The instructor and students will follow the protocol established for the small group conferences, with each group of students meeting with the instructor at a scheduled time to go over organizational and global issues in the first draft of students’ writing.
We ask students to prepare for group conferences by carefully revising their drafts and formulating questions about their work. We tell them to take note of things they’re not sure about and locate parts of their draft they think are weaker than others or need to be improved. Lumen Learning describes an approach which we think makes a lot of sense:
Generally, revision should be approached in a top-down manner by addressing higher order concerns (HOCs) before moving on to lower order concerns (LOCs). In writing studies, the term “higher order” is used to denote major or global issues such as thesis, argumentation, and organization, whereas “lower order” is used to denote minor or local issues such as grammar and mechanics.
Dedicating time to tweaking wording or correcting grammatical errors is unproductive if the sentence will be changed or deleted. Focusing on HOCs before LOCs allows writers to revise more effectively and efficiently.
In preparation for group conferences we ask students to formulate questions that focus on the content and organization of their draft. In the Student conferencing guide we make the following suggestions:
Preparation for group conference: focus on content and organization
- Begin by evaluating how your argument addresses your rhetorical situation—that is, the specific context surrounding your writing, including the audience, exigence, and constraints. Does your writing do everything you are asked to do in the assignment instructions?
- Analyze your thesis or main argument for clarity.
- Evaluate the global organization of your text by writing a reverse outline. Unlike traditional outlines, which are written before drafting, reverse outlines reflect the content of written drafts. In a separate document or in your text’s margins, record the main idea of each paragraph. Then, consider whether the order of your ideas is logical. This method also will help you identify ideas that are out of place or digressive.
– Adapted from Lumen, English Composition 1, “Writing Process: Revising,” accessed August 9, 2018 text-higher-order-concerns