CI5461: Week 2

I know that I should be skeptical of a chapter that begins with the heading, "Making Good Writing Assignments," but at this point in my education/career I really want something prescribed to me as to how to be a good teacher. Unfortunately, Williams proved to me (once again) that there is no such thing as a prescription for a good teacher. Chapter nine of his book, "Preparing to Teach Writing" was just as cynical as the others that we have read so far. It's important to embrace a certain amount of cynicism in order to keep a realistic outlook on the field of teaching, yet a statement such as: "Especially problematic is the fact that talented and experienced writers also have interesting stories to tell; typically, students do not because they have not lived long enough," (Williams, 284) is so cynical that it is shocking and disturbing. Instantly, I was turned off to Williams' methods and ideas because of his disregard for students' lives and abilities.

Williams discusses sequencing assignments in order to help scaffold students (which makes sense), but does not take into account who the students are as individuals. He also illustrates detailed prompts about specific topics. He states that "teachers must decide what they want students to do in an assignment, how they want them to do it, who the students are writing for, and what constitutes a successful response to the assignment." (Williams, 288) To me, the most important aspect of creating an assignment is to take into account the students you have in the classroom. Generally, students feel more ownership of a paper if they are given a choice as to the topic, audience, and even grading criteria for the assignment. And when students feel more ownership, more investment, and more interest, you are likely to get a better paper. Certainly, the teacher needs to address these issues with the students to make sure they are appropriate for the class goals and structure, but Williams suggests that students are incapable of finding topics, et cetera that are in line with the class itself.

With Williams' structure in place in the classroom, I think students would quickly be bored and discouraged with writing. Luckily, our other reading was about a much more interesting, more fun style of writing: multigenre. Which leads me to this week's resource...

This week's resource is a website about multigenre writing. While Williams really riled me up this week, I thought Romano's book was very interesting. I'd like to have my students write a multigenre paper (or project) at some point in my teaching career. I think it would be more fun to do (and more fun to grade!) than a five-paragraph essay. This website is organized in a way that makes sense for me as a teacher to begin planning this project. Hopefully it will be helpful to others, too! :)

CI5461: Week 1

Thinking about teaching writing in the high school has always been a little bit overwhelming for me. I've thought about teaching literature and about what it means to have students think critically about it and talk about it in class... but I've never really thought about helping them to write about it. Or write about anything else for that matter.

So far, the reading for this class that has helped me to think about it in the most concrete terms was the article by Barbara Carney. This article, entitled "Process Writing and the Secondary School Reality: A Compromise," spoke to teaching the writing process. For me, the most important idea from this article was that of student ownership. Giving students choices is a huge part of making an assignment or activity engaging for them. It makes them feel like they have a chance at being good at what they're doing in class if they have been struggling, or makes them feel like they control the activity and the outcome. This is important in getting them interested in the activity from the start and it keeps them from simply giving up when it gets difficult. If they have invested in the piece of writing, they are more likely to succeed-- both academically and personally.

Also, the idea of student choice and ownership directly relates to the idea of differentiation that came up in CI5481: Developments inTeaching English and Speech today. Students can choose a writing activity or prompt which suits their individual needs. For example, one student may choose to write about the given topic in the form of a poem, whereas another student may feel more comfortable writing about the same topic in paragraph form. Also, various aspects of the same topic might be chosen in order to accomodate a range of ability or understanding. (Character, setting, or plot in of the same novel, for example.)

Another important idea in the Carney article was that of teaching students how to peer edit. Particularly "Higher Order Concerns" and "Lower Order Concerns." It's good for students to know how to recognize and fix things like grammar and spelling, but it's also important for them to recognize that the thesis, tone, and organization are much more important for conveying their ideas-- which is ultimately the purpose of writing. Once the students have a grasp of these concepts and understand what to look for and how to talk about one anothers' papers, I think they begin to take the writing and revising process more seriously because they know their audience and have a desire to please them. Once again, this kind of ownership is what it takes to make writing interesting and exciting to secondary students.

This week's resource:
I chose a website that has a number of writing prompts as this week's resource because it gives both me and my students a place to start. I like how it is organized by categories such as: expository, persuasive, descriptive, narrative, et cetera. Also, each writing prompt has an interactive model essay, which would help students prepare for a standardized writing test (which, as we all know, is so important to districts these days...)!

CI5461

I plan on using this blog to log my responses to readings for my "Teaching Composition in the Secondary School" class. More to come very soon!

Also, check out my instructor's site!