Teaching Adolescent Writers
(Page 74) “Voluminous reading alone does not make the writer, but those students who are readers come to the writing task with a marked advantage.”
I love the basketball metaphor Gallagher uses to support this thought to remind us that we have to provide explicit writing instruction for our students. Even when I was a teenager I was able to make the connection that people who read a lot write well, though no one ever told me this. I based my scientific analysis on one subject—my sister who was a voracious reader (it amazed me she could read an entire book in two hours) and wrote very well…in fact she and her friends wrote stories just for fun. (Ironically, she was the less scholarly of the two of us, though she has written many a complaint letter and received free meals because of them. Even today she often writes letters to editor, but I digress…) It is interesting that some people aren’t able to transfer all of that reading into writing. I can think of a student I taught who was an avid reader—always had a book in her hand—but her writing left much to be desired. I know of an adult who reads all the time but when he has to put something in writing, he needs someone to edit it for him. I think the point Gallagher makes, though, is that these type of readers-not-so-great-writers will learn more easily when given specific writing instruction because they have so many examples to pull from.
Content Area Writing
(Page 122) “But if they believe (writing’s) main purpose is just to display what they’ve memorized, or worse, to call them out on things they didn’t get, they’ll always play it safe, take few chances, and stick with what they already know.”
This goes along with what we talked about with Britton’s continuum—that when Britton did his research, he found that the majority of students were doing transactional writing, which mainly included taking tests and spitting out the “right” answer to teachers. What are students really learning if they’re just regurgitating what the teacher said? Students (and we) can learn so much more if we widen our criteria and give options for writing. Daniels et al seem to reiterate what we’ve read with Gallagher—model, model, model! I like how this chapter breaks down how content teachers can support the writing process in their classrooms. The whole idea of teaching writing as a process can be scary if you’re not an English teacher (and maybe even to some English teachers), but we’re given practical ways to accomplish the task in this chapter. I like how some of the strategies we’ve explored before for the purpose of reading were twisted a bit to cater to developing writing. There’s definitely a lot covered in this chapter; it’s one to bookmark and refer to in the future.
(Page 74) “Voluminous reading alone does not make the writer, but those students who are readers come to the writing task with a marked advantage.”
I love the basketball metaphor Gallagher uses to support this thought to remind us that we have to provide explicit writing instruction for our students. Even when I was a teenager I was able to make the connection that people who read a lot write well, though no one ever told me this. I based my scientific analysis on one subject—my sister who was a voracious reader (it amazed me she could read an entire book in two hours) and wrote very well…in fact she and her friends wrote stories just for fun. (Ironically, she was the less scholarly of the two of us, though she has written many a complaint letter and received free meals because of them. Even today she often writes letters to editor, but I digress…) It is interesting that some people aren’t able to transfer all of that reading into writing. I can think of a student I taught who was an avid reader—always had a book in her hand—but her writing left much to be desired. I know of an adult who reads all the time but when he has to put something in writing, he needs someone to edit it for him. I think the point Gallagher makes, though, is that these type of readers-not-so-great-writers will learn more easily when given specific writing instruction because they have so many examples to pull from.
Content Area Writing
(Page 122) “But if they believe (writing’s) main purpose is just to display what they’ve memorized, or worse, to call them out on things they didn’t get, they’ll always play it safe, take few chances, and stick with what they already know.”
This goes along with what we talked about with Britton’s continuum—that when Britton did his research, he found that the majority of students were doing transactional writing, which mainly included taking tests and spitting out the “right” answer to teachers. What are students really learning if they’re just regurgitating what the teacher said? Students (and we) can learn so much more if we widen our criteria and give options for writing. Daniels et al seem to reiterate what we’ve read with Gallagher—model, model, model! I like how this chapter breaks down how content teachers can support the writing process in their classrooms. The whole idea of teaching writing as a process can be scary if you’re not an English teacher (and maybe even to some English teachers), but we’re given practical ways to accomplish the task in this chapter. I like how some of the strategies we’ve explored before for the purpose of reading were twisted a bit to cater to developing writing. There’s definitely a lot covered in this chapter; it’s one to bookmark and refer to in the future.
9 comments:
Content Area Writing Chapter Six
Teaching Adolescent Writers Chapter Four
I agree with Diane that just because someone is an avid reader s/he isn’t automatically a great writer. I’ve taught kids who read all the time, but their writing is pitiful (and not just because of the grammatical mistakes they make). I am forever amazed at how many kids have no idea how to put any organization to their thoughts during the writing process. I think that’s one of the areas where modeling from teachers is needed most.
In TAW I liked the idea of writing restaurant reviews (my kids have always loved to write about food, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner) and looking at published reviews as models. Teachers should use the examples of others as often as possible to lessen their already overwhelming workload.
Chapter six in CAW was packed full of stuff. I got on line earlier today to find out who Peter Elbow is (he’s been mentioned in both books), but the internet has been crazy today. Does anybody know who he is? Yea for the Collins Writing Method which was praised in this chapter. This chapter was full of neat strategies, many of which I’ve used before, but I would like to try four card stud and four corners (if my kids can handle that one). I have to disagree with the part on page 125 that marking papers’ grammatical mistakes is “completely ineffective.” I have taught kids who benefit from seeing their mistakes if they’re interested enough to learn from them. You would think that writers would know you shouldn’t use absolute words like completely. Marking papers may not be as effective as some other strategies, but to say it’s “completely ineffective” is just not true. Page 121 says, “The young writers are easily overwhelmed as information sails past instead of helping them,” in reference to the lack of teacher modeling. While that is true, I also believe that sometimes as educators we forget that each of our individual courses isn’t the only one our students are taking. We need to make the effort to not overwhelm kids. Life is overwhelming enough sometimes; school assignments shouldn’t be.
Teaching Adolescent Writers- Chapter 4
Gallagher’s restaurant review strategy is a fun, yet extremely helpful way to improve students writing. I am very happy that Gallagher started out by mentioning a question all teachers get when they give a writing assignment “How long should it be?”. I even get this when I give my PIAT test before I hold a student’s IEP meeting. I now have a very easy answer –
“How long is a piece of string?”
“As long as you cut it.”
What a simple way to tell my students to write until they feel they have covered all aspects of the assignment, gotten everything they want to say across, etc. I know that the first draft may still be very short (as Gallagher’s student sample showed) but that is where all the great techniques we are learning can come into play.
Content-Area Writing – Chapter 6
I am in the process of helping my students learn from their own writing by focusing on one aspect (error/mistake) at a time. Unfortunately, this takes A LOT of time. My students write in journals everyday and as we learn different aspects of good writing I have my students apply what they have learned to their journals. It is an eye-opener for students to see what mistakes they make in their daily writing. As freshman, I feel my students benefit most from learning word choice, usage, complete sentences, etc. I would love to get into deeper writing – we will get there, just not quite yet.
Teaching Adolescent Writers - pp. 73-87
Just like Diane, I loved the basketball / free throw analogy on page 75. Reading a lot doesn't necessarily equate to good writing, but reading a lot has at least presented the student with a number of good models of good writing. When I teach my memoir unit, I do a mini-lesson on leads. I introduce the lesson by reading leads from popular young adult novels. I then show them the leads on the overhead. Many of the books and authors are familiar to the students, and we talk about what is good about the lead and how they can revise their lead and use one of the examples as a model.
I agree with Claire and Kelly that the restaurant review writing assignment is a good one for our students. They all definitely have opinions on what restaurants they like, so I think the assignment would interest them. In the weekend section of the paper on Fridays there is usually a review. It might be a good idea to start a file of these to use as models.
Content Area Writing - pp. 120-140
I am going to disagree with Claire to extent, because I agree with the quote on p. 125 that says, "Years of research have shown that marking up papers at home is completely ineffective." To me the key word is not "completely." I think the key part is the phrase "at home." I personally benefited from having teachers mark up my papers if they did it in front of me, so I would argue that marking every mistake is effective, but only if done with the student along with an explanation. If done completely at home, it's not effective, because no teaching goes on. At the same time, no matter how many times, you correct the mistakes, the students will still make the same ones over and over, so I think there needs to be a balance. Normally, I start off correcting mistakes with them in a conference, and then I tell them to finish. It's not a perfect method, but it's a start and most students find it helpful.
One other idea I liked in this chapter was on page 132 when they talk about planning a break. I like the idea of putting the writing to the side for a few days and coming back to it with a fresh mind and perspective. Sometimes the students are just tired of working on a piece of writing and in their haste to have it done just finish it without much thought and reflection.
Pam--very true about putting writing aside and looking at it later. I know I've written stuff before and thought it was pretty good...then looking at it MONTHS later, I wonder what in the world I was thinking to have thought that it was good!
Teaching Adolescent Writers- Chapter 4
Content-Area Writing- Chapter 6
In Content-Area Writing, I felt sorta bogged down with all the strategies and then the magic words at the end- “START SMALL” (page 139). Relief! The authors kept emphasizing not to feel guilty for not doing all of these strategies but that did not keep those feeling from coming! As I re-read this chapter, I did feel guilty because I gave my students a “cold” writing and then the authors busted me on it. Right then and there, I stopped my students and did a write aloud on the topic. I hoped that it helped some of those kids who might have struggled with the assignment. Also, I loved the idea on pages 84-85 about incorporating magazines and real world connections. That would be very easy in my subject area. And, like TAW, I would have a model for good writing (like restaurant and movie reviews). As the authors said, “ If we want our students to develop the tools needed to write well, then we must provide them with numerous (key point there) to read and study- models both inside and outside the classroom.” (page 87)
In Teaching Adolescent Writers, I cheered when I saw the Collins method mentioned. When we first began to research the different writing programs, this was by far the easiest and best out there and I still feel this way. It is great for any content area teacher, whether they are year 2 or year 28. But teachers have to MODEL. I know that this was emphasized in both books, and I need to do a better job, but it is the BEST teaching tool in our arsenal of tricks. If students see us doing it, then they are right behind me. In SSR, I read every precious minute. As soon as my 40 or so students saw me value that time, then they were soon on board. It is the same with writing. I like the different strategies mentioned but, and I agree with Pam, giving a break is a great idea and one I use personally. So why not give our students the same opportunity!
November 26, 2007
Content-Area Writing Chapter 6
Again we are reminded about the importance of modeling the writing skills we strive to help our students to develop. I think another important thing that is mentioned (p. 121) is to not only model good writing but how we make sense out of a topic by writing. One of the questions that should always be in a teacher’s mind is “Why are we doing this?” It certainly will be the first question our students ask us! When we really look at why we are doing things (which was a huge part of reflecting upon our teaching in the NB). I think it is not just good enough to write an essay that shows the student learned the material in class but it should go on to a deeper level in writing and actually have students to think and apply the newly gained knowledge to their own lives, i.e. real-world connections. I have my psychology 101 students to do research papers but sound surprisingly much like the passage on page 122 where I encourage my students to find a topic directly related to psychology that I’ve either taught and they wish to know more about or one they wished I had taught about. Even then they often want to write for me rather than to take what they have learned I strive for my students to be a part of the process from the start to the end. I loved the quote from Peter Elbow stating, “Getting an A is results,’ you may say, but see how you feel if you write your teacher for a contribution (to your campaign) and get an ‘A’ instead of a check.” I agree Pam, in that marking these papers in red is necessary though because it is the way I can remember some writing tips that I would never have picked up from reading. I also thought the point the author made as well as Diane that avid reader does not equal a great writer although there is certainly a positive correlation between the two.
As Christy mentioned the Collins Writing method did give teachers a way to introduce and get the kids’ feet wet in writing. I often do quick writes and just today was getting my students to do ‘before writing activities’ which would help to get them thinking before writing. I like, Kelly, loved the author’s rebuttal when asked how much do I have to write…how much string is there? I also liked the idea of doing the movie reviews. Often with teaching to the standards we have little or no time for movies that will not actually be seen but a movie review of one of these ‘clips’ would suffice and make the point without wasting so much time as it would take to actually show then movie in its entirety.
Teaching Adolescent Writers Chapter 4
This chapter was full of great strategies. I liked Stephen King’s remark, “if you want to be a writer you must do two things above all else: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I am aware; no short-cut.” This is no new idea but it really is true. SSR will be beneficial to that and I, like Christy, love SSR. I also liked the ‘hook’ techniques mentioned (page 81) including memory, humor, question and sarcasm. Today, I had one of my classes doing the “yes or no graphic organizers’ and they really had well though out responses to our article that we were discussing and found it easy to then do the “Four Corners” (p. 128) before going to the smart board to articulate which position they took on the issue. If I’d just handed them the article and said write this ‘cold’ I think the response would have sounded clinical at best and now I look forward to what they respond- in writing tomorrow.
I like using rubrics but am so glad that an author did include a bit about the limitations of these rubrics when looking at the student’s creativity. Because of this I can’t use a ‘general rubric’ or a computer generated one but have to create my very own rubric to ensure the students are able to earn points for what they have learned rather than deducting points in punitive measures. I liked the planned breaks that Diane and Pam mentioned and think that is another way to get away from just doing pre-test/post-test or exit slips.
I know research says that the more/better you read the better writer/composer you will be. I hated reading in school. I therefore hated having to write things. When it came time to write my term paper in the 11th grade I think I aged 40 years. The only reason I did so well, I think, was the choice of book I made, "The Lord of the Flies". I could relate to the characters in this book and that in itself helped me formulate what I wanted to write about. All four of my kids love to read. I have pushed this burden on them because I do not want them to have the same difficulties I had with writing. Kids 1 - 3 are excellent writers. They compose beautiful sentences that lead to wonderful essays and short answers. But kid #4 struggles with writing, even though he loves to read. I have taught and teach kids that are like kid #4. The "Start Small" concept will help me focus my students writing better. It was also nice to see the Collins Method reference. This practice I believe has help me to better see what to look for in student writing as well as to give students a blue print of what/how to write.
I agree wholeheartedly that just because students are avid readers does not mean they are avid writers. I agree that it does influence and impact their writing because it gives them a broader vocabulary, and gives them the ability to approach writing differently and through different perspectives. However, being able to take what is "in your head" and spill it out on paper is a much harder process for many kids... especially those with learning and mental disabilities. I have seen over the years though that modeling my writing is by far the most effective strategy I can use with my students. Their seeing my writing has a great deal of influence on their writing.
I also feel it is important to help students to over come the "I wrote it once; I'm done" mentality. Heck (!!!) that is often my mentality. I hate having to go back over my writing to revise! (Let’s just say revising all that NB stuff was super TOUGH for me!) I think most kids try not to have to revise or rewrite. By working with students on the value of revision, we are able to help them become better writers - long term.
Claire stated that she disagrees with the part on page 125 that states marking papers’ grammatical mistakes is “completely ineffective”. I agree completely with that. As much as I hate revision, I struggle with grammar a great deal and need someone to go in and mark my grammatical mistakes so that I can correct them. I do think that giving students a chance to revise before that is done might keep the amount of this down, but for some students who struggle with grammar… I think it is valuable.
I agree wholeheartedly that just because students are avid readers does not mean they are avid writers. I agree that it does influence and impact their writing because it gives them a broader vocabulary, and gives them the ability to approach writing differently and through different perspectives. However, being able to take what is "in your head" and spill it out on paper is a much harder process for many kids... especially those with learning and mental disabilities. I have seen over the years though that modeling my writing is by far the most effective strategy I can use with my students. Their seeing my writing has a great deal of influence on their writing.
I also feel it is important to help students to over come the "I wrote it once; I'm done" mentality. Heck (!!!) that is often my mentality. I hate having to go back over my writing to revise! (Let’s just say revising all that NB stuff was super TOUGH for me!) I think most kids try not to have to revise or rewrite. By working with students on the value of revision, we are able to help them become better writers - long term.
Claire stated that she disagrees with the part on page 125 that states marking papers’ grammatical mistakes is “completely ineffective”. I agree completely with that. As much as I hate revision, I struggle with grammar a great deal and need someone to go in and mark my grammatical mistakes so that I can correct them. I do think that giving students a chance to revise before that is done might keep the amount of this down, but for some students who struggle with grammar… I think it is valuable.
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