MY Tutor is organized by trait and score point to help students learn the characteristics of effective writing and focus their revisions on areas targeted in the feedback.
How can teachers help students apply MY Tutor feedback proficiently?
Teachers should provide students with a hard copy of MY Tutor feedback, showing them that the feedback is presented in a 3-part format: (1) Revision Goal, (2) Steps, and an (3) Example. Knowing the different components of MY Tutor will help students navigate and apply the advice effectively.
The following example illustrates how MY Tutor patterns out:
Revision Goal: MY Tutor is organized into a series of revision goals (each trait has 2-3 goals). Students can use these goals as a checklist to improve their writing.
Steps: Revision goal statements are followed by a series of detailed steps that guide students to achieve the revision goal.
Example: Finally, students are given a detailed example of how a fictitious applied the strategy and reflected on his/her success.
Revision Goal 1: Create a detailed setting.
1. Highlight, in green, the words that tell when and where your story took place. Add more specific details about where your story took place and when it happened. For example, you can use your five senses to describe the place, the weather, the time of day or year, or the season. You can also describe how the setting looks, feels, smells, or sounds.
Example:
Before Revision: I was not happy the day we arrived at our new home.
Annie’s Strategy: I need to be more specific: Which day did the character arrive at the house? Where is the new house? I also need to describe the sights, sounds, feelings and smells my character experiences on the first day.
After Revision: I was not happy, on that steamy Saturday in August, when we arrived at our new Victorian home in Paradise.
Annie’s Reflection: I replaced “the day” with “that steamy Saturday in August, when…” and “our new home” with “…Victorian home in Paradise,” in order to add more specific and sensory details to the setting.
Depending on the teacher’s objective and direction, students can apply some or all of MY Tutor suggestions. Extensive field testing has shown that some students revise more effectively by studying student examples, while others prefer focusing on the goal statements. Students should be encouraged to experiment with each part of MY Tutor to determine the most helpful strategies for revision.
Here are some fun ways to incorporate the use of MY Tutor into your classroom. Have students select from the menu below. You can easily add more options or point values that may be more appropriate for your class (or have students suggest menu items and point values).
Revision Menu*
1. Express Revision: Review report and identify your weakest domain score. Choose one revision goal in this domain only and complete it.
Suggested Time: 15 minutes
Point Value: 5
2. One and Done Revision: Review report and identify your weakest domain score. Focus on revising your weakest domain only. Complete all revision goals in MY Tutor for that domain.
Suggested Time: 15-20 minutes
Point Value: 10
3. Challenging Twos Revision: Review report and identify your two weakest domain scores. Focus on revising these two domains first. Complete all revision goals in MY Tutor under these 2 domains. If time remains, choose one goal to complete under the remaining domains.
Suggested Time: 25-30 minutes
Point Value: 25
4. Smorgasbord Revision: Review report. Choose one revision goal in each of the domains to complete.
Suggested Time: 30-35 minutes
Point Value: 50
5. Full Revision: Review report. Complete all revision goals in each of the domains.
Suggested Time: 60-minutes
Point Value: 100
*Students should allot time to create revision plans prior to doing the actual revisions. They can do their reflections following their completing their revisions. The revision plan form can be accessed from the student workpage, the student portfolio, and the student score report.
Finally, if we want to target the zone of proximal development for students we need to get them at their independent level, while at the same time providing a reach for them that will help them grow. MY Tutor feedback does this. How? The way in which the feedback is set up provides bite size tasks that support writers (bite size chunks of information is a crucial component of literacy instruction for struggling writers) as well as specific writing models (models are another key component of literacy instruction for struggling writers).
Our examples model before/after writing. In addition our examples do what Gerald Duffy advocates our literacy teachers do: “demystify.” We do this by providing specific think-aloud models of writers which “demystify” the revision process. In addition, the feedback provides very specific, sequential steps that scaffold students to apply the revision to their own writing. Our instruction will guide students to become what Nancy Sommers calls “independent revisers” and it will also lead them to recognize good writing.
Happy writing!