Sideshadowing Teacher Response

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. National Council of Teachers of English is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to College English. A TALE OF Two TEXTSwrites: Reality as we have it in the novel is only one of many possible realities; it is not inevitable, not arbitrary, it bears within itself other possibilities. (Dialogic 37)The second is by a student, whom I'll call Bill and whose first essay for my advanced composition class began with this one-and-a-half-page paragraph:Like anything else, traveling by bus has advantages and drawbacks. First the advantages. [He lists two, then continues.] But undoubtably the gem of my 300 hours of Greyhound experience was a beefy spoonful of an entirely different reality than I had been accustomed to and more importantly a reshuffling of ideas that I have about my growth process. [He describes then how he'd expected to encounter in bus stations an urban reality of "pimps," "hustlers," and societal "dregs" unknown to him as a rural Vermonter.] At this time this conception of a bus station struck me as ... something taken from a Ginsberg poem... an infallible recipe for a radical transformation of my sheltered racial and economic ideologies. In retrospect, I see my first four cross country trips as a desperate attempt to escape, not to grow. . ... I was anxious whenever I wasn't high, terrified of the people that surrounded me, but was unable to act any differently. I spent the majority of my cross-country trips alone, depressed and afraid. I had begun to sense that the "road life" I was leading would have been a failure in Kerouac's eyes. Another major pitfall of bus travel ... As I read them, Bill's words dramatize Bakhtin's, telling me that reality as we have it in a student's essay is likewise not inevitable, not arbitrary; this single paragraph bears within itself many possible realities, or, more accurately, many competing ideas of and forms for composing reality. Advantages/drawbacks, compare/contrast, This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Mon, 2 Feb 2015 20:15:11 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SIDESHADOWING TEACHER RESPONSE epiphany and anti-epiphany, the truth-is confession: all of these possible essays jostle for space and control in just this starting paragraph. While Lil Brannon and CyKnoblauch have sensitively and persuasively argued that teachers should resist the "Ideal Texts" they bring to their reading of students' work, Bill's draft complicates the picture. This paragraph demonstrates how students also grapple with internalized, idealized social texts, not just one but several that create in fits, starts, and sudden shifts diverse and dissonant intentions, diverse and dissonant argumentative threads. We ...

Adolescents Composing Fiction in Digital Game and Written Formats: Tacit, Explicit and Metacognitive Strategies

“…These interviews took place in front of a computer screen and students were invited to walk the interviewer through both the game and the written story, to talk about what kinds of decisions had been necessary, about what had to be omitted for various reasons, and about what they might do on another occasion. The interviews were conducted on the principle of 'sideshadowing' (Welch, 1998;Morson, 1994;Mackey, 1999;McClay, 2002), an interviewing protocol we have developed for encouraging writers to consider their composition options: what alternatives were possible at any given stage of the creation, why some alternatives were adopted and some were rejected, and what the implications of these decisions were for the final story.…”

Engaging students through new literacies: The good, bad and curriculum of visual essays

“…To gain a more in‐depth understanding of what happens during the creation process, we worked closely with one adolescent as he created a visual essay from start to finish. This qualitative research encompasses a descriptive case study (Merriam 1998; Stake 2000), participant observation (Erickson 1984), and side‐shadowing and interviews (Welch 1998; McClay 2005) with a 13‐year‐old boy in his own home. A case study method is suitable for collecting in‐depth stories of student learning.…”

The Sideshadow Interview: Illuminating Process

“…Within the subjunctive spaces of writing, (Luce-Kapler, 1999, 2004, one can realize the complexity of experience, whereas the very openness of writing and the consideration of possibilities question what we have assumed. Welch (1998) described how she developed a revision process from Morson"s conception of sideshadowing for teachers to use in their work with student writers. She noted the tendency of teachers to bring an "ideal text" to their reading of student work, and as she began to read her own student"s work, she reminded herself, Bill"s words dramatize Bakhtin"s, telling me that reality as we have it in a student"s essay is likewise not inevitable, not arbitrary; this single paragraph bears within itself many possible realities, or, more accurately, many competing ideas of and forms for composing reality.…”

“…Morson"s sideshadowing, I thought, would be an interesting way to approach my participants" texts. On further investigation, I discovered that Welch (1998) had developed the sideshadow concept in her work with student revision. Her connection of Morson"s work to writing was significant to my developing the sideshadowing interviews with writers where I would ask them not only the "why" but also the "why not" and the "what if" questions in an exploration of their process.…”