What the WAT?! Writing Assistance Tools and Distance Learning
My attempts to elicit high school students to apply themselves during distance learning is as delicate and complex as a cat’s cradle hand puzzle. It is delicate because I imagine competing with homelessness, job loss, and family issues in the imaginary sense. It is imaginary as I have not heard these as real issues from the students I teach. The complexity of our distance learning comes from the students who manage to show up for live instruction as they confess to laziness as the main reason for lack of follow-through on their work. It is the ones who do not show up that I wonder about and how much of of their absence is based on truth, lies, or narratives.
I notice that both students and I adjust to never encountered challenges. Sometimes it is their lack of access to technology even though my school provides students with computers and the internet. More often than not, there is a prevalent lack of knowledge as students use technology. The axiom “Give a kid technology, and he/she will know what to do with it” is not something I have experienced with any kid I have taught.
To motivate students, I offer extra points in the form of teaser headings like clickbait via email. In the email, I elaborate on opportunities that await them if they do their asynchronous learning. I will never know who reads those emails as students mostly reply to those emails with a different topic because they do not know how to send an email correspondence. I am lucky to get one student out of 80 to participate in the weekly opportunities I offer. One opportunity I have given included extra credit for using a writing assistance tool (Grammarly) as they wrote and shared a reflection of the feedback Grammarly provided them. Like many other incentives, none of the students took me up on that offer.
The best luck I had all semester included orchestrating work in the short allotted time during synchronous learning. There is just enough to focus on reading and writing at a basic level in that space of time. I should elaborate that my students attend high school curriculum courses with me; however, they work with me in an alternative setting. They have fallen behind extensive credits to be ready for graduation at a traditional high school. My students tested their reading level in the first weeks of school using a reading program we purchased at our school site. The results placed many students several grade levels behind. Some students score as low as third-grade reading level even though given the opportunity to retake. With the lack of time and the emphasis on basic reading and writing, the last thing I had planned for during distance learning was to cover grammar in our synchronous learning.
I was elated to have come across Grammarly.com as a writing assistance tool. I had hopes of it providing fun and friendly feedback for students to use with ease. In honesty, the program has been a challenge for me to figure out, and my students will not even give it a once over chance on their own.
Eventually, I broke into our allotted synchronous time to connect students with Grammarly, hoping that if they got a sample of it, they would want to use it independently. I constructed a questionnaire that asked students to share their most vivid memories of how they learned to write. I wanted to know why they write and what genres piqued their interest. I asked them what made a good writer and if they considered themselves a good writer. I questioned them if they revised or edited their work and if they included goals for their writing.
After writing their responses to my questionnaire, I ran their paragraph through Grammarly. I provided each of my students with a detailed report that provided suggestions and a breakdown of correctness, clarity, engagement, delivery, and style. Grammarly also provided an overall score out of 100.
After students had a chance to review their Grammarly report, I asked them to write a reflection on the Grammarly report. I asked them to include in their reflections if they found the Grammarly feedback helpful or not and a request to communicate to me what features they would like to receive from a writing assistance tool like Grammarly regarding their writing.
A student I observe to be strong in communication skills recollected tracing letters on paper for practice. He expressed he writes for the sake of not needing to speak. I consider him one of my most substantial writers even though he turns no asynchronous work in the entire semester. According to him, a great writer must understand his or her audience. In addition, he does revise or edit his writing if it does not flow correctly or if it does not match the target audiences’ expectations. When presented with Grammarly’s report of his writing, he claimed he was not surprised by the suggestions. He expected a few issues, things only a second pair of eyes could genuinely notice. He found the advice helpful, and it motivated him to make a few edits to what he wrote. In general, the suggestions he most wanted were to make changes to his tone and verbosity when writing since it was difficult for him, and he felt he needed another person’s view. In this case, Grammarly seemed to be a good fit. Grammarly provided a score of 89 for his overall performance.
In contrast, another student confessed he did not like to write. His earliest recollection included his older sister sitting with him at the kitchen table and practice writing for hours. His preferred genre had fiction and anything related to Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. He felt that a good writer grabs attention and keeps it. He shared that he used to revise and edit but now relied on autocorrect. When provided a report from Grammarly that broke down his writing, he reflected surprise that he did “pretty good.” He communicated that Grammarly’s suggestions helped him, and he did not mind the type of feedback he got because the feedback would only help him improve. Grammarly provided a score of 59 for his overall performance.
A third student wrote he first learned to write in “kindergart”. He writes for school and work. He especially likes to write to prompts that require research. When asked what makes someone a good writer, he emphasizes grammar and punctuation. He feels “good” about his writing. It took him over an hour to write seven sentences and Grammarly’s report noted 29 grammar and punctuation issues. I imagine he was seriously sidetracked. He is one student I am aware of who works full-time due to our distance learning situation. He most likely was working on a job site while trying to answer the questions to my questionnaire. When provided a feedback report from Grammarly on his writing, he was surprised. He found it helpful and confusing at the same time. He scored the lowest in the overall report, where Grammarly provided a 33 for his overall performance.
According to Grammarly, within these three student pieces of writing, they all reached a similar level of clarity, engagement, delivery, and style. This did not make sense to me as their overall scores vastly differed. The vibe I got from each writing sample would have put me on a similar scoring as Grammarly provided. On the other hand, holistically, I would have had a vastly different range than Grammarly on clarity, engagement, delivery, and style. The benefit to each of these categories that Grammarly notes is that each of those categories connects to a highlighted color-coded section in the writer’s text. There is a direct connection between what the program offers for suggestions and the highlighted color-coded text.
Overall, most students express they want to get better at writing, but few could articulate any specific growth areas. Grammarly allows the user to set goals, but we have not gotten that far yet. Grammarly does give students feedback on their writing that they seem to find useful. There is a distinct learning curve for students and teachers to use Grammarly.
On a curious note, Grammarly’s top score went to a student at 99 out of 100. He significantly outscored my writing sample, even though I made an effort to beat the system with literary treats tucked neatly inside my paragraph sample. He maxed out every category: correctness, clarity, engagement, delivery, and style. He wrote, “I learned to write in Kindergarten when my teachers would have me and my friends write journals and draw things inside. I write for birthday cards, applications, petitions, etc. Most things are online nowadays. I like to read research because I love to learn about new things in the world. I think someone is a good writer when they can write out a whole essay with no mistakes. I consider myself a good writer on some occasions. Yes, revising your work to make sure there are no errors is always good. I’m not the biggest fan of writing. To become better at understanding writing and reading.”
Standing alone, a few of these sentences would have raised some questions on clarity, but Grammarly pointed to no such thing. Grammarly liked this student’s sample so much the program had only one suggestion for him — to replace “good” with “right.” Grammarly communicated that “the word good is often overused. Consider using a more specific synonym to improve the sharpness of your writing.” In contrast, my writing sample flagged for all kinds of word choices I attempted to add for creativeness. Grammarly suggested more concrete words for me.
I do not have any misgivings with Grammarly, but I wonder who benefits from the program and who is held back by it. I agree with the student who noted that it is good to have an extra set of eyes. The second student I referenced is spot on with the idea that a good writer grabs attention and sustains it. The third student’s experience resonates with me most for writing assistance tools. His experience with the Grammarly report and his reflection makes me wonder what degree of time spent in grammar is essential for high school? This third student needs a WAT that will keep up with him on the go. When working and focused on something else, the last thing most people want to think about is punctuation and syntax. Finally, the fourth student who would have scored 100 if he replaced “good” with “right.” This is Grammarly’s sweet spot student. Look at his response to judge for yourself. A quick analysis of this student’s writing sample through “I Write Like” at iwl.me will claim he writes like Kurt Vonnegut. For Grammarly, Kurt Vonnegut is the sweet spot for a 100 score.
