Content Area Writing: Chapter One; Teaching Adolescent Writers: Chapter One

Both of these texts were just published this year, and I read over them this summer without highlighting, just to get a feel if they would be good options for our class. As I reread and highlighted them to compose my post for our blog, I realized that I did indeed make good choices for our class. I’m loving these books! I have so much highlighted in each of the chapters, but I’m going to narrow it down to just one thing for each, so you’ll have plenty to choose from to write about yourself!

Content Area Writing
(Page 3) “Teachers often say that kids hate writing. But maybe what they hate is the kind of writing we make them do.”
I really like how the authors note all the writing that kids do today that never used to occur—texting, instant messaging, e-mailing, blogging, MySpace, chatrooms, etc. We often do complain about students’ writing, but at least they are communicating and writing something! I think the problem we see as teachers is that kids convert their technology short-hand into formal writing and don’t necessarily see where there’s a problem with that. I believe one of the keys is going to be bridging their style of writing into our classrooms and then teaching them when certain types of writing are appropriate. How cool would it be for students to create a MySpace page for Abraham Lincoln or a character in a novel they read? Or what if they had to write out an IM conversation between Romeo and Juliet? We would certainly learn if the student knew the material! After creating “their” type of writing, they could then convert it into a more standardized form of writing as well to work on their "professional" writing skills.

Teaching Adolescent Writers
(Page 2) “A weekday edition of The New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in a lifetime in seventeenth century England. (Wurman 1989).”
(Page 4) “The ability to write well, once a luxury, has become a necessity. Today, writing is foundational for success."’
The thing I love about Kelly Gallagher’s books is that they are always chock-full of statistics…and interesting ones at that! Because so much is technologically based now, our students do need to become more proficient writers to be successful. Yes, there is the “slang” writing they all use for recreation, but we also use technology for formal purposes as well. I know I prefer to be able to e-mail a company or another professional a question rather than call them about it. What does it say about the sender if they can’t send a coherent message? How many messages have we received over e-mail where we couldn’t believe the grammar used in it? (Even if we didn’t fall into the executive pay scale for our grammar skills!) The fact of the matter is that there is a time and place for different types of writing, just as there is a time and place for different types of talking. We’ve just got to make sure kids realize this, why it’s important, and how to do it!

The Reading/Writing Connection--Chapter One

(Page 15) “Inexperienced readers and writers are just that—inexperienced, not incapable. It is the teacher’s responsibility to make visible what it is that experienced readers and writers do when they make meaning from or with texts…In addition, teachers need to introduce these cognitive strategies to students in meaningful contexts and provide enough sustained, guided practice that students can internalize these strategies and ultimately, perform complex reading and writing tasks competently and confidently on their own.”

Can we say model, model, model? I think writing tends be one of the hardest things to teach students because so often we don’t feel confident in our own writing, so we’re often hesitant to share pieces that we’ve written. But sharing our writing with students is going to be one of the best ways to show them what goes through our minds as we put our thoughts onto paper. Students tend to think that good writers just spit out their best work off the top of their heads—they have no idea the amount of revision a professional writer does to his or her work. It’s easy to blame (especially at the high school level) all the teachers students had at the elementary and middle schools for not teaching a student how to write well, but we have to ask ourselves: What are we doing to make the student a better writer? So, I think we have to meet them where they are and make as many improvements while we have them. Otherwise, we’re churning out graduates who are lacking a fundamental skill.