Readings for March 8

It’s hard to comment on these articles since most of us recently took Beach’s class – I feel I’ve already talked the digital reading/writing issue to death. What I like most about using digital writing, is the student freedom that I believe it promotes. When using blogs in terms of literature circles or book discussions, students have the freedom to comment on parts of the book they found interesting. This is in converse to the typical teacher-lead discussions where students may feel as though they are “missing something” or are “way off” because they don’t find the details highlighted by the teacher appealing. In addition, students have the freedom to peruse other’s blogs without their knowledge, they can decide which blogs to comment on, and they can decide which responses they want to keep on their own blog. In a broad sense of freedom, students can choose to their blog layout and personalize it as much as they want. In addition, they can most likely choose when and where to blog. Thus, they are free to work when it bests suits them.

I think blogs could work particularly well for peer editing. While it seems unlikely that students would post entire papers to their blog, they could post ideas for or sections of their paper. Whereas a student may not feel comfortable critiquing a fellow classmate’s work in a face-to-face setting, blogging may put those students at ease. It would give them time to articulate their concerns in a situation that is not as stressful as a face-to-face interaction. Blogs could also provide a way for students to participate in discussions that they otherwise may not. Those students may be extremely shy, not work well under pressure, have trouble articulating their thoughts quickly or perhaps an ESL student is embarrassed about her accent. Blogging would eliminate most or all of these concerns.

Here is a website with loads of teaching ideas. Obviously many of you were in Beach’s class with me so we’ve all posted our own ideas here. However, I figure we should get as much use out of our work as possible. http://teachingmedialiteracy.pbwiki.com/IntegratingMediaintheCurriculum

Readings for March 1

Petit’s article made me question why I personally am so scared of grammar. Is it because of the way I was taught grammar? Is it because I don’t remember what I was taught? I think it is a combination of the way I was taught and the terminology that seems to confuse more than clarify. You feel stupid for not being able to formally name the parts of something you use daily (writing), particularly if you’re an English major. Thus, I was attracted to Dean’s article because she avoided the standard, confusing terminology. However, Williams made a valid point that we need to have a common language to use when teaching grammar and usage. I then began to wonder if perhaps Dean’s approach is not as grand as I initially thought it was. I despise thinking about teaching to tests, but if we are teaching parts of sentences and grammar anyway, shouldn’t we teach the students the proper names so that they could score higher on standard tests? Perhaps Dean’s approach could be slightly modified to include proper names after the students have already mastered identification.

Another reason I was drawn towards Dean’s approach was because I felt as though students were given the freedom to fail, in an informal setting. I think all three readings pointed to the fact that students deserve more freedom in grammar, and they deserve the knowledge to make grammatical choices. I think a teacher’s goal should be to give students knowledge that creates options for them and then let them choose for themselves. Petit, Dean, and Williams all seem to agree on that aspect.

Here’s a website that no one has heard of, I just know it. It lists some of Dean’s lesson ideas for teaching revision, organization, audience, and genres. http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/author_detail.asp?authorid=225&lessonid=978

Readings for February 22

After reading Spandel and Williams, I realize how difficult it is to properly assess student writing. I am particularly frightened assessing creative writing as I personally do not write creatively. I think one way to try to make each student successful, is to grade their process of writing in addition to their final product. Peer review, self-assessment, and various drafts will all combine to make up a student’s grade. In addition, I hope to have the time to allow students to continually revise for a better grade.

I really liked Williams’ approach about reading papers twice, and putting them in piles of similar strength. My cooperating teaching recently spoke to me about this approach and the numerous benefits so I was already sold on the idea. I think one way to cut down on grading and paper load is to have students write fewer papers, better. That is, to have multiple revisions of every paper. I think this gives them a deeper understanding and makes grading easier, since as a teacher you will have seen their paper numerous times.

Both Williams (although less blatantly) and Spandel spoke about the role of testing as a measurement of successful learning. Since we as a cohort have been discussing this for about a year, I don’t feel obliged to go into detail and I feel as though most of us agree current educators should play more of a role in making the standards. I did like Spandel’s advice on compassionate assessment and focusing on finding ways to assess that encourage students.

Spandel made some very interesting points regarding straying off topic. I feel that not allowing students to stray produces boring, restrictive, and possibly contrived writing. I also like how she mentioned that restricting students to prompts implies arrogance and a need for control on the part of the teacher. I couldn’t agree more and would like to add that it may also point to laziness (or time constraints) as a teacher would be able to grade papers more quickly when everyone writes about the same thing. Looking back on my most successful writing, I would come up with a thesis but would eventually stray as my research would point me in a different direction. Had I not had that freedom, those papers instead would have been some of my least successful.

This website makes some strong points on the importance of formative assessments for writing rather than summative. http://www.bridgewater.edu/WritingCenter/Resources/sumform.htm

Readings for February 15

I feel much better about our Voice mini-lesson after reading #9 of The Nine Rights of Every Writer. It would have been interesting to try to define voice by asking students what type of writing doesn’t have voice and why. Spandel also echoed Joe’s thoughts on voice by comparing it to fingerprints; they may be either faint or obvious, but your fingerprints are on all of your writing.

Rights #5 and #6 were very helpful. The right to write badly reminded me of teaching. Teachers should have the right to teach poorly on their way to becoming an effective teacher. Writers and teachers alike deserved to be praised for taking risks to make something better rather than continuing on the safe path. I particularly liked the idea about changing the wording of directions or writing prompts in order to get the student to unknowingly take risks in their writing. I felt that it corresponded nicely with Harper’s toolbox article. When students are taught the tools of revision, it is not as scary to take risks in writing because they know how to improve their work. I particularly liked the toolbox approach because it clearly defines how to begin revising. In addition, the tools are not specific to a writer; my tools can be used on your writing and vice versa. To become a good writer, I think it is helpful to recognize certain aspects of writing and to be able to critique writing. Harper’s toolbox makes this seemingly daunting task possible for students of all levels.

I feel as though the majority of the articles we’ve read in the past and for this week stress the importance of more focus on fewer issues. I think this is crucial for revising. Right #6 outlines how important it is to show writers the little steps in writing that often get over looked or that teachers assume students already know. I believe teachers often fail to teach when they are trying to cover too much and skip small steps on the way to getting to the top of the stairs. It is not enough to show a student a finished writing product. To understand the process, they need to see it modeled for them from start to finish.

I think this link is pretty self-explanatory, http://www.writers-toolbox.com/

Readings for February 8

I don’t think it’s necessary to review the different points made regarding the pros and cons of the five paragraph essay. Instead, I’ll focus the one I agreed with the most, Nunnally. Nunnally made excellent points about the relevance of the five paragraph essay. Although the formula is not always applicable and reading them is tedious and dull, the five paragraph essay does teach useful writing skills such as thesis, clarity, relevance, and support of ideas. What I find baffling is that teachers often don’t relay this information to their students. Instead they focus on the three ideas. Students get caught up in following this formula without understand what they are doing. Thus, instead of relevance of ideas and support, students often are limited (by the three) or distort their ideas to fit (again three). I think it is important to tell them that they should concentrate on coming up with a thesis, and then finding ways to support that. Teachers should specify that an entire paper could be support of one idea or support of 10 ideas (or perhaps the paper does naturally have three ideas and it should be noted that that too is acceptable). More than one paragraph can be dedicated to supporting one idea. Again, students need to know why they are doing what they are doing. Nunnally sums this up by suggesting that, “students should be encouraged to see the FPT for what it is: a helpful but contrived exercise useful in developing solid principles of composition” (71). I do think that students should know about the five paragraph essay if for no other reason than to pass state mandated tests and to have an idea of where to start when writing a paper; however, they need to know that the formula can be changed to suit the needs of the paper and the thesis. The five paragraph essay is a good way to learn how to write but there is no need for it to be used repeatedly after one has mastered the concept.

The following website kind of outlines how a five paragraph essay can be used as a skeleton to start a paper, and how once you get into it, it often becomes far more than the standard FPT: http://www.brooklyn.liunet.edu/fw/portfolio_resource_guide/d1a.htm

February 1 Readings

Once again, I felt as though the suggestions for teaching presented in this week’s readings make learner easier for students and teachers. Perhaps I’m just looking for easier approaches. I like the idea of multigenre papers, largely because of the wide variety of material you would get to read as a teacher. The thought of reading the same papers over and over with merely slight variations is sickening. Not only would a multigenre paper essentially eliminate the tedious work of reading the same papers, it also gives the students choice in their learning (which in turn leads to increased motivation). Obviously Spandel believes that writers should have a choice in order to perform well and I am inclined to agree. A good way to get someone to hate writing is to make them write about things that they have no interest in or possibly even hate. It is important that students get to write on a topic of their choice, but perhaps more importantly, like a portfolio, they can choose to submit the work that they feel is their best. Multigenre papers can be seen as providing countless ways to engage students in their assignment. They are also useful for discovering your students’ interests on your way to being a caring teacher. Once you know what your students like, you can better cater future assignments to meet their needs.

Closely tied to student choice in assignments is relevance. What I liked most about the Williams chapter were the assignments (the examples of “good” assignments) that were relevant to the real lives of students – events that would have a direct affect on them. I also liked the way in which he emphasized the importance of building assignments off of each other and writing a new assignment in comparison to what the students had done on the previous assignments. I think as a busy teacher, it would be easy to take for granted that your students know the differences or similarities from one assignment to the next. I think it is a great idea to spend a sentence or two comparing and contrasting them as way to clarify and review. However, it is getting harder to take positive aspects away from Williams’s book. I question how much of his knowledge about students comes from personal experience and thus I question the credibility of his advice.

Here’s a website that has some interesting ideas for multigenre assignments based on grade level. There are also links for many more resources on multigenre assignments. http://www.ncte.org/profdev/online/ideas/freq/114026.htm

Blog for January 25

It appeared to me that all three readings pointed to ways to ease the work load and stress from the teacher, while doing something that is also beneficial for the students. I found Carney’s article insightful as I had just spent Friday afternoon grading World Literature essays. It was very time-consuming and I had trouble pointing out all of the errors. I realize this was a waste of time for me and for the student trying to decipher my critiques. I should have focused on the high-order concerns and pointed to one or two issues I saw rather than trying to fix everything at once. Had I prioritized, it would have been far less overwhelming for both me and the student. The HOCs and LOCs are a tool I will definitely take with me into the classroom. I think the following website would be helpful to students to highlight important issues as they begin peer editing. You could have students focus on different aspects throughout different stages of revision.

http://coe.sdsu.edu/people/jmora/WritingRubrics/sld006.htm

I really like the idea of group or peer editing. I think Williams gives very clear and concise directions on how to approach this in your own classroom, which was very helpful. However, I think Atwell did a nice job summarizing it’s usefulness in the following quote: “In the past I relied too much on conferences with individuals as the forum for helping students reflect on and improve their writing, at the expense of discovering what we might accomplish together, and I put too much pressure on myself” (Minilessons, 151). When students work collaboratively to better each other’s papers they are learning to do far more than write. They are learning to articulate what good writing is and they are also learning how to accept and learn from peer criticism (in addition to numerous other benefits). All the while the teacher reduces her own stress load by allowing students to help and cooperatively learn from each other.

The other thing that resonated throughout the readings was going further in depth rather than covering more topics. It takes time to produce multiple drafts of a paper but it seems to greatly increase understanding which in turn makes that knowledge transferable to other situations. Ultimately, greater understanding is more likely produce independent learners, one of the fundamental goals of teaching.