Wargaming with George Orwell

If people cannot write well, they cannot think well and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.

George Orwell

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In early 2016, I conducted one-on-one essay-writing sessions with a combat engineer and a carpenter. Both students were males, in their early 20s, who had completed high school but had not undertaken any tertiary study. They both liked doing manual tasks and playing sport, but only one enjoyed reading. Both students manifested high levels of anxiety about their writing abilities and low confidence with literacy tasks.

Student A was being medically discharged, so planned to study Agricultural Science at a highly-regarded city university. Student B was undergoing the Special Forces (SF) selection process in which he would be required to write timed essays under arduous conditions. He had completed Subject One Corporal Army and had some high school essay-writing experience but found spelling and reading to be challenging tasks. The students therefore required individualised learning plans with different performance criteria and contrasting learning outcomes.

Understanding by Design

The selected methodological approach was the Understanding by Design (UbD) model. UbD is a backwards design tool that applies cognitive research ‘that highlights the centrality of teaching and assessing for understanding’ (Wiggans and McTighe 2011, 3). The planning process begins by establishing learning goals and then identifies required evidence prior to developing a learning plan. This reverse design process helps to mitigate common planning faults such as producing a disconnected series of activities or ‘activity-hopping’; and content coverage that tries to teach everything on a particular topic (Wiggans and McTighe 2011, 9). If key learning outcomes are not identified, learning plans lack relevance and purpose. The UbD approach helps course designers to clarify what students will be able to do and what they will understand.

Scaffolding Learning

Rather than designing a loosely-connected series of lessons, UbD, therefore, scaffolds learning ‘in doable increments’, moving ‘back and forth from whole to part, with increasing complexity’ (Wiggans & McTighe 2011, 11). By responding to student needs, UbD designers continuously update and amend course plans to best support learners in achieving desired learning goals. The UbD backwards design, therefore, is an effective tool to assist teachers to think ‘purposefully about curricular planning’ (Wiggans & McTighe 2011, 3) and to adopt a ‘continuous-improvement approach to achievement’ (Wiggans & McTighe 2011, 4) from both the teacher’s and the learner’s perspective.

Learning Goals

By applying the UbD method, the desired results were first established. Each student had different career paths which shaped their respective learning goals. Student A sought academic success at university, so his key learning goal was to produce a 1500-word academic research paper. Student B aspired to be an SF soldier so needed to showcase his writing skills during the selection process. In order to develop learning goals specific to each student’s current abilities, further evidence was collected through diagnostic assessment about the students’ prior knowledge and skill levels.

Diagnostic Assessment

The course design required a diagnostic tool that assesses student understanding of formal writing style, correct application of English grammar and punctuation, essay structure and the logical sequencing of ideas. To meet this requirement many writing courses ask students to write about a personal topic such as a favourite holiday destination or an influential person. As Miraglia points out, however, the problem with such essay topics is that they have ‘masked intentions’ as they ‘ask a question when in fact they are designed to answer another’ (Miraglia 1995, 50). In other words the essay question asks about the student’s personal experiences, when in reality it assesses their writing abilities. The assessor has therefore only a partial, if any, interest in the subject under discussion (Miraglia 1995, 90).

By contrast, Miraglia proposes that students respond to a diagnostic question which specifically addresses their writing abilities (see Appendix A). By asking them to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses as a writer, the student engages in a dialogue with the teacher on the central topic under investigation: the student’s writing abilities. The student reflects on previous writing experiences, in the school and the workplace, and the teacher applies his or her expertise in effective writing theory and practice. The teacher therefore compiles an extensive list regarding the student’s writing abilities, based on the student’s reflections and the teacher’s observations.

Miraglia’s approach to diagnostic assessment seemed effective so each student was asked to reflect on their writing strengths, weaknesses and goals. As they already manifested low confidence levels, to enhance their performance, the assessment was conducted in a relaxed and supportive environment. Accordingly the students were given the choice of either hand or type-writing a response and could choose to complete the task during a lesson, or in their own time. They were advised that the task should take approximately an hour but there was no set time limit. The students were assured that the assessment was an informal task, designed to establish their current literacy skills in order to set a benchmark for future development and shape the focus for upcoming lessons.

Student Performance

Miraglia’s diagnostic tool provided deep insight into the students’ respective writing abilities. Both students produced well-structured and logical essays within the hour timeframe. They showed themselves to be reflective and motivated learners, with a wide vocabulary, but showed some weakness in fully expanding key points. Student A revealed a misconception that formal writing requires an elevated style. His syntax therefore became overly-complicated and ungrammatical, thus impeding clarity and brevity. Student B, by contrast, demonstrated an elegant and fluent plain English writing style but had extremely high rates of spelling errors. The students’ performance, coupled with their stated goals, suggested that Student A’s course design should focus on formal academic writing standards and the development of a fluent, grammatical, plain English writing style. Student B, by contrast, required explicit spelling instruction and regular practice in writing timed essays.

Student A Learning Plan

Student A’s learning sequence alternated between practising foundational grammar skills and developing essay-writing skills such as topic selection, planning, researching and referencing. The lessons explored authentic examples of plain English writing style such as George Orwell’s 1984, Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, and sportswriter Ian Frazier’s ‘The Last Days of Stealhead Joe.’ The readings prompted discussion about grammatical sentence structure and subject-verb agreement. A theory presentation on essay structure was delivered, followed by an examination of George Orwell’s 1945 essay ‘The Sporting Spirit’. The Harvard system was used to explain referencing conventions and research skills were practised through online activities.

The learning sequence culminated in a 1500-word academic essay. The essay questions were tailored to Student A’s interests and incorporated various academic domains ranging from historical analysis to urban planning to Australian politics (see Appendix A). The essay questions focused on different tasks such as summarising information, critically analysing material, or arguing a position. The topics were therefore designed to be engaging while simultaneously giving exposure to diverse types of tertiary-level essays.

Student A Writing Progress

Midway through the course, Student A produced an in-class essay on the Essendon Football Club (EFC) supplements controversy and its impact on Australia’s self-image and international reputation. His essay reflected a clear stance and included strong evidence; however it tended to describe rather than to analyse facts. He showed considerable skill during verbal discussion at data-analysis but needed to transfer the same high levels of critical analysis to his written expression. His essay also revealed a common undergraduate fault of failing to address the entire question. His essay focused only on Australia’s international reputation following the supplements controversy but did not discuss its impact on Australia’s self-image. Making this mistake in a non-assessed environment was a useful learning experience as it may have helped to pre-empt similar errors at university.

Student A Research Paper

For his final submission, Student A researched post-war reconstruction efforts in Cologne. His first draft was about 800 words and, like his EFC supplements controversy essay, contained detailed content, but a tendency to describe rather than analyse data. We discussed each paragraph and identified how he could evaluate not just simply summarise urban design decisions.

His final draft was 1575 words and proved to be a well-argued and thoroughly researched appraisal. Of the five paragraphs in the essay body, only one described, rather than analysed, his material. His essay received a Distinction (75-84%) as it was high quality research, written in an elegant and persuasive style. The essay’s main weakness was the confused in-text citation and the lack of a bibliography. His performance suggested that the instruction on the Harvard system contained insufficient referencing practise.

The course plan therefore achieved the desired outcome of teaching Student A to produce an academic essay at a first-year university standard. Significantly his achievements had heightened his learning efficacy as he had developed greater awareness of both his capabilities and areas for improvement. He was thus well-equipped to seek further development at university.

Student B Learning Goals

As Student B needed to showcase his writing abilities during SF selection, spelling was the primary focus for his learning plan. While he had not been formally diagnosed with dyslexia the contrast between his high intelligence and his poor spelling performance, suggested that dyslexia management strategies might prove effective. As dyslexia is a phonological processing disorder, memorising spelling lists was considered ineffective (Shaywitz 1996, 104). By contrast the methodological approach focused on explicit instruction in chunking graphemes (Hutchison 2016, 14- 15) and maximum exposure to the correct spelling of target words in multiple forums.

Student B Learning Plan

The learning plan therefore focused on weekly take-home essay-writing tasks on various military and general interest topics (see Appendix A). A spelling list was generated from his essay responses and errors were analysed for common faults, such as vowel confusion, double letter confusion, or mispronunciation. Reading passages were selected that contained high incidences of target words. Student B practised spelling by transcribing target words and then contextualising them through short sentence and paragraph composition. To add variety and interest to lessons, innovative online activities were incorporated such as the Spellzone online spelling course for adults and David Regan’s Armoredpenguin literacy games website. Student B’s writing abilities were developed through explicit essay writing instruction and examining model essays like US sportswriter, Rick Reilly’s column about Lance Armstrong and Orwell’s essay on The Sporting Spirit. Student B was encouraged to practise recreational reading by exploring graphic novels, military biographies and highly-regarded American sportswriting articles.

Student B Spelling

Student B’s first in-class essay contained 34 spelling errors. Each week the number of errors was reduced, culminating in his final submission which contained 24 spelling errors. Not only were the numbers of errors reduced but the type of errors reflected far greater language control. Rather than randomly guessed words, his spelling errors were logical mistakes such as spelling ‘confidence’ as ‘confidance’ or phonetically transcribing ‘tough’ and ‘effectively’ as ‘tuff’ and ‘efectively’. His spelling therefore showed marked improvement in only a few short weeks.

Student B Essay-writing

Student B found Orwell’s essay a particularly useful model for essay-writing, as he could readily identify strengths and weaknesses in argumentation and structure. When discussing the way Orwell refuted counter-arguments, Student B asked ‘so writers need to wargame their argument, like we wargame our COAs during IMAP?’ His observation was a clear articulation of the essay-writing process and an insightful application to military processes. His observation helped clarify the connection between military training and the development of logical thought. Even though he had had limited formal writing instruction, the IMAP process had enhanced his abilities to identify key information, mitigate threats and draw logical conclusions.

Student B’s weekly essays displayed obvious progress in his writing skills. While he had always demonstrated a good understanding of logical structure and had a fluent writing style, his language tended to be imprecise with partially developed ideas. By analysing authentic examples of effective essay-writing, he developed a better understanding of paragraph structure. His final essay proved to be a well-developed argument, supported by strong evidence. Each paragraph contained one idea that was fully expanded with logical links to the next idea. His language choices were precise with a highly effective application of such literary devices as rhetorical questions and reiteration.

When discussing his final submission he stated that he found the writing process to be less stressful and he no longer considered essay-writing to be ‘outside my comfort zone’. He felt confident about the literacy tasks he would need to undertake, not only as part of the SF selection process, but throughout his career. His spelling was now at a standard comparative to many of his peers and he had acquired the confidence and learning autonomy to further develop his literacy skills.

These essay-writing experiences demonstrate that one-on-one instruction requires the same high levels of planning and preparation as group instruction. Tutorials need to be conceived of as a series of linked lessons that are part of an overall course design. Instructional design needs to incorporate a clear articulation of learning goals with purposeful and engaging learning sequences that aim to achieve pre-determined outcomes.

Diagnostic assessments are a critical component of establishing learning goals. By writing about personal experiences the students are likely to produce quality writing that reveals actual performance capabilities. By reflecting on their learning goals, the student starts to exercise control over their learning, thus engendering confidence, heightening learner efficacy and encouraging intrinsic motivation.

Bibliography

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Hattie, John and Yates, Gregory 2014, Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn, Routledge, NY.

Hutchison, Michelle 2016, Smart Spelling Manual viewed 21 February 2016 <http://michellehutchison.com.au/>.

Miraglia, Eric 1995, ‘A self-diagnostic assessment in the basic writing course’, Journal of Basic Writing, Vol 14, No 2, 48–67.

Oshima, Alice and Hogue, Ann 1999, Writing Academic English, 3rd Edition, Longman, NY.

Regan, David n.d., Wordsearch, viewed 11 March 2016, <http://www.armoredpenguin.com/wordsearch/>.

Shaywitz, SE 1996, ‘Dyslexia’, Scientific American November 1996, 98–104.

Spellzone 2013, viewed 11 March 2016 <https://www.spellzone.com/single_adult_spelling.cfm>.

Straus, Jane 2008, The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, 10th Edition, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

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Wiggans, Grant and McTighe, Jay 2011, The Understanding by Design Guide to Creating High-Quality Units, ASCD, Alexandria, VA, USA.