Describe your previous experiences with workshopping. If you have never had a peer workshop

session, discuss teacher feedback (both good and bad--essentially what has worked and what

hasn't worked).

Articulate the difference between editing and revision. At what stage of the writing process do

you edit vs. revise? Is it necessary to do both, and defend your position.

What are some concerns you have about peer workshopping?

Describe at least two suggestions and cite* from Straub's article, explaining the strategy he

suggests and how you see yourself implementing it during our workshops in class.

In the past when giving feedback in an English class it has been more in a form of class discussion. So it has been many minds working together as one almost. My favorite English teacher was the one I had my senior year in high school. Her name was Diana Poteat. She was wacky, that’s no doubt. But unlike most teachers she gave us good feedback! Great actually… In her class we did so many activities where she would try to get us to do more and more. One of our assignments were to write our very own ted talk and then present it to the class. We did research and came together in small groups to talk about what we could do to make our Talks better. I loved how she sort of guided us, not really telling us what to do and not do like most teachers but telling us “I am not sure that, that topic would be the best for you.” Or “I love where you went with this, what do you think about maybe doing this too.” What worked with her workshops that didn’t work in my other classes was that she wasn’t commanding us to do what she wanted us to do, she was guiding us in a way that a friend (who was willing to speak up) would. I also wanted to include not just my relation to English, but also my senior art class. I love art, and I love giving and hearing ideas of what I could do or suggesting what others could do to improve their projects. I considered this a type of workshop because in my sculpture class I would have people ask me all the time “What do you think about this?” “What else do you think I could do?” and I think my favorite suggestion of all time was to a friend of mine Cassidy who was doing a tree as one of her clay projects and she had at first just a simple tree like the trunks and the leaves and I suggested adding roots to the bottom. She took my suggestion and ran with it. Personally I thought her project turned out awesome! All because I wasn’t afraid to suggest something to her.

Summary:

This homework assignment helped me understand that my past experiences in English with writing were not all about what writing is. In the past I was used to cut and dry grammar and what I thought was research. I think that with this response, I realized that the reason why I didn’t think I was a very good writer is because I had never been taught how to be a good writer. And now I feel as though I am learning how to be one. Although I still am not the best at giving feedback, I am trying my best to learn. In the past feedback has been more discussion than statements and comments.