 So hi and welcome my name is Elizabeth, but I only get called that if I'm in trouble you can call me Elsie That's if I'm in serious trouble. You call me Elizabeth Solomon that I know it's dire. Just a little bit about myself I teach here at the Hong Kong Academy, which is a bilingual private school independent school that has Put on wha in the primary going to a 50-50 ratio in middle school. I teach literature and humanities In the past I taught I began my teaching career teaching at a high school in Israel And I said I'm much rather like toilet bowls than do this. So I went back to university Did my masters in something completely useless, but amazing Translated documents from Sanskrit to Hebrew that was fantastic and got poached by the head of English who said you must try teaching university It is not as awful as teaching in high school. I taught there for eight years in the end while doing my masters I taught EAP For humanities. I taught a course in post-colonial literature, which I really enjoyed From there I Because I was following my husband I moved to Japan Taught in the local system, which was How should I put it nicely and eye-opening experience? and a great kind of welcome back to Asia where nobody I was in the worst school in Tokyo I was a jet if you know what that program is and Nobody wanted to or intended to do any study of English. It was fascinating My Japanese skills improved a lot. I don't know about their English skills. So from there I again I Wanted this competition British Council competition got headhunted to teach in China in Nanjing taught there for six years Again teaching I be completely different Kettle of fish very different and then six years now in Hong Kong. I still miss teaching university, although The Asian students are much nicer than the Middle Eastern ones. I have to say you know in general just nicer to work with I do love my students, but I miss university. So that's a little bit about me Two years ago. I started writing something I wanted to do since I was a graduate, but for practical reasons because one has to pay the bills didn't And I which I regret now, but at least I'm doing it now So that completely transformed the way I teach gave was a big game changer for me And that's what I'm going to try and share with you and how that helped me Understand writing and be a better teacher of writing So Little thing, okay So what why bother doing this right and I really on reflection? I feel that if you teach writing you must write just as You know artists you can't be an artist without doing art and writing is an art form And even if because I still think my writing has a long way to go to be Anything good. It's the practice that makes you better It's being involved in and the humility that it brings with it the insights that it brings with it So I know most English teachers or language teachers Somewhere have a story in them or five or ten Write those stories if you're not doing it It'll change the way you approach your teaching. I highly recommend it. It's painful. It's humiliating It's one of the best things you can do for yourself as a teacher and as a human being What did I find when I did this? So I'm using this Image as a analogy. We've all taken CPR lessons at some point, especially when you work in high schools you have to and you know there you learn the theory of CPR you learn how to do it right and follow it by the book and You know, you really stick to the rules There was a big study done comparing the teachers of CPR versus actual People who do CPR People who are actually in the ambulances doing CPR not teaching about it. The the gap was vast and I'm using this as a Comparison between teachers of literature teachers of writing versus real writers who are in the real world of writing It's very different. I did not understand or appreciate it while I was just Teaching literature. Okay, because when you teach literature, you have rules you deconstruct you read a lot and You try to to help your students you try to give them rules in the real world of writing I found it's quite different and invaluable for me as a teacher so and as a writer and So what have I written? Just just getting warmed up here between being a mother of twins Teaching in a crazy International school with high demands. This is what I managed to write. I started with a light Nonfiction essay, which I really enjoyed Writing in the age of literature review and I've joined the Hong Kong writer circle, which is a local organization that promotes local writers mix bag of expats and Hong Kong writers or Writers from anywhere really who happen to find themselves in Hong Kong. They have a yearly anthology This is the last one that I also wrote in and co-edited Also, I'll just pass this around so you get an idea the work is always about Hong Kong and Is written fresh for every anthology the editing process was also fantastic, but that's a different presentation and All of this has been very painful to do Okay, why because of the feedback that I have received the initial ones my resistance Was strong in writing is intimate Okay, it's like giving birth in a way and Then people saying your baby is ugly. We need to chop its arms Perhaps even change its face and you're like what how dare you this is this is a slice of me And you're saying it's not good and that's about the piece about being an artist is being vulnerable I don't think I think we can get comfortable as academics in our ethereal world of theory and Forget what the real practice is about you have to put yourself out there Our students are all the time whether it's as a tool as we heard today for EAP or whether it is for the pure Joy of writing, right? They're putting a slice of the you have to empathize it. It's so empowering And yeah, this is what they found that while we can talk about the theory the practice is quite different Okay, and so I try to think you know, what what are my five? Big insights so besides the intimacy I Found that I was rewriting rewriting rewriting Every time I went back I changed something Was I really ever happy with my final draft? No, but I had to stop somewhere. That's why I needed an editor to tell me It's okay. This is Publishable for now for this purpose so always remembering that because as language teachers we tend to be perfectionist as well and It's very hard to make that switch from being and letting go We know too much about language and mechanics and we have these romantic ideas about writing and we're not living up to our expectations So I kept rewriting but learning also when to stop and That's why feedback was crucial So yeah, real life writing is nothing like the theory of writing Okay, it all sounds fantastic. I think out of all the writers who give advice on writing I think Stephen King is the one who gives the best advice because it's very honest to the practice as it is today other writers I find very inspirational but often perhaps a little bit too Should I say just idealistic about their stance and writing? Perhaps they don't have to pay bills They're married to somebody really rich. I don't know but if you want to sell your work, there's a big difference between Writers as Nuri Vittaci said to me recently said Elsie my books get written a read more than Salman Rushdie's books Okay, and I'm known Salman Rushdie. He said that to me and that was also very enlightening because Who are the writers who get read? So you have to decide just as you do for anything else? Are you writing for a commercial purpose? Do you want your book your story to be read? To for it to be palatable. Are you just are you just writing whatever's in you? Okay, so that was another thing and Most people are writing for an audience especially today. There's a lot of writing online There's a lot of mediocre writing online as well You have to wade through a lot of mediocre stuff to get some to get some gems But there are good pieces online. They tend to be shorter punchier yet honest the good the good pieces of writing and You have to really have an audience ability to trap your audience in in your writing And yeah those three words Not the feedback that says good or bad. That doesn't help me Perhaps I like it when it's good and perhaps, you know, my ego is crushed when I hear bad But I can't do anything with it So as a teacher I struggle I got back underlines and tick marks As a writer, you know getting feedback on my writing and I thought this is not helping me So I would often try and So I got into critique groups where you sit down face-to-face with people you you get feedback You get triangulation and if three people are telling you that this part This is rubbish. Okay, you need to change this and this is what you need to do to change it Not just rubbish and tell you why it's rubbish and what you need to do instead You probably should be listening to them. That's the humbling part that you have to accept Okay, so lots of surgeries on on your baby so to speak and So taking this to my classroom But teenagers it's even tougher because in the real world nobody really cares about your emotions Right, you're in a critique group. They say, you know, you're going to get critiqued. You're an adult You can take it even though you're crushed afterwards. That's why they they invented alcohol Right, so you can just kind of you know get over. It's okay. It's okay and then go back to it But young people you got to be careful You you you are building the writer in them. They don't see themselves as writers even writers of historical essays or You know scientific Papers but readable papers not just Those papers that nobody reads more and more there is a drive to and a push which I like to make Academic research more accessible more readable which I love so they don't see themselves as readers So what I felt I was doing was trying to give them this vision of themselves as As a reader so I felt that first of all I needed to build this environment of trust for sharing Okay, I Had to find a way to give them this timely specific feedback and And the lessons I found is the value was that the giving the feedback was as important as getting it It truly is I think one of my students put it best when he said now I have razor sharp eyes on my own writing Okay after giving feedback not after getting feedback because it's a process. This is a process It's an art form so it transforms you And you know what? When you write something especially as a young person you put it on paper, which I'm going to ask you to do soon on digital paper and People are looking at your work. Your engagement is going to go up. That's that's a slice of you right there Okay, so you are going to find that If you use this technique you're doing it in real time They're getting feedback that you guide them to give proper feedback and they are so engaged They love their own writing or critiquing Sometimes I have to hold them back a little bit. Come on. There is something of value in here What's the value so you have to train them to give the kind of feedback that they would want to receive? Because they can very often very quickly go into Things that are not working. It's so easy to go there Okay, but in most pieces of writing there is something good as well. So that that took some How should I say practice and awareness with teenagers, you know, they love to hammer each other's work But the engagement levels were really high. Also, we don't do a lot of grammatical Work that happens that that's we have perhaps we highlight a few things if it's a recurring issue, but the feedback tends to be Genre-based ideas Some organization Okay, so it's more looking at the content and ideas that you're expressing You know when you see a great use of vocabulary you highlighted It's it's not so much about correction. It's not the red pen at all Okay, so that was really powerful So the tool that I found most useful is the ladder of feedback And it's a simple but very effective tool So this being a ladder you start at the bottom and you work your way to the top in reality This looks like four sentences on one piece of very doable For I be schools we all our work is criterion reference. So I will often use the criteria The wording of the criteria and look at their work. And that's what they also do So I'm just going to walk you through the steps really quickly And this is what the this comes from if you've heard of project zero Harvard you should look it up. It's fantastic. It's a great critical thinking tool. They have something called visible thinking routines and They're fantastic for almost any subject. I've used them in history. I've used them in science art, of course English, so they have a whole free toolbox online, which is fantastic So step one and it's very important with my young Teenagers to give them the language of feedback. I found so you also clarifying questions something You're not really clear about the work Okay, so something global about the piece that you don't understand So let's say you're writing in the Gothic genre and the work doesn't it's the opening paragraph and it just doesn't have that Any features of the genre so say did you really want to write a piece that was Gothic? Are you sticking to the genre and you have to be careful? So it's not really criticism but something you don't understand something you're grappling with. Who is this character? What do they look like? Let's say if you're writing fiction Okay, so you would this is rung number one. Oh, and I use these little symbols. We don't use these words My students now know to use these little symbols Attached to it. So you'll see question mark and a question To each step and they love it They know I just say lateral feedback time and they just get into it students. I find a very good with routines thinking routines So this has become a habit in our writing class and this is how I give feedback as well So it's modeled all around Next step is to find something that works Okay, and of course they love this Yeah, everybody's liking stuff I guess I should use the like button or something like that if I really want to appeal to my teenagers But they tell me that a Facebook is now for older people Apparently there are other things that I don't even know what they are but anyway, so we use We go on to the next step. We always find something of value. This is important as a habit Because they can get very critical about their own work as well All right, they have to find something of value there Then this is the part That is the most useful part of course what isn't working, but why this is where you have to be specific It just doesn't the what works section here if you don't Specify what is not working you're not helping yourself or anybody else That's what and then they always have the task specific rubric next to them with the criteria So, you know, if they're not adhering to the criteria, they will use that language That's a way to I don't know if you do that here at university if you have do you sherry do you have? quite criteria Okay Yes, so it's individualized that's so it sounds similar Okay and then this is again the most so Giving the critique and then how to fix it. Okay. What do I need to do as a writer to fix this? What could make it better? Okay So those are the steps any questions about I think they're quite straightforward. It's good Teaching nothing really new just the way it's organized is really effective any questions about this if not I'll move on to the next thing so I'm gonna show you What my digital classroom looks like so You can say hello to my students This is my one of my lower-end class middle-years grade 8 class and they are all this is a Google talk This is where they go for their homework. This is what they're working on right now They're analyzing short stories and we're going to have because it's the end of the year They're going to translate a short story into a meal. It's a creative task and they have to justify the whole point There is to write a rationale Okay, and they have portfolios. I just want to show you so if I were to click on Evan's portfolio This is the he only shares this with me. This is between me and him Of course, I won't tell him that all of you saw it and that it's on live video But so we start of the year, you know setting a goal for ourselves These are very young kids and here are all the tasks. We've done throughout the year. So we This is all created by him And if you see over here They'll see My feedback that they've had on the different tasks. They might be also peer feedback They so they track the feedback that they get they set goals that are specific to the feedback and they reflect on it This is a reflective practice habit that I'm trying to get them into not just looking at the mark The mark is not going to help them improve mark just indicates where they are at the moment If I really want to help them and in the beginning, it's a hard sell But then they see it working. They can write such fantastic reports about themselves based on they start to get a picture of Where they are in English? Okay, and we do this. This is now the end of the year. So this is from the beginning of since August 2016 What this So let me just show you this is So here's a good piece everything you're in pink is Things that he has changed based on my feedback or peer feedback He got feedback from four people and that's how we improve. So we have formative work and some of it We don't just go to a summative task Okay, so there's always a formative stage. That's where you give the feedback I don't give much feedback when I actually mark the work Okay, that's the way to make our lives manageable. We also need to sleep and live a little teachers Because I don't think they read the feedback once you've evaluated the work Okay, that's that's my feeling. I just use the criteria and He's told me He's showing me here. But so if you go here, you can change just to editing which I love Because you can edit your work and track your changes. You can see what you've changed So the next time he writes in the same genre, he'll go back Hopefully and look at it. That is the hope, but it goes in somewhere All right Any questions about the portfolio or the platform? Before we do this, yes Yes I find that with teenagers again, if I'm not standing there on on their head and saying we're going to reflect now It's very highly it's highly likely they will not do it. So I give dedicated class time 10 minutes we do I call that there's a reflection pit stop just like we're on a race and we're gonna stop We're gonna reflect. It's really good for them. It's good for me as well. I walk around I look at them get some calm And focused on you value if you value it make it part of your classroom practice You can't just drop it on them say and go home and reflect and build this. This is co-constructed and valued in time in class Okay, so I'd much rather cover less content and Have more process. That's another reflection from being involved in the real world of writing Okay Hi Catherine Yeah I have to go back to an older piece hold on when I think where would they have So I try and keep No, this is the task sheet. Sorry It's they use the same ladder of feedback. It's four sentences Those four sentences, but let me try and find an example This was a comparative task again, oh, this is the task sheet. Sorry I Might not have kept the I would have to go into There's so many documents I can find this while you do the work I'll find you an example of student feedback I have plenty is just it's not here because this so with the portfolio. I get them to think of a published piece So the thinking is you don't put all your formative work there. You put your best pieces There, okay, so the polished pieces So we have a lot of classwork which I can pull up but it's I have to go into my Google Drive for that Yeah In drop box, yeah, and I have Problems and if you don't mind could I share this with you? Yeah, sure Because when I asked the students to give feedback to the piece work and it seems to me that there are some Typical problems that I encountered such as it's probably too short for example This is good Okay And for some people if I say and maybe you could write longer and make it a task for example give one maps If you could complete the task stay giving feedback to free The work of your peers and they try to copy the one that because they could see that Yeah feedback and then just copy and paste that It seems to me that those feedback so familiar with that's why Yeah, it looks familiar from one another right. I So I haven't had that I've had the first problem that you mentioned But that's why I make it made a part of my classroom practice the first time model for them What good feedbacks looks like then they will give feedback to each other and I will give them feedback on their feedback How meta is that okay? Once I feel that they have that my students don't try to copy there. They're still young there They love each other's work. There's the they don't they're quite Individualistic if you know what I mean because they write a piece It's their piece and they are their friends with each other It's smaller intimate groups about 20 25 students So perhaps that's and they don't view it as a thing that they have to do after class because it's done quickly at in class but that getting to that quickly and the level of detail took Practice it is you have I do a whole 18 minute session on doing feedback And then I go home and give them feedback and the quality of their feedback and it's constant reminder some will try Some will definitely look for the easy way out. That's good But they know if they use that they're gonna get it from me You know like really I it's you have to value this and my department Now values this we've taken this on as a department because we realize the the power of this the Changing it from product to process If you value the process they they will you know, they will get on board, but yeah with the copying If I see them do it well You you're not gonna put this into turn it in I don't have an easy answer to that unfortunately Yes The Yes But they have to be so for example, they're writing a short story It has to be unique that they won't be able to copy from each other Okay, so there is time that they work. They have their that's where the portfolio is only shared with me There are some ideas that don't get shared publicly Okay, and we have turned it in everything goes to turn it in so Plagiarizing will get caught like that. It's a habit. We do that from grade six Yes No, they all have to come in with a piece to put And they they're pretty good about doing that. They all nobody just comes there steal some ideas Creatively rehashes no no doesn't happen But you have to make sure that doesn't happen I don't think it's please perhaps harder to do in a bigger group But at the end of the day I talked to them about integrity and I say yeah if you know what? There are many ways to even cheat turn it in if you want to do that go ahead fill your boots What what are you gonna get in the end? Who are you lying to in the end? You're? Developing yourself and perhaps working with younger People you can still have that influence to a certain degree They will listen and I will talk to them honestly You know in the beginning when I began to write I was looking at all my literary greats and wouldn't say I was copying But I was trying to be inspired by them. I had to Let you know leave all of that behind and find my own writing voice that took me a while But you when you're feeling insecure you cling on to them That's why the safety is important if they feel like this is safe space. They will take a risk They have to take an intellectual risk They have to share something intimate and I keep talking to them We always have a couple of students who are really weak Who really should be in language acquisition class because we do have differentiation For that they're not ready to produce Texts in English yet, but their parents push them through, you know Somehow they've managed to get through the language acquisition exam and then they're there It's usually the insecure ones who try that we have to work with them and say in the end You're fooling yourself. You're doing this for you. You'll have to write for the rest of your life You'll have to convince people whether you're writing a creative piece a Nonfiction piece your whole life. I have to convince my ten-year-old twins every day my husband almost every day you know So it's it's that skill of being articulate and that's what I tell them. This is this is a life skill So if you want to cheat go ahead You might even fool me or the system, but you won't fool You know yourself in the end you're So that's the integrity piece that you have to play in my school. We have a Wonderful bilingual system of values. So we have Chinese values and They are there on the walls, but occasionally I just say these are not just meant to be laminated. These are meant to be lived But they are younger so I can Force them to think a little a bit more. Do you guys have turned it in? Yeah, okay any other questions Please ask Yeah Yes I Okay, yeah So first of all Hong Kong writer circle is a great group of people. So you got to trust the people There I have gone the first critique group. I realized it was all about slashing Everybody to shreds and I just said I'm just beginning if I'm in this group. I will never write again I knew it I could sense it and I said no to myself in my early years about this writing Thing and I didn't want to go through that again move to another group found a more supportive group in the sense that they were more balanced Okay, so trust is important number two it Took me a while to figure out my to hone my instinct to Figure out which part of my story was true to me. I could not give up on Okay, what was the beating heart of my story and what was an appendage that I could You know, yeah edit and work on that's when you find out your writing voice That's how you find even if people are saying and you know some said, you know, this is men will not enjoy your literature It's too floral said, okay, that's fine Half the world will read my books. Maybe right so you have to decide at that point Okay, what's your signature style? But I challenge myself, you know, I said I could just go down this path but I do also want to appeal to make my so to to generally classify or Stereotype, I would say male more male driven text tend to be more plot driven and More feminine text, let's say tend to be more detail oriented again vast generalization forgive me stereotypes But this was the feedback I was getting so I had to strike that balance and I found it made me I wasn't changing the core of who I was. I was fine-tuning The bits in my engine sort of speak, but if they're not given me the criticism I would not have known to find that voice Yes, and in the end you've got it you will be rejected from in the slush pile you will be and You just got it you you realize you're doing it for yourself Yes Yes But if they're getting the same If they're getting the same That triangulation is important if three people are telling you that and depending on the task your awareness of audience Changes perhaps in another text type you could be using those longer sentences But if they're not listening to three people saying the same thing To them then perhaps they're missing They'll realize that at some point That perhaps I should edit a little and sometimes I there are things that editors have told me and I've gone okay. You obviously are not my kind of reader. You have like a reader in in your mind. You started develop Your ideal reader who might enjoy you But you also try and stretch yourself a little so it's that tension But yeah peer feedback, but that's where the community of trust comes in It takes a while it didn't this did not happen overnight took me about I would say if one year to figure out trial and error what was working and now it's like a well-earned machine by December so we start in August by December they get it they absolutely are in the thing the ownership is phenomenal okay, so The that's where you put in cocaine that love of reading and I tell them if you're not reading you can't write So I'm not telling them even to read but they end up reading because they want to be inspired. They want to see different and something shifts If I get to work with students for three years Amazing even those reluctant ones who copy and try to get out of things and all of those Even they are writing, but they usually end up writing more text types not so much fiction I would definitely say fiction is for serious lovers of literature No, we all we all have lazy students who are just trying to get out of things and I think we all have them in our classes, right? Just checking not much as me I Understand Thank you for clarifying that can I just explain then this is what happens. I have digital time and Analog time When we are in the production of ideas stage There are no screens at all. In fact, I'm not a big despite using technology. It's a language. I've learned. I'm not a big fan I'm a big fan of pen blank pain and Blank paper and pen, you know, that's my preferred medium because I think that's where the thinking happens This is a great editing tool so when they do their idea creation each one of them is sitting with their writing journal and And writing they're not sharing anything at that stage You will often see them the first time I tell this is amazing. I see this every year Our students are so used to being told what to write all the time all the time you tell them Open up your notebook and write Anything you want They will just look at you. They'll wait Tell me what to do. I'll do it Don't you know, there's there's this gap this awkward pause and and they look at me anything Anything this is how I start my writing class They will stare out the window sometimes or 20 minutes tapping their pen on paper Till something comes It's made may not be great. It usually is and first drafts are Not great, and then they have something when I ask them, okay Do we have a paragraph we can put I start very small one paragraph? Can we put one paragraph on a Google doc and then I walk them through the? ladder of feedback When we have we first create that text but independently does that answer your question Catherine It's not not not Oh, yeah, that was your concern So, you know you put in the beginning Some feedback that they can cut the case So they can learn what's over and then and then they can get ideas of what would be good feedback So like actually that I don't think that's anything wrong They're like, I don't know what to say or I want to say I like this idea So you could actually give them maybe something some feedback sentences that they can learn from and then maybe on the third Yeah, kind of like crutches They're walking Even I have that same problem. It's like okay, I told the third and you know the 20th suited the same thing You know you need to elaborate here or whatever So it's pretty much kind of pasted, right? But you know and also I sometimes I appreciate it when the course graded or whatever says here's some feedback You can use that I think that's useful. So would that be Change your mindset about letters It's not about copy and paste I mean It's about the time that the writer and the reader start together if they if the writer if they could choose to be the writer and the reader and I mean Well, maybe it's about Then the one who start to read the rock the one who write In the latest age might be better because they read a lot of people's work and no one Willing to be the first one Actually, I tell my student that it's okay if you want to cut and paste because it is this is your real feeling It's about your comments and the problem is if I for example, I say something. Okay. This is good this point realize that this is This could you have used the rule one and appreciate for example One right this and if you agree with this, it's okay If you copy and paste but you need to think about anything, this is unique, but it turns out that or everyone I Do not know how to make it clearly So you have four people or three people getting a feedback and the first one's the first one to get feedback And then the next one just go. Yeah, I agree And they're not giving any If I may jump in here, sorry time is limited I agree with you I think it's about giving if you give them a bank. They'll have a range of Started statements It's like having crutches in the beginning when you don't know how to walk and then those statements are for them to copy and paste But later on you take that crutch away and you say, okay Now what do you think having an opinion on a piece of writing is as important as being able to write? They're all connected So Unfortunately in my thank you and thank you we can talk more later. Yeah, sorry time is up Sherry is signaling to me that my time is up I had intended for you to either write a little paragraph or give me feedback if you scroll down You will see This is my You have access to this document You can actually practice using the ladder of feedback if you like you can email yourself this link I will keep it open. So it also has the ladder of feedback there And this is the first draft of my opening story, which was in the anthology Which had tail of two cities, which was 12 stories from Hong Kong 12 stories from Singapore and This one was about urban beekeeping in Hong Kong. Okay, so you can see my first draft and after if you if you scroll down You'll see the ladder of feedback Here and then this was the published version. I'm still not happy about this. I love your feedback It's the most precious gift you can give me. I'm still learning this art You'll see the difference that the I got feedback from three people in my critique group and And But you'll see a difference in the quality of my writing the level of detail So that's a description of a young man standing on On a rooftop in in Kowloon as he contemplates suicide, but don't worry. He doesn't die Okay, so thank you very much for coming. I'd love to chat with you later You can always email me sherry. You have my Contact shared with everybody. I'd love to chat with you meet with you share more resources I can send you examples of how my students I can send you snapshots if you email me I'm happy to send you anything and everything. That's how we learn and get better. Thank you