I hate I couldn’t be there with you all, but I hope you had a good time at the Winter Literacy Conference. Generally speaking, if you can take away just one thing from a conference to use in your classroom, it was worth your while. Obviously, everyone couldn’t attend all sessions, so with this post, share something you learned in one of the sessions you attended. This post will serve as your exit slip for the conference since you didn’t have to put your name on the one you completed there.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Teaching Adolescent Writers: Chapter Five
(Page 116) Gallagher quotes Laura Robb, “We have a nation of students who can’t write very well. We will not have a nation of students who can write well until they are allowed to write about the things they care about.”
I love this quote because so often as teachers we’re telling kids what to write instead of allowing them to have any input. When I was still in the classroom, I had my students keep a daily journal where they could write about whatever was on their minds, and I would write them back every day. I rarely had difficulty getting students to complete this assignment because they were allowed to choose the topic. (I did always have an “If” question on the board in case they needed something to jumpstart their thinking.) I know some of you do this as well and have had success with it. I was working with a student last spring who didn’t consider himself a reader or writer…he completely discounted the auto magazines he read and the journal he kept in his resource class. He equated writing with the “five paragraph essay.” He actually used those words…ugh. He thought that “real” reading and writing involved things he didn’t enjoy doing. As teachers, we’ve got to make sure that students see the value in reading and writing that they’re currently doing and are good at…not just the scholarly type of stuff. It’s not that we don’t want them to be able to read and write at a higher level, but we’ve got to build some confidence in them first so we can take them to there.
This chapter is chock-full of ideas for creating choice in writing. In retrospect, I probably should have asked y’all to try out one of Gallagher’s ideas and share how it went. Instead, write about which of Gallagher’s writing assignments you like best and how you think you could adapt it for your classroom. Or…share another idea you have for creating choice in writing, so we’ll have something else to add to our toolbox.
I love this quote because so often as teachers we’re telling kids what to write instead of allowing them to have any input. When I was still in the classroom, I had my students keep a daily journal where they could write about whatever was on their minds, and I would write them back every day. I rarely had difficulty getting students to complete this assignment because they were allowed to choose the topic. (I did always have an “If” question on the board in case they needed something to jumpstart their thinking.) I know some of you do this as well and have had success with it. I was working with a student last spring who didn’t consider himself a reader or writer…he completely discounted the auto magazines he read and the journal he kept in his resource class. He equated writing with the “five paragraph essay.” He actually used those words…ugh. He thought that “real” reading and writing involved things he didn’t enjoy doing. As teachers, we’ve got to make sure that students see the value in reading and writing that they’re currently doing and are good at…not just the scholarly type of stuff. It’s not that we don’t want them to be able to read and write at a higher level, but we’ve got to build some confidence in them first so we can take them to there.
This chapter is chock-full of ideas for creating choice in writing. In retrospect, I probably should have asked y’all to try out one of Gallagher’s ideas and share how it went. Instead, write about which of Gallagher’s writing assignments you like best and how you think you could adapt it for your classroom. Or…share another idea you have for creating choice in writing, so we’ll have something else to add to our toolbox.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)