Visualizing Revision: Re-Mediating Self-Evaluation via Between-Drafts Concept Mapping

• In Event: 14.042 - Writing and Literacies in New Learning Environments

Abstract

When students write and revise, their processes are shaped in part by the affordances of their chosen writing platform. As computers were integrated into classrooms, researchers have investigated the effects of word processors on these processes (Dalton & Hannafin, 1978; Dybdahl, Shaw, & Blahous, 1997; Goldberg, Russell, & Cook, 2003). While word processing was anticipated to help students identify and address higher-level revision concerns, studies have shown that students using word processors attend primarily to surface features (MacArthur, 2006). Thus, the search continues for digital platforms and tools which could help students break through the superficial revision barrier by supporting the complex cognitive and metacognitive processes involved in writing evaluation and revision.

In this paper we describe findings that came out of an intervention involving InfoWriter, a tool designed specifically to support writing evaluation and revision by supporting multimodal representation, genre and metacognitive awareness, and active self-assessment (Kalantzis & Cope, 2012). Specifically, the intervention and designed tool scaffolded between-draft evaluation and revision by allowing students to highlight portions of their text and identify them as different elements of information writing as described in the US Common Core State Standards. Upon identification, each highlighted portion became a repositionable, connectable, color-coded node in a concept-map representation of their text.

Over 100 students at three middle schools in the Midwest participated in the intervention in the fall of 2013. During six days,of intervention-related activities, as participant observers (Spradley, 1980) we conducted semi-structured interviews (Weiss, 1994; Wolcott, 2005) with 23 students at two of the three middle schools. We maintained field journals that included informal conversations with students, teachers and fellow researchers (Emerson, 1995), and we took step-by-step screen captures of student-generated maps.

We employed an iterative analytical approach (Anfara, Brown, & Mangione, 2002) that involved coding elements in each text draft, created map, fieldnote, and interview transcript; analyzing each in relation to the others; and creating analytical memos based on that analysis. We grouped and mapped the base codes to build themes around the processes of rereading, evaluating, identifying portions of text to revise, and revising (Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

Our findings suggest that between-drafts mapping within the intervention scaffolded students re-reading of their own text, enabling them to re-mediate their text, re-presenting their writing. Students used the mapping tool to parse elements of their draft in ways that demonstrated that the tool supported self-evaluation of their texts likely to support in-depth revision. Creating a map of their text supported students in noticing missing elements and also afforded them the opportunity to make comments about revision targets. Student facility in identifying areas for revision suggests that mapping their text between drafts supported student understanding of how evidence and argument fit together.

While participants followed previously observed patterns and did not make substantive revisions in their second drafts (Beason, 1993; Cho & MacArthur, 2010; Flower, et al, 1986), supporting the self-evaluation of texts brings us a half-step closer to designs which support meaningful revision that has eluded researchers and educators throughout the digital era.

Authors

• Justin Olmanson, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

• Katrina Kennett, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Sarah J. McCarthey, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign