Overall I think the idea behind these partnerships with the West High students was a great way to try and advance the writing of both ATTW students and the students at West High. Unfortunately I did not have the success that I was hoping for with this partnership. The initial interaction between my partner and I was pretty good. When we exchanged journal entries in hard-copy formats, I seemed to be able to connect with my partner on a more detailed level. While we exchanged journal entries and constructive advice, my partner included all the required entries and even gave me some feedback and asked questions about my own writing. It seemed to be a really helpful and enjoyable activity between my partner and me.
Things began to change as soon as we began exchanging thing electronically. I received the first draft of my partner’s one page autobiography, and that was the last I have heard from her. After receiving her first draft, I also sent my one page memoir to her along with comments and suggestions that I made on her first draft. Like I said, this was the extent of our partnership. I began to wonder what may have caused our partnership to have sort of dwindled down. I am still not sure as to what may have happened, since I have still not heard anything, even after I have sent my partner a second draft of my essay and also my audio one page memoir. I think it would have been a great experience for both my partner and I if our exchanges would have been more frequent.
Hi, Keeley!
ReplyDeleteI find your post very interesting. Sometimes, we feel more compelled to write and comment when we use our own handwriting. I talk for myself when I say that the feeling of having a piece of paper in my hands makes me feel so complete: even when I write a paper or a one-pager, it is not until I print it off that I feel that I'm 'done' with it! It is evident that the Tech-factor really affected your relationship between you and your partner.
-Luis
I think we had very similar experiences, Keeley. It's strange that when we switched to email that things fell apart. I would have expected that to make things easier, making the exchange of information directly between us and our students. I would have liked to receive some sort of closing email from my student...but I never received anything either after the first draft of his memoir. Oh well...
ReplyDeleteI had a similar experience with my own partner. It's odd that in our technology-driven world, sometimes good ole letter writing is still the best way to go.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to say why the exchanges dwindled. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing. It's a possibility that when the students no longer had to physically turn something in to be handed back to us that it was just easier to neglect. Maybe your partner would have felt more compelled to turn the assignment in if she had to put a hard copy in the folder like she did with the journal entries.
ReplyDeleteMy experience was similar, but as I said in my blog, I'm not opposed to the partnership idea just because of this one experience. It sounds like some people have had really good experiences, so that makes it worth it.
I had almost the exact same experience. I got all of the responses on hard copy, and he did give me some good information. But like you, once we started exchanging electronically, the only thing I got from him was his first draft and a couple comments on my first draft. It was discouraging to see our partnership fizzle.
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