Teaching Writing and the Tenets

This week, I want to focus on teaching writing.  For this week, I want to look at two different books that have information pertaining to this and I want to talk about my experiences these past couple of weeks.  I have a lot of information pertaining to this topic, so I will try to hit on the important information. J

            First, I want to look at Peter Smagorinsky’s view on student writing.  In his book Teaching English by Design, he has an entire section devoted to student writing.  In the beginning of this section, he talks about many different types of student writing; extended definitions, literary analysis, argumentations, research reports, portfolios, journals, and many many more.  It would take a very long time to go through all of them.  I want to look at a few that I have used or I found interesting.  First, I want to look at journals. 

Journals are a key in my classroom environment.  When I am teaching, I think personal reflection is important.  Also, just writing out what you are feeling that day or to get something off of your chest is important.  Any time a student is writing, that is a step in the “write” direction. J (You see what I did there) Writing is, in my opinion, one of the most important skills a student can learn.  Everything in life revolves around writing.  Personal reflection is something easy to do, does not take long, and is something that can be done every single day.  It also builds student writing without them even known.  A huge step from journaling is the all “important” research paper.

Growing up and going through high school, the research paper was the “most important writing piece you will do”.  I disagree.  I think that it is important, but not the most important writing piece.  The research writing piece is important because it teaches students how to research a topic or an issue, how to appropriately cite or give credit to a person, and again work on writing skills.  One of the biggest things that Smagorinsky thinks, and I agree with, that you should not just grade a paper or writing piece and then move on.  It should be handed in and then the student should be given at least another chance to redo the work; to fix the mistakes that he or she made.  Beside Smagorinsky is Gallagher. 

Kelly Gallagher has had a huge influence on me as a teacher.  I have read two of his books so far and hope to continue reading his work.  In Gallagher’s work Teaching Adolescent Writers, he has a list of “ten tenets of teaching editing skills”.  These are 1) determine editing needs and address them as they arise 2) teach less to the whole class; teach more in conferences 3) instead of using grammar books, make them 4) keep the focus narrow 5) teach the big eight (dealing with commas, fragments, intervening phrases, irregular verbs, and so on) 6) don’t drown the paper in corrections 7) whole-class peer editing is an ineffective strategy 8) make students track their spelling demons 9) discussion vs. written comments and 10) Occasional failing of at not constantly following these tenets is allowed.  Through reading all of Gallagher’s tenets, I have decided to come up with my own tenets.  I am focusing on writing in general and not just editing.  So… my ten tenets are as follow.

1)      Model with my students.  I think it is important to do the work right alongside the students (even if you do not like to do the project).

2)      To go with that last comment, do writing projects that are enjoyable to both you and the students. 

3)      Give at least two chances for the students to achieve greatness.  Do not let their grades be a once and done thing.

4)      Give ample time for students to write in the classroom environment.

5)      Give many many many examples of good AND bad writing.  In the classroom, I have seen good writing, but not examples of bad.

6)      Unlike Gallagher, I want to use peer editing.  I think it is a good tool, but they need the scaffolding to do it correctly.

7)      I agree with the grammar book idea.  Do NOT give the students the stuff right out of a book, come up with it yourself.

8)      Written comments are good, but don’t go overboard. 

9)      Conference with students about their writing.

10)   Get the parents involved in the student’s writing as well.

All of these are important to me, but I am sure they will change over time.  Well, I have rambled long enough.  I will call it quits for now.  Look for another post soon about my observations!

 

(Side note: it won't let me add pictures this week. :-( I am very upset about this!  Hopefully next week it works!)