writing

When I first started teaching at CSide High, I felt confident about teaching writing. I had an incredibly great expository writing class during my last year as an undergrad. Mr. Kay, the teacher, gave me insight and confidence in my own writing and in teaching it. That feeling lasted for several years. I remember one of my adv 8th grade classes voted to read Macbeth aloud and I assigned them an essay about it. and it wasn't a disaster. It was cool.

Years passed. The state writing test appeared. Fortunately it was administered in 8th grade and by then I was teaching 7th grade. So after slogging through the district-provided instruction for a year or two, I abandoned teaching the state's formula. The instruction and examples provided were not even up to mediocre standards. It has been a long time since I have set out to teach writing-- not teach to the writing test. Did I make it clear I just avoided both? not with a good conscience, but I did.


But I am about to re-enter the arena. Reading real teachers who write and who write about writing, thinking, real things that really matter, has made me want to give to my students that gift of finding and exercising one's unique voice through good writing.

So I joined the Digital Writing Discussion on ECNing, bought the book, plan to do things.

point of view and multiple choice questions

I know writers of multiple choice questions cover themselves by including verbiage such as: which choice best identifies...

Even so, I wonder how aligned that kind of question is to the spirit of a lot of good literature.

I just finished reading Mockingjay. It's intense, ambiguous in some ways, very rich material for discussing what one would do in one of the many difficult, no-win situations in the story.

So I started thinking about Suzanne Collins's point of view and purpose-- how she might express these if she were talking about her work, and how a multiple choice question writer for a major high-stakes standardized test would write a question... and how the multiple choice question writer would decide to write the correct answer, the one that best identifies the author's purpose (in one question) and point of view (in another).

And why it is considered valuable for a student to "correctly" choose the question-writer's best answer and not be allowed to compose a response that states and explains what the student sees as the author's positions.  Of course that kind of stuff can't be graded by a machine and it allows for too much difference of opinion.

I'm kind of rambling here, but the thought that started this is:

I think lots of good fiction writers write to tell a great story and also to get their readers to think about ways of being and thinking vicariously. A reader's readiness ( on innumerable levels) will affect a reader's responses.

Our education system, our assessment "system" is obsessed with what isn't worth measuring (or isn't measurable), but is immeasurably worth pondering and discussing.

I wonder what Suzanne Collins would say about this, about why she wrote these three powerful books.
a) to make readers distrust absolute authority
b) to make readers shun violence as a solution
c) to make lots of money and increase her fame
d) to make readers value the lives they have and live them as fully as possible

why poetry is important

Wallace Stevens:

The poet's role is to help people live their lives.

I'm listening to Nancie Atwell explain why poetry is important



I'm sold.



ok, now back to "reality."
The poems in our literature book...... I love NONE of them. I like a few. I have hardly had any poetry in my classes for years, because I cannot find value in the material I already have, and I never sought other material that I could use legally in multiple copies.

Also I have been I think cowardly about poetry. To me, its value is that it is deep and serious and goes into controversial, highly personal areas. And I have imagined problems with that, which may never arise, but they have helped block me from this vast and powerful resource.

Does it sound like I'm moving towards making the effort to find better stuff? I think so.

lovers of literature, and makers

Manuel Garces, Jr. wrote:

How can we foster dialogue and questioning among students as an essential instructional practice?

I treat my kids as lovers and makers of literature, from day one. We speak in the language of book lovers and poetry lovers. We name the qualities of good literature. We look at issues and questions raised by our readings. Reading and writing and talking fill the air, always.

lovers and makers of literature

I'll be using this as part of my personal jdt*armory.


* joie de teaching-- how I will protect my heart from the corrosive effects of those who see teachers as the UPS people of education

about the comic website

I think it would be cool to have students make summaries, extend or invent stories, conflicts, etc.



I think this could be fun.

http://pixton.com/

comic website

KWL for teachers

for thought:
a-kwl-interlude

“K.W.L.”
by Ms. W, Ms. V, Ms. FB, Mr. K

I know.
I want to know.
I learned.

I know teaching’s hard,
I know the kids are far behind,
I know the challenges I face,
I know it pays to be kind.

I want to change their world,
I want to open their eyes,
I want them to learn how to learn,
to keep their eyes on the prize.

I learned how far I could be pushed,
I learned to hold back tears,
I learned to keep my cool,
I learned to face my fears.

I know I am a champion.
I want to be a champion.
I learned to be a champion.

the thought or the correct English?

I'm sitting here in FAIR testing grading 3 Rev 6 sentences (per student) from students' quizzes on "A Mason Dixon Memory."

Some sentences are good. Some are very good. Some are depressingly bad.
bad = no capitals, no periods, illiterate grammar and/or usage

The criteria were:
1) use the word with its correct meaning
2) connect the word to "A Mason Dixon Memory"

Here's why I'm writing this-- next year with some goals of having student's habitually write (and compose) literate sentences
  Start the three sentence thing early in the year (next year I'll be starting Rev in Aug, not in Jan as I did this year)   and track  * meaning     *mechanics     *usage     *elaboration


TBE