection with classmates
https://www.academypublication.com/issues2/tpls/vol10/01/12.pdf
“Poetry, this very authentic and genuine text, can increase learner motivation. It brings joy, engagement and involvement all together to the classroom. In order to achieve good results, poems need to be appropriate in terms of language complexity, content familiarity, figurative language and the length.”
3. gain perspective on (or awareness of) their own ability to write a text in the L2
- good class environment
- constructive critisism is good on both sides, to give and to get
- identify problems and how to work on them, providing specific problems to focus on
https://www.lrdc.pitt.edu/schunn/papers/The%20Learning%20Sci_for_EFL_Students_Schunn_Wu_2019.pdf
“Peer review is a reciprocal process in which students learn from both providing and receiving feedback. Building upon Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, it can be expected that students will improve their writing competence during peer feedback through assisted practice within their ZPD. In a given peer feedback task， because of the competence performance gap all students whether of relatively higher or lower proficiency within the class, can identify some problems and provide valuable feedback.”
“During peer review, teachers should consider how to motivate students to engage with peer feedback, direct students’ attention to feedback content ( Yu ＆ Hu，2016; Wu，2019) ，and create “an atmosphere of mutual respect in which feedback is allowed to flow freely from writer to reader and vice versa”( de Guerrero ＆ Villamil，2000: 55)”
First Draft
Poets Who Don’t Even Know It: Peer Feedback as An Aide In ESL Creative Writing.
By Max Koprulu Hernandez
“There is nothing so hollow as pens, There is nothing so gloomy as ink, When a man is obliged to think of something, And doesn't know what to think” (Wells, 1921). Lack of motivation when completing creative writing activities limits students’ perceptions of the English language and diminishes their possible learning experience. Students do not understand how to approach creative writing and are equally lost when trying to use creative writing to communicate. They struggle with motivation when attempting creative writing activities. ESL students tend to view creative writing such as poetry as something too difficult to do, and something they are not likely to use often. Therefore, ESL teachers whose students struggle with motivation when completing creative writing activities should integrate peer feedback into poetic writing activities because students can practice new vocabulary, connect on an emotional level, and gain perspective on (or awareness of) their own ability to write a text in the L2.
Creative writing introduces students to new vocabulary they can use to communicate. When students read these descriptive texts, they begin to integrate the vocabulary and phrases into their own writing and everyday expression (Dieng, 2021). Their writing improves and the students are now aware of words they may not have heard of if they had not been exposed to the creative writing. Exposure to new vocabulary gives students the ability to communicate with the world around them, such as their classmates, in a new way that integrates their own perceptions and beliefs of the world (Setia Sari et al., 2022). Through learning new vocabulary that is not common in typical ESL texts, students gain a sociocultural awareness that allows them to communicate both in writing and in speaking with their peers. Therefore, breaking down mental barriers and inspiring the pursuit of education in ESL students. Communication is key to motivation and inspiration in many writing abilities.
Creative writing allows students to connect on an emotional level. Authentic texts bring out emotion and student involvement, causing them to become engaged in the material as well as their personal emotions in relation to the poetry (Aladini & Farahbod, 2019). Authentic texts like genuine poetry written by English speaking authors, provide an increased personal connection for the students. In turn, students are motivated to share their emotions about the poetry with their classmates. Also, by giving feedback on their emotional interpretations of the text, students’ emotional understanding of each other improves and motivates them to write their own poetry. Furthermore, feedback serves purposes of teambuilding and emotional development, creating emotional bonds within students that motivates them to continue writing.
Peer feedback in creative writing gives students a new perspective on their own ability. Students learn by giving and receiving feedback to each other, and teachers should foster that ability in students by teaching them how to give constructive feedback (Yong & Schunn, 2017). Through constructive peer feedback developed in the classroom, students’ creative writing skill gives students the opportunity to motivate each other. The social aspects of peer feedback allows students to help each other learn as well as socialize about a topic, such as emotions or perspectives, that they may not often talk about. In addition, Constructive feedback from students who give their own perspectives motivates other students and intimidates them less than feedback from a teacher. Peer feedback motivates students to improve their writing and find passion in creative writing activities.
Peer feedback creates new educational opportunities for students to explore. Through the discovery of new vocabulary, students connect emotionally with the poetry they read and give each other invaluable feedback that helps each students become motivated to improve. By connecting with the poetry, students also connect with each other, and bring their interpretations and emotions to their own creative writing. Motivating students to enjoy creative writing activities creates a sense of emotional depth in the ESL classroom, by using authentic texts that have more emotional nuance than typical ESL practice texts. Poetry as creative writing allows students to explore English in a personal and emotional way and it motivates them to pursue English Language learning in new ways. Poetry is unique in that every culture has some form of it. It is a historical lifeblood that captures very human feelings in a way that allows the reader of the poetry to feel or understand the emotions with which it was written. If this can be implemented into ESL classrooms, it could bring untold possibilities for cross cultural exchange.
References
Aladini, F., & Farahbod, F. (2019). Using a Unique and Long Forgotten Authentic Material in the EFL/ESL Classroom: Poetry. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 10(1), 83. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1001.12
Dieng, M. (2021). Developing Poetic Writing Skills: A Teaching Technique for Advanced ESL/EFL Learners. Education, Society and Human Studies, 3(1), p1. https://doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v3n1p1
Setia Sari, W., Tambunan, A., Putri, C. A., & Hasibuan, J. R. (2022). Fostering Bilingual Creativity in English Poetry Classroom: A Postcolonial Creative Writing Strategy. Lingua Didaktika: Jurnal Bahasa Dan Pembelajaran Bahasa, 16(2), 193. https://doi.org/10.24036/ld.v16i2.120365
Wells, A. R. (1921). The Collected Poems of Amos R. Wells [Electronic Archive]. Leopold Classic Library. https://archive.org/stream/collectedpoemsa00wellgoog/collectedpoemsa00wellgoog_djvu .txt
Yong, W., & Schunn, C. D. (2017). The Learning Science of Multi － Peer Feedback for EFL Students. 外语电化教学. https://www.lrdc.pitt.edu/schunn/papers/The%20Learning%20Sci_for_EFL_Students_Sc hunn_Wu_2019.pdf