In Transition
Journal of the New York State Middle School Association
(Fall, 2008 - Vol. XXVI, No. 1)

Peer Coaching—Transition to the Middle

By Susan Ruckdeschel

There's a new rage about student peer review. It's called Peer Coaching, an interactive method young writers use to develop an internal, permanent, and intuitive dialogue for editing their work. Students use specific protocols, or peer coach, to establish writing goals, give and take feedback, and listen actively. It is through this action, executed in three steps, that students employ a method of communication and decision making for producing finished products. This is particularly important and effective in middle school years, where students have difficulty transitioning from teacher-directed goals and prompts to what comes from within their own writing effort, or writing from the inside. Rooted in what research says about the brain's response to cognitive stimuli, literacy development, high-stakes assessment performance, and the need for peer feedback in process writing, peer coaching leads to higher writing skill, analytical thinking and problem solving, effective communication, and better test performance when writing on demand. It's a simple three-step process, based on the fundamental belief that writers need each other for coaching writing effort.

Simply said: Writers need other writers. Authors of writing craft have been saying it since at least the seventies (Graves, Kirby & Liner, Robb, Vacca, Wiggins, Levine, Tomlinson). Rooted in the effective teaching of writing, it's been demonstrated through many models—Elbow (1973) and his use of "teacherless writing groups;" Kirby & Liner (2004) through self-evaluation writing processes; Lucy Calkins and Donald Graves (1982, 1983) through peer response groups; Macrorie (1984) through "Helping Circles"—to name some. Most recently, tested for its ability to improve scores on high-stakes assessments, Moran & Greenberg (2008) researched and then field tested a similar process by helping students become "Meta-Editors." Rothstein & Lauber (2000, p. 205) say: "Every writer must learn to self-edit. Yet, at the same time, the writer needs a peer, a person willing to read or listen to the writing and address the writer's concerns. The peer editor must also respond gently, with just enough judgment or ideas to encourage the writer to continue writing and make the necessary changes."

Dr. Mel Levine, a pediatrician who has researched the adolescent mind extensively, tells us that we all have unlimited storage capacity in long-term memory, while short-term memory has limited storage capacity. When we take information from short-term through doing, and reflecting, and seeing, and listening … we move it into long-term.

"It's a good thing short-term memory is short. It needs to be short because there is a constant torrent of new data competing for limited mind space. Therefore, information has to enter and exit short-term memory swiftly. We always need to make room for ever-arriving new information … short-term memory has a serious space crunch … can hold a mere seven numbers at a time … Most older children and adults can absorb and repeat about seven numbers" (Levine, 2002, p. 95).

Peer coaching takes information from short-term to long-term through the "doing" of reading, writing, listening, articulating, speaking, and re-ordering information via a steep decision-making process, and three simple steps.

The Peer Coaching Overview and Three Steps

"Students struggle endlessly to get their thoughts into words and just as often to use words to construct their thoughts. And their attempts to find thoughts within the words they hear or read can be just as taxing. That's where the language system comes in" (Levine, 2002, p. 120).

Students learn and practice the articulation and intentional dialogue of peer coaching until it becomes intrinsic, automatic, and intuitive. The precursor to an internal assimilation needed for independent problem-solving, it focuses on improvement specific to a selected writing piece in any content area, of any genre. Through collaboratively focusing on one identified area unique to each writer, students develop clarity in multiple areas of writing effort. It is the critical think-through process required of peer coaching that distinguishes it from other models, because students must independently identify their own trouble-spots, beginning with goal-setting, then responding and adjusting. So, where initially it is about goal-setting, ultimately it's about critical decision-making. Where it differentiates from the conventional peer review or conferencing is inside of the thinking and the language they use to get to the end—articulating needs, establishing listening points, responding, and then communicating this response to peers in the form of feedback. Here's how peer coaching works:

  1. State the Need.
  2. Respond to the Need.
  3. Take What Is Needed and Leave Out What Isn't.

In order to work Step I, writers must set goals for an individual writing piece while still in the drafting stages, establishing an expectation for their writing effort. If this expectation comes short, and they don't know why or how it does, they will have identified an issue, offering it up to peers for review. If no issue arises, then students can send goals up for review, to ensure it rises to its own expectation. This problem solving allows them an opportunity to trial-and-error their own writing inside of a writing process, getting them to a place where they'll develop clarity on what they need, or what they might need more of, in their writing. When students establish criteria of their own, then ask for help in manageable, interpretable chunks, they're far more likely to work with it—because it's something from within them that they've asked for.

After goal-setting, the next step, or sub-step, is to articulate this need to peers, using discourse that is most effective in asking for anything, through "I" statements: I need and I want—I need some help with my ending; I want some feedback on how it sounds so far and maybe what to include next—clarifying and establishing specifically what they need for their writing to make it better. Or through goal-setting (I want this to flow; I want to make people cry; I want to make people think about the environment; I want to get an "A" on this paper).

Peers as listeners must then leverage their listening to the writer's stated need. They are trained in Step 2 to listen intentionally, and actively, so that they know exactly how to respond with productive, focused, and strategic dialogue. So there are two major roles that students take on when peer coaching: Writer/Reader, and Listener/Responder. Editor and Manager are optional roles, and work to further refine the steps inside of the steps.

After having summarized and read their writing piece aloud (Step 1), then having received feedback from Listener/Responders (Step 2), Writer/Readers must make a very important decision as to what feedback to keep, and what feedback not to keep (Step 3). This is an internal, critical decision-making process that must also be taught—how to decipher productive feedback from nonproductive feedback—because it hinges tightly upon what the Writer/Reader asked for. Because our students usually come to us with very fixed thoughts about who their inner circle of friends will include and will not include, who they must relate to and who they will not relate to, it is something they must learn to do with intention. This is the magic of peer coaching, and why it works so well in middle school.

Here are a few field-based basics on the "why's" of peer coaching—basics based on my work in the field with student writers, and the pedagogy I continue to apply.

Teaching Tips

Poughkeepsie Journal (November 3, 2008)

Beacon woman coaches young writers

By Anthony P. Musso

BEACON—Beacon resident Susan Ruckdeschel's lifetime passion for writing resulted in a program that bolsters the enthusiasm for creative writing as well as enhances the ability to effectively interact with peers.

A teacher, national educational consultant and author, Ruckdeschel conducts writing workshops for students at the Howland Public Library in Beacon.

"At my first teaching position in Naples, New York, the school district allowed me to form a writing club," she said. "It was after school and my focus was to provide the kids a place to go with their writing, to freely express themselves and then to take it to the next step, whether it be publication or reading it out loud.

"I also focused on feedback because you write alone, but at some point you have to share your work with another person to get some kind of perspective."

When she relocated to teach in Glens Falls, Ruckdeschel expanded the concept.

"We really branched out there," she recalled. "We called ourselves 'The Traveling Poets' and while we had our weekly club sessions, every month we would hold a reading at one of several coffee shops in the area. The kids would get up and read a chapter of a story that wrote or a poem and it became very popular."

Positive reviews

The experience increased the students' confidence. A former club member, who now works as a guidance counselor in North Carolina recently wrote to Ruckdeschel.

"She said that the writing club made a huge difference in her life and without it she didn't think that she'd be a guidance counselor today," Ruckdeschel said.

Ruckdeschel introduced the writing club while teaching in Virginia and then back in New York (in Yonkers), before settling in Beacon.

Ginny Figlia, the children's librarian at the Howland Public Library, said Ruckdeschel's workshop is valuable for both youngsters who enjoy writing, and others who initially seem tentative and then discover they have significant skills.

"The students as well as the parents are very enthusiastic about the program," Figlia said. "Peer coaching has been a great way for kids to help other lads in a really constructive way. That's a very unique part of it."

Ruckdeschel recently wrote a book, "Peer Coaching for Adolescent Writers," which helps guide teachers in administering peer coaching to students, as well as establishing goals and providing constructive feedback.

The book is due for publication in 2009. Ruckdeschel plans to follow it up with "Peer Coaching for Young Writers."

Southern Dutchess Focus (August 18, 2008)

Published by The Poughkeepsie Journal

Young Writers Invited

By Scott Cornell

 

Creative children who love to write now have a place to display their talent.

Susan Ruckdeschel, a Beacon teacher, will start a Saturday Lunchtime Writer's Club for children in grades four and up. The first meeting will be from noon to 1:30 p.m. today at the Rowland Public Library, 313 Main St., Beacon. Children may bring a writing sample to share. The club will feature writing workshops and peer evaluation.

"It's nothing super formal, but they need a process that starts with communicating an idea, then listening and making a decision about the feedback they get from their peers," Ruckdeschel said. "We'll use up as much time as we need for the kids to read their pieces, they'll get their feedback, and when everyone who wants to read has, we'll use the rest of the time for workshop."

A project manager for a virtual middle school named KC Distance Learning, Ruckdeschel has taught in public schools across New York state for 16 years. She has organized successful writing clubs in the Finger Lakes, Glens Falls and Yonkers, where she lived previously.

Called "Traveling Poets" in Glens Falls, her club read poetry in local coffee shops a couple of times a month, drawing large crowds of parents and friends, Ruckdeschel said.

Schools began asking her to conduct workshops on how to set up writers clubs, said Ruckdeschel, who has published a book about peer coaching.

"There is a writer's protocol for peer coaching which will be used in Beacon and, once I get them trained, they run the club and I basically do nothing," Ruckdeschel said. "It's really positive stuff. They will coach each other on what they need more of in their writing, peers will listen and respond and it's a really healthy communication process where they learn how to be better listeners and better communicators."

The Beacon library has previously held poetry and writing workshops and the activities have been quite successful, said Ginny Figlia, head of youth services at the library.

"The timing was really good because we think it's something nice to start up again and to have someone like Susan willing to give her time to the library, the community and the children," She said.

To spark the interest of young writers, Figlia sent informational flyers about the club to local elementary and middle schools.

The library also offers a number of other programs for children. The library hosts story times and collaborates with the local Wee-Play Community Project on play groups for small children and offers an advisory board and an anime club. A video game club for teens is planned.

As for the writer's club, children may bring any form of writing—a poem, a short story or an essay. They should bring a bag lunch if they choose to eat during the meeting. The meetings are free and reservations are not required. The club plans to meet on the second and fourth Saturdays of every month.

"Our hope for the children is that they find writing as a wonderful way of communicating their thoughts as well as learning the logistics of writing good poetry or a good creative piece," Figlia said.

Resources
For information about the Saturday Lunchtime Writer's Club, contact the Howland Public Library at 845-831-1134 ext. 103.