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Author:	Professor Ellen W. Sapega, Department of Spanish & Portuguese
Class:	Introduction to Luso-Afro-Brazilian Literature
Description:	Professor Sapega's creative use of WebCT software offers a unique and effective method for peer review. Here, Professor Sapega comments on her process of responding to students' informal writing assignments.

Stimulus & Response: Electronic Journal Writing

In the fall of 2000, I began teaching a new Comm-B course, “Introduction to Luso-Afro-Brazilian Literature.” Structured around the analysis of texts that were originally written in Portuguese, the class had two purposes: to teach students basic skills of literary analysis and to introduce the cultures of seven countries on three continents: Brazil, Portugal, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe. Students write three formal papers, each six to eight pages in length.

I was aware, however, that many prospective students had not studied literature at the university level and that the subject matter to be addressed would also be quite foreign to the average UW student. For these reasons, I decided to incorporate more informal writing exercises that would allow for students to address questions arising from the cultural contexts of the readings and give them a place for them to begin practicing textual analysis.

My experience in teaching foreign language composition convinced me of the many benefits of having students maintain journals. Journal writing opens up a different level of communication between student and instructor and often relieves the anxiety that many students feel when speaking in class. In the case of my Literature in Translation class, however, I quickly came upon several unanticipated problems with the journals.

During the first year that I taught the class, I carried large stacks of notebooks to my office or home only to confront pages of barely legible, scrawled prose. When I was able to decipher the entries, they were often disappointing, as they did not meet my expectations.

Though I wanted students to try out new approaches to analyzing a literary text, many confused the role of the course journal with that of a personal diary. Instead of using the pages of their notebooks to record their initial reactions to a text and to generate ideas that might be expanded in formal papers, students tended to enter subjective and impressionistic responses that would be of little use to them further down the line.

Many of these drawbacks can easily be overcome by having students submit electronic versions of their journals, using the email function of WebCT. Each week, students log on to the course’s WebCT page. The first assignment asks them to describe their interest in the course: after that, they submit one to two typed pages in response to class discussion and readings.

Assignments change weekly: sometimes I ask students to choose and explain a passage from a novel that illustrates the narrator’s perspective; other times I have asked that they analyze a poem or comment on an image that relates to places, works of art and other objects alluded to in the readings. In this latter case, I post scanned images in the image database of WebCT.

When answering students’ email messages, I refrain from just hitting the reply button. Instead, I use WebCT’s “Quote” function, which allows me to copy the student message and return it with my comments embedded in the text of the original, which in turn obliges students to go back into their text and to reread what they wrote. In order to distinguish between the original entry and my comments, I respond in capital letters, also taking care to insert line breaks between my thoughts and the student’s (see example on page 2). At the end of the semester, I use the “Manage Students” function to determine how many emails each student wrote, verifying that each weekly assignment was turned in for credit.

I have found that my students’ writing has benefited greatly from this process. For the most part, problems related to overly impressionistic responses are quickly eliminated, perhaps because typing into the computer strikes the students as more “formal” than just scribbling in a notebook, perhaps because in my responses I have come to more clearly point out what I expect from them.

Indeed, my comments on their writing have become much more detailed. Rather than relying on just a check mark (or some other similar annotation or generic comment in the margin), I find that I must engage more actively with the ideas expressed in each entry. In many cases, what started out as a simple response to a student’s initial entry winds up consisting of an exchange of ideas between professor and student that develops throughout the course of semester.

Now in the second year of using WebCT journals, I have come to see that they have significantly altered my approach to teaching writing. By requiring these electronic journals, I find that I expect much more of both my students and of myself.

Example of an Electronic Response to Student Writing from Professor Sapega’s “Introduction to Afro-Brazilian Literature” Course

Note: The student’s writing is in italics; Professor Sapega’s comments are in capital letters.

“HI ALAN, THIS IS A GOOD, DETAILED ENTRY. SEE MY SPECIFIC COMMENTS BELOW.

>First the basic similarities: Rosa and Amado both write with spiritual themes. Amado obviously integrates condomble into ‘The Two Deaths.’ On a micro level, characters like Bangs and Quiteria are described practicing condomble. On a macro level, the resurrection of Quincas Wateryell and his earlier class transformation in the novella suggest spiritual undertones. BE CAREFUL HERE WITH THE SPELLING OF CANDOMBLE...ARE THE UNDERTONES VERY STRONG? I THINK HUMAN VIRTUE AND VICE HAVE A BIT MORE TO DO WITH IT.

>However, in ‘The Third Bank of the River,’ the father leaves his family for good for no clear reason. At the end of the story, the son *knows* it is his turn to take over for his father in the canoe, again, without a clear explanation. The spiritual transformation of the son is ambiguous and allows for much reader interpretation. YES—AND WE NEVER REALLY FIGURE OUT WHAT IS GOING ON...WHY DO YOU THINK THIS IS SO?”