Study finds that writing about worries before an exam results in better performance

A recent University of Chicago study found that students who write for 10 minutes before a test decrease the brainpower they are using to be anxious and thus increase the brainpower they are using on the test material. Students in the study who wrote about the anxiety they were experiencing before an exam scored significantly higher on a sample exam than students who did not write about their anxiety.

"Writing about your worries for 10 minutes before an upcoming exam leveled the playing field such that those students who usually get most anxious during exams were able to overcome their fears and perform up to their potential," according to primary investigator and University of Chicago professor of psychology Sian Beilock.

Beilock found that students performed better on the test when they wrote specifically about the test anxiety itself. Beilock suggests that these findings are useful for particularly anxious students who should consider writing for 10 minutes about their anxiety before a class in whcih they must write an exam. Even if instructors do not invite students to write about their anxiety before an in class exam they might consider suggesting that particularly anxious writers spend ten minutes writing about their anxiety before beginning an essay, homework assignment, or test.

The full article can be found here:

Writing about worries eases anxiety and improves test performance

Students can combat test anxiety and improve performance by writing about their worries immediately before the exam begins, according to a University of Chicago study published Friday in the journal Science.

Academic Writing Resources for SNL Students

As the winter quarter gets into full gear, feel free to share these writing-related resources with SNL students:

SNL's Writing Guide: http://snl.depaul.edu/writing/index.html

DePaul University Writing Center's Resources for Writers: http://condor.depaul.edu/writing/writers/writers_index.html

DePaul University Writing Center Blog: http://depaulucwbl.wordpress.com/

Purdue's Online Writing Lab (OWL): http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

Diana Hacker's A Writer's Reference Website: http://www.dianahacker.com/writersref/

Click here for even more resources on the SNL Writing Guide's "Writing Help" page.

Writing Center Presentations, Suburban Campus Writing Groups, and Fishbowls

The Center for Writing-based Learning would like to remind you to schedule your informational presentations for Winter 2011. Presentations are a great way to get your students excited about utilizing the Writing Center’s services at your campus or online.

To schedule your presentation at the Loop or Lincoln Park campuses, visit http://condor.depaul.edu/writing/instructors/invite.html.

To schedule a presentation at one of the suburban campuses, please email Tom McNamara at tmcnamar@depaul.edu.

Presentations are about fifteen minutes in length and will include a demonstration of our online scheduling service as well as a quick tour of the resources available to students on our website. A writing center consultant who works at your campus will deliver the presentation and take any questions from both the students and you. Furthermore, the consultant can also lead a discussion about how the Writing Center can aid your students as they tackle work specifically for your course.

Please note that the Suburban Campus Writing Groups begin Saturday, Jan. 15th at the Naperville, Oak Forest, and O’Hare campuses at 10 am, a valuable resource for students who live in the suburbs. Meeting on Saturdays throughout the term, these groups allow students to work on their writing in an atmosphere that promotes the sort of collaborative and active learning valued by SNL. Most importantly, the groups allow students to practice reading and responding to the texts of others, allowing them to develop critical reading skills that they can utilize when assessing their own texts. Also, our Lincoln Park and Loop Writing Centers open on January 10, and students are welcome to schedule one-on-one and online appointments.

Finally, please consider scheduling a Fishbowl Workshop for your class. Fishbowl Workshops allow instructors to invite representatives from the Writing Center to his or her class to model effective peer response for in-class writing workshops. During a Fishbowl Workshop, tutors engage students in providing effective response and can even help facilitate peer review sessions. To schedule your Fishbowl, visit http://condor.depaul.edu/writing/what/SCWG/fishbowl.html.

Should you have any questions, please feel free to email Tom McNamara (tmcnamar@depaul.edu) or consult the Writing Group page on the Writing Center website (depaul.edu/writing). Please encourage your students to use their services!

A Writer's Reference - New Edition of Writing Handbook for Students

For many years, the required text for SNL's Academic Writing for Adults course has been Diana Hacker's A Writer's Reference. After taking the course, many students have said that they will never sell this book back to the bookstore...a few students have admitted that they keep it on top of their desk at work! A wealth of information and examples related to thesis statements, organization, citation styles, formatting, grammar, and mechanics makes this textbook useful for students at any level, in any course, not just students taking their first (or second, or third) college writing course.

The publisher, Bedford/St. Martin, has just released the seventh edition of A Writer's Reference with a new co-author, Nancy Sommers. This edition has new sections on how to interpret written feedback from instructors and how to prepare a portfolio. If you're interested in checking it out, feel free to pick up a copy from Katie Wozniak or order a free desk copy from the publisher here.

Stealing some Reflection practices from Service Learning

Whether or not you are engaged in service learning as a college instructor, you probably are engaged in reflection. Many of us use Portfolios in our courses, and one of the great benefits of having students complete Portfolios is the metacognitive work that they do in gathering and comprehending the work they have done in our classes.

As we continue to move toward the use of Portfolios/ePortfolios at SNL it might be useful to borrow some reflection practices that are also put to use in the realm of service learning. Below, I borrow from a PowerPoint presentation designed by Jeffrey Howard, Assistant Director for Faculty Development at DePaul's Steans Center for Community-based Service Learning.

Reflection is a deep, intentional process of examining, analyzing, and interpreting experience so as to learn from it. However, "reflection" often holds pejorative implications for students and teachers. Students have sometimes been known to "shut down" when asked to "reflect" again. So, as instructors we must show them how to reflect. Sometimes, this means not using the r-word.

Jeffrey Howard has a wonderful word for what we attempt to learn through reflection, and that word is "wonderment." Good reflection leads to students who wonder. Reflection is a learning strategy that grows out of our learning objectives and learning assessment methods. Reflection is more than just "for reflection's sake."

To get to this state of "wonderment" Jeffrey Howard suggests these three components of reflection:

1. Stimulus (e.g., journal question, photograph, quote, case study, poem, article, structured classroom activity, service learning activity, students' written work)
2. Vehicle (journal, interview, paper, whole class or small group discussion, student presentations, portfolio)
3. Feedback

While these may seem obvious to us, it can serve as a good reminder to be purposeful about reflection with students. The quality of the stimulus, vehicle, and feedback often lead directly to the amount of learning that a student gleans from the reflection process, and from the course.

In A Practitioner's Guide to Reflection in Service-Learning: Student Voices and Reflections, (1996) Janet Eyler, Dwight Giles, and Angela Schmiede suggest five Principles of Good Reflection Practice, which I have amended from Service Learning to general instruction.

1. It must be continuous. So often we only build reflection into our courses at the end. However, as the SNL writing faculty discussed regarding Portfolios in our October meeting, the best kind is both formative and summative. The best reflection happens before, during, and after the activities of a course.
2. It must be connected. How are your assignments (reflection or otherwise) connected to the competencies offered in your course?
3. It must be challenging. Rather than a no-brainer, reflection should encourage critical thinking and analysis that produces new understanding/perspectives and raises new questions.
4. It must be contextualized. Consider who is doing the reflecting. How much work have they already done in the course? What level are students at as writers?
5. It must be coached. This happens through modeling, assignment design, and feedback.

If you are designing or revising a reflection essay for a Portfolio, consider whether your reflection practice in the course follows these five principles. If not, consider building intermittent reflection into your students' writing practice. See a great example of Katie Wozniak's 'Meta-note' on the SNL Writing Wiki under Workshops > October 17, 2009: Catching up; Discussion of Research; Meta-Notes; Having Students Self-Assess; Feedback > MetaNote_Wozniak.pdf.

Early New Year's Resolutions

Between now and the start of the winter quarter I plan to sit down and list three things that I can do in my next class to encourage and support students who need writing help. I want to encourage and support them to get that help from the pros in an SNL course, workshop or through the Writing Center.  I do this now, regularly. Yet there must be more I can do, or ways I can do it better.

Too often it seems students are flummoxed when they receive feedback about their writing (perhaps mine is the first they have received?) If I can identify three things and practice them consistently, then perhaps more students will take the step to become better communicators and thus better lifelong learners. After all, that's the goal...

Now Accepting Student Submissions for the SNL Writing Showcase

Please ask your students to consider submitting their best written work for the SNL Writing Showcase. The awards won't be given out until April 2011, but submissions are welcome all year. Students can see previous winners and download the 2010-2011 application here:
http://www.snl.depaul.edu/writing/WritingShowcase.html