Reflecting on their Voices
I'm reposting from my Aural Pedagogy blog:
I’ve added audio recorded elements to some of my Composition II writing assignments this semester, beginning with their second assignment, the autobiographical essay. This essay is short enough to reasonably ask that it be recorded entire, personal enough that the students should feel fairly confident reading it, and just academic enough that it broadens their field of personal expression. Here is the opening of the assignment that outlines its nature and sets up its eventual adaptation into an online component of a website:
“This essay should draw on your background, interests, and/or experience enough to show either your particular interest or particular expertise (or both) that explains why you, in particular, are interested in this study. Be certain that you are comfortable with the information that you choose to share with your peers and your teacher, much less a hypothetical larger readership. In some respects this essay corresponds to the ‘About Me/Us’ links found on professional websites. This element of your eportfolio is meant to inform, reflect, and connect.”
The required mechanics are addressed later, and, of course, there is enough opportunity as a class and with individual students to amplify or clarify the finer points. Here is the recorded component that I have added:
“Additionally, you will record yourself reading this essay, either directly into Canvas or as an uploaded audio file, and then submit a one and a half to two page essay describing your response to both the oral reading of and the listening to your own essay. So the written response will require you to record your reading and to listen to your recording.”
As a baseline, the students should at least hear to some degree the effectiveness of their prose, especially in regard to syntax and logical transitions, and perhaps also to diction.
But, for this first recorded assignment, the key to making this work as I want it to is the accompanying reflective essay. While they may gain some advantage in reading it aloud and further advantage in listening to their recording afterward, I believe that the best advantage will come from them critically thinking through writing about the whole experience.
To that end, I am working on a handout with a list of suggested questions or prompts that will require the students to describe how the experience has affected the ways they see their drafts, if not, in fact, their whole cycle of composition. For instance:
Describe what hearing your text felt like.
How easy or difficult was it for you to recite your draft? In either case, why do you think it was so?
As you listened to your recording, did you mark anything on your draft? Did any changes appear to be needed that you hadn’t noticed earlier?
As you read or listened to your draft, did you lose the thread of the argument? If so, what happened to cause this and how can you fix it?
How did the tone of your draft sound to you: didactic, preachy, informal, overly formal, conversational, accusatory, colloquial, angry, dry, or patronizing? Did it sound confident, open-minded, diplomatic, friendly, helpful, or informed?
How do you think other readers or listeners might respond emotionally or rationally to your argument as you hear it? Do you think you come across as honest and reliable?
How much do you think you sounded like yourself? Do you feel like you’ve managed to achieve a balance between an academic tone and your natural voice? What else might you do to find this balance in a way that satisfies you?
I will continue developing these questions, probably grouping them into sets addressing tone, comprehension, persuasiveness, or like categories. However, as the assignments grow more varied, and, in some cases, longer, I am, for now, limiting the recordings to opening and closing paragraphs. And, for now, I am not requiring other short reflective essays on the recording, which I’m afraid might be more repetitive than not. I will, however, suggest that in their final reflective essay at semester’s end, they may want to include commentary on the recorded element of their work, or they may even want to introduce an audio recording as one of their required artifacts in their eportfolio.
