Teaching Ideas and Units - Teaching Strategies

Electronic Read-Arounds

Reading, writing
Bands B,C,D

What is it?

An Electronic Read-Around is a strategy developed by Rick Monroe to enable students to read and comment on each other's work as it is being drafted.

What is its purpose?

It enables students to get feedback from several people on their writing and to gain insight into how other students craft their writing.

How do I do it?

(In its original form, the strategy is used in rooms where there are a number of computers for students to use.)

• When students have reached a stage with their writing where they are ready for feedback, they open up their writing files on their computers and depress the Caps Lock key or change to a different font.
• Each student then moves to a different computer so they are facing someone else's work.
• They read the writing all the way through.
• Students then re-read the writing, stopping to respond, query or comment as they go. Changing the font or depressing the Caps Lock key distinguishes their comments from the original writing.
• Every ten minutes or so the students move to a different piece of writing.
• When the time is nearly up, the students return to their own writing. By this stage they may have four detailed and specific responses to their writing on the screen. They can then choose to save the writing with comments or save it under a different file name so their original writing is untouched but they still have the comments.
• The students use the comments as they choose when they revise their writing.

How can I adapt it?

• If there are fewer computers available, students can take it in turns to make their work available for feedback like this. The task can be set up as a learning centre for groups to use.
• Students can work in pairs to respond to the writing.
• The student seeking feedback can make specific requests of the readers, such as suggesting a title, helping with dialogue, or underlining the most effective images.

How can I use it to evaluate students' language learning?

This activity provides a good opportunity to observe students' strategies for reading and responding to texts. Depending on the focus of the writing task, students' feedback also provides evidence of their contextual understanding and use of relevant linguistic structures and features. If students put their initials next to their comments, their feedback can be easily identified when the teacher collects the final piece with drafts.

Where can I find out more?

Rick Monroe explains this strategy and others in Electronic Read-Arounds and Other Computer-Writing an extract from the book, Writing and Thinking with Computers: A Practical and Progressive Approach, published by the National Council of Teachers of English in the USA.
Many other strategies, including other ideas for developing students' writing with computers can be found on the NCTE site.