The practice for better writing that stood out most in my mind after reading Williams was using e-mail pen pals. Maybe I’m biased because I have a natural love of travel and of discovering other cultures and ways of life. But I also think my partiality for this method comes from the idea that using technology and engaging with peers from around the world is a much more practical and enjoyable activity than simply writing about a topic, like censorship (using the example from the reading), assigned in class. Reflecting on my own literacy narrative, I realize that I probably came across as one of those students who merely went through the motions of school and school work. For the most part, I would probably still categorize myself as that type of student. I completed assignments merely because I was required to do so to receive a grade. These assignments were boring and I felt that I was being forced to research and write about something I didn’t particularly care about (I'm sure everyone can relate to this). I hated this convention and that’s why I see the use of pen pals as a unique and, most likely, effective way to improve writing. I know that if I had had the opportunity to communicate with an international pen-pal, I would have been ecstatic. As Williams points out, using an exchange program of sorts, like the one described in the book, is a great way to engage students and to allow them to express themselves, without fear, on topics that interest them and/or their pen pal. It also gives them the opportunity to learn about other cultures-a feat which is especially pertinent in an ever-shrinking global community.
I liked that in this chapter Williams goes through the different stages of the process approach and expands upon the impact of each step. At the same time, it feels almost like a repetitive reading since we’ve discussed this idea of planning, drafting, revising, editing, etc. as a technique for better writing. We’ve talked about the fact that these steps aren’t set in stone and that they vary in relevance according to individual writers and the writing task at hand. But one of the things that we haven’t really touched on is this idea of expectations and standards.
I’m not planning on being a teacher, but from my own experience I can see how a teacher’s expectations of a student can truly affect his/her experience at school in a positive or negative way. I’ve been lucky enough to develop relationships with some of my instructors where I know they expect good things from me, so I try to deliver and make the best possible effort. That doesn’t mean I always enjoy the work, but I do my best to publish something worthy of those expectations. In high school though, where we had a good mix of city kids and suburbanites, teachers often failed to disguise the fact that they weren’t holding out for great pieces of literature from certain students. They could be condescending or they might just seem to visibly lower their standards and regard certain students as a lost cause. I remember seeing this in particular with a number of the boys on the football team. First of all, they were male, which Williams mentions almost immediately lowers them in esteem of teachers. Secondly, many of them were African American, which again is a disqualifying factor. And finally, they were football players-they were there for their brawn, not their brains. Of course this was never stated explicitly, but everyone understood these guys were aiming to be the next Ben Roethlisberger, not the next Stephen King. I think this was reflected in their grades. It wasn’t just football players either, but they're just the primary example that comes to mind.
Anyway, my main point is that I agree with Williams on the issue of expectations-the way a teacher engages a student can make all the difference in the world; they have a huge impact on students and on students as writers. So to all the education majors out there, please take this section of Williams to heart.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Expectations and Success
William’s section on expectations and standards stood out for me. He said that teacher expectation is one of the most important factors in student success. He makes a generalized statement that “teachers, like all other adults respond positively to anyone who appears interested in learning but negatively to those who appear disinterested, disengaged, or antisocial”. He says this natural tendency can be damaging to students and leads to “self-fulfilling prophecy” (127). I agree with his thoughts on self-fulfilling prophecy. I think we all come with some bias whether or not we are aware of it.It’s always good to be reminded of our human tendencies but this statement sounds like an accusation against teachers.
He goes on to list all the other criteria that influence teacher expectations like cultural factors, classroom behavior, gender, and socio-economic status. He goes another step further to tell us the differences between successful teachers and unsuccessful teachers are how teachers view student’s possession of linguistic and rhetorical knowledge.
I looked at this statement through the lens of a cross-country coach. At the beginning of the season I have a training schedule that is designed for the whole team. I am usually well aware that I have more gifted runners than others. My training plan doesn’t change drastically I expect them all to run. I know the fast ones get faster but I also know the slow ones get faster. It is usually proportionate. I expect each group to make improvements. If I believed the slower kids couldn’t get better why would I coach them?
It is the same thing with teachers. They know all their kids are not on the same page and that is the challenge of being a teacher. Helping all of them to get better. Expecting that each one no matter where they start should be able to improve by implementing the proper teaching methods with expectations for everyone to make strides. So I agree with Williams that teacher expectation plays a big part in the success of students if it is coupled with good teaching methods.
The Phase method that incorporates the steps of the composing process but allows for these steps to “more or less occur simultaneously and in a recurrent manner” seems like an ideal way for a teacher to have flexibility to work with students who learn in various ways. Workshops and making writing meaningful allows the teacher to have high expectations that each student can develop and be successful according to their own unique style.
The problem I have is not with teacher expectations but with how to measure success. In cross-country it is easily measured by improved time over a certain distance. Faster and slower runners improve their times. It is measurable. The faster runners may win the race but the slower ones know they have gotten better based on their improved time. I am still not sure how to effectively measure proficiency in linguistics and rhetoric. The basis still seems to be on improved grammar, usage and punctuation.
William’s comments on the “zone of proximal development” reiterated this point to me. The meaning of zone of proximal development according to Williams is that students should be expected to perform beyond their comfort level. This is an ideological concept. It sounds good but how do measure it? I remember telling runners it is important to feel uncomfortable when they were doing sprint intervals on the track. I never could measure their comfort level. One kids threshold for pain may be different than another, there was no way to measure it other than their perceived exertion.
For developing writers, Williams said that teachers can push students ‘beyond their comfort level’ by insisting on papers that are totally free from surface errors. Isn’t that just setting the standard at correct grammar and punctuation usage? I agree that we shouldn’t lower our standards (whatever they are) for students but I’m not sure if following Williams’s ideas for setting high standards is any different than what we already do. Telling kids to work harder, be more disciplined, and don’t forget the punctuation at the end of the sentence. Those were the kind of high standards that kept me from writing for many years. I felt as though it was pointless because I could never write with perfect grammar, spelling, punctuation or usage. So I don’t think setting those standards higher is the answer to developing better writers.
I guess after all this rambling my point is teachers should have high expectations for all students. Those expectations should be based on the idea that everyone can improve with proper practice.
He goes on to list all the other criteria that influence teacher expectations like cultural factors, classroom behavior, gender, and socio-economic status. He goes another step further to tell us the differences between successful teachers and unsuccessful teachers are how teachers view student’s possession of linguistic and rhetorical knowledge.
I looked at this statement through the lens of a cross-country coach. At the beginning of the season I have a training schedule that is designed for the whole team. I am usually well aware that I have more gifted runners than others. My training plan doesn’t change drastically I expect them all to run. I know the fast ones get faster but I also know the slow ones get faster. It is usually proportionate. I expect each group to make improvements. If I believed the slower kids couldn’t get better why would I coach them?
It is the same thing with teachers. They know all their kids are not on the same page and that is the challenge of being a teacher. Helping all of them to get better. Expecting that each one no matter where they start should be able to improve by implementing the proper teaching methods with expectations for everyone to make strides. So I agree with Williams that teacher expectation plays a big part in the success of students if it is coupled with good teaching methods.
The Phase method that incorporates the steps of the composing process but allows for these steps to “more or less occur simultaneously and in a recurrent manner” seems like an ideal way for a teacher to have flexibility to work with students who learn in various ways. Workshops and making writing meaningful allows the teacher to have high expectations that each student can develop and be successful according to their own unique style.
The problem I have is not with teacher expectations but with how to measure success. In cross-country it is easily measured by improved time over a certain distance. Faster and slower runners improve their times. It is measurable. The faster runners may win the race but the slower ones know they have gotten better based on their improved time. I am still not sure how to effectively measure proficiency in linguistics and rhetoric. The basis still seems to be on improved grammar, usage and punctuation.
William’s comments on the “zone of proximal development” reiterated this point to me. The meaning of zone of proximal development according to Williams is that students should be expected to perform beyond their comfort level. This is an ideological concept. It sounds good but how do measure it? I remember telling runners it is important to feel uncomfortable when they were doing sprint intervals on the track. I never could measure their comfort level. One kids threshold for pain may be different than another, there was no way to measure it other than their perceived exertion.
For developing writers, Williams said that teachers can push students ‘beyond their comfort level’ by insisting on papers that are totally free from surface errors. Isn’t that just setting the standard at correct grammar and punctuation usage? I agree that we shouldn’t lower our standards (whatever they are) for students but I’m not sure if following Williams’s ideas for setting high standards is any different than what we already do. Telling kids to work harder, be more disciplined, and don’t forget the punctuation at the end of the sentence. Those were the kind of high standards that kept me from writing for many years. I felt as though it was pointless because I could never write with perfect grammar, spelling, punctuation or usage. So I don’t think setting those standards higher is the answer to developing better writers.
I guess after all this rambling my point is teachers should have high expectations for all students. Those expectations should be based on the idea that everyone can improve with proper practice.
Journal, Journal, Journal
In this reading, there is a discussion of “pausing and reading”, which is quite the opposite of Elbow’s theory of free writing.
Personally, I like the idea of “pausing and reading” because I do it all the time. I’ll write for awhile then I’ll stop, go back and read through what I have written to make sure I am on track of saying whatever it is I am trying to say. I do this because sometimes I tend to stray and ramble about things that have no relevance to the topic of the piece. I’m not saying that is bad because sometimes it brings along new ideas that you can use for the paper, but other times it can allow the writer to stray completely off path. With Elbow, he suggested that you write everything down first then go back and re-read it. While I think this method is useful for some projects, the majority of the time I believe it’s better to “pause and read” to have a well-planned and successful piece. For me, I realize my work turns out better if I stop writing and read through my work and then continue.
Another thing I wanted to mention was the topic of journals. I have said this before and I want to say it again – I think journaling is one of the best ways to get students’ ideas flowing and it allows them to get more comfortable with writing in general. As I previously stated, I definitely will be using journals in my classroom for students to write down whatever it is they are thinking at that time, to allow them to clear their thoughts or write down ideas they have bouncing around in their head. I originally got this idea from what I did in middle school – although it was with reading. In my 6th grade language arts class and all of my middle school study periods, we were “required” to read for the first 10 minutes of class – read whatever we wanted, and I think this method really got our brain running and thinking. If we chose not to read, we had to sit there in silence and do nothing (not even our work) until those 10 minutes were up, and frankly that was quite boring, so most student chose to read instead of starring at the chalkboard.
Personally, I like the idea of “pausing and reading” because I do it all the time. I’ll write for awhile then I’ll stop, go back and read through what I have written to make sure I am on track of saying whatever it is I am trying to say. I do this because sometimes I tend to stray and ramble about things that have no relevance to the topic of the piece. I’m not saying that is bad because sometimes it brings along new ideas that you can use for the paper, but other times it can allow the writer to stray completely off path. With Elbow, he suggested that you write everything down first then go back and re-read it. While I think this method is useful for some projects, the majority of the time I believe it’s better to “pause and read” to have a well-planned and successful piece. For me, I realize my work turns out better if I stop writing and read through my work and then continue.
Another thing I wanted to mention was the topic of journals. I have said this before and I want to say it again – I think journaling is one of the best ways to get students’ ideas flowing and it allows them to get more comfortable with writing in general. As I previously stated, I definitely will be using journals in my classroom for students to write down whatever it is they are thinking at that time, to allow them to clear their thoughts or write down ideas they have bouncing around in their head. I originally got this idea from what I did in middle school – although it was with reading. In my 6th grade language arts class and all of my middle school study periods, we were “required” to read for the first 10 minutes of class – read whatever we wanted, and I think this method really got our brain running and thinking. If we chose not to read, we had to sit there in silence and do nothing (not even our work) until those 10 minutes were up, and frankly that was quite boring, so most student chose to read instead of starring at the chalkboard.
Back and Forth with Williams
I actually enjoyed reading this chapter, because I felt I could use more of these ideas as a future teacher. Plus, this chapter was slightly easier to read and far more interesting to me. I believe teachers should really act as a coach, and I think this chapter starts to explain how to go about that process.
One section that I found crucial was the part about how to make writing meaningful for students. To me writing is fun, but it can sometimes be a drudge. I do not want to be a teacher who is the only one in the class who is excited about a paper when the students are the people who have to write the paper. I want the students to be thrilled, but that is not an easy task. I was stunned at how much Rita’s writing improved by simply being engaged in her writing. I would never have guessed that the person who wrote about censorship was the same person who wrote the pen pal letter. Williams states, “When teachers make writing meaningful, the majority of students still may not be able to see themselves as historians, musicians, accountants, or whatever, but they at least may stop seeing themselves merely as students and start seeing themselves as writers who can get things done with written discourse” (121). I believe it is very important to give students confidence and make them look at themselves differently. When Williams refers to the students as writers, I think that makes them feel more at ease in a writing class. I just started pre-student teaching, so this portion of the chapter really spoke to me. I have to have the students write a research paper on the Persian Empire, and I’m really struggling with how to make this fun for the students. Plus, I want to some how make it meaningful and relevant to their lives. To me, connecting to what I’m writing is the key, otherwise I write garbage. I never realized how difficult it was to make writing assignments that are going to be meaningful. It is definitely a challenge.
In addition to making writing meaningful, I found it interesting that Williams explained pausing while writing as helpful, when Elbow frowned upon it. I’m happy, because I know that there is no right or wrong way when it comes to writing. However, I think when writing is more research based like Williams writing you have to have pauses. Peter Elbow’s writing is more personal, so he can write without pausing. I see both perspectives, but I still prefer Peter Elbow’s style.
I understand what Williams is saying about pausing while writing, but I did not understand how technology makes a difference in student writing. Williams had graphs that indicated students who used a computer to write drafts frequently, were better than students who did not. I would really like to know more about this research, because I think this sounds completely absurd! I really do not think that it matters if you write on a piece of paper or on a computer. Some of the greatest writers of all time wrote before computers even existed. Maybe I misunderstood something, but I had a huge issue with these findings.
One section that I found crucial was the part about how to make writing meaningful for students. To me writing is fun, but it can sometimes be a drudge. I do not want to be a teacher who is the only one in the class who is excited about a paper when the students are the people who have to write the paper. I want the students to be thrilled, but that is not an easy task. I was stunned at how much Rita’s writing improved by simply being engaged in her writing. I would never have guessed that the person who wrote about censorship was the same person who wrote the pen pal letter. Williams states, “When teachers make writing meaningful, the majority of students still may not be able to see themselves as historians, musicians, accountants, or whatever, but they at least may stop seeing themselves merely as students and start seeing themselves as writers who can get things done with written discourse” (121). I believe it is very important to give students confidence and make them look at themselves differently. When Williams refers to the students as writers, I think that makes them feel more at ease in a writing class. I just started pre-student teaching, so this portion of the chapter really spoke to me. I have to have the students write a research paper on the Persian Empire, and I’m really struggling with how to make this fun for the students. Plus, I want to some how make it meaningful and relevant to their lives. To me, connecting to what I’m writing is the key, otherwise I write garbage. I never realized how difficult it was to make writing assignments that are going to be meaningful. It is definitely a challenge.
In addition to making writing meaningful, I found it interesting that Williams explained pausing while writing as helpful, when Elbow frowned upon it. I’m happy, because I know that there is no right or wrong way when it comes to writing. However, I think when writing is more research based like Williams writing you have to have pauses. Peter Elbow’s writing is more personal, so he can write without pausing. I see both perspectives, but I still prefer Peter Elbow’s style.
I understand what Williams is saying about pausing while writing, but I did not understand how technology makes a difference in student writing. Williams had graphs that indicated students who used a computer to write drafts frequently, were better than students who did not. I would really like to know more about this research, because I think this sounds completely absurd! I really do not think that it matters if you write on a piece of paper or on a computer. Some of the greatest writers of all time wrote before computers even existed. Maybe I misunderstood something, but I had a huge issue with these findings.
Preparing to Teach
I have to say that, at least so far, I find this chapter to be the most interesting because it feel like Williams is being to demonstrate how we, as future teachers, actually go about the process of teaching writing. This feels fresh and exciting to me, probably because this means that I actually getting closer to becoming a teacher.
I think he raises some interesting points. Have a look (if you dare):
1. He points out that there is (or was?) a movement to abolish composition classes, mostly among postmodern critics.
2. He questions the value that reading/discussing literature has in a classroom, specifically in regard to topics related to composition.
3. He appears to be a proponent of student-centered instruction (at least in my view).
These are just a few things that I noticed in the text. There are many more items that can be discussed...more to come later during today's group presentation.
So far everything that I've learned has been based on theory, but yesterday I started my teacher observation work at Milton Hershey, and I got to see the writing process play itself out in a classroom for the first time. I noticed that my mentor teacher (or whatever he's called) used a few different methods as he worked with his sixth-grade students. First, he had them produce five-paragraph essays (all I got to see was the finished product) using what Williams would refer to as the process approach. I noticed that the students went through some sort of initial brainstorming session, which organized their ideas into a structured outline before actually writing out their rough drafts. Then they did a revision, and finally, the final draft, which the students wrote on colored paper.
Later in the day they also did a freewrite. He read them a story (or at least most of it), but before it came to an end, he abruptly stopped and had the students create their ending to the story, which he will later collect as a homework assignment. I liked this idea, because the students really seemed to enjoy that fact that they were given an opportunity to devise something of their own creation. Or at least it seemed that way…I saw a lot of smiles and laughter, so I guess they liked it.
I find myself wondering about this whole talk/write thing…I have never heard of anything like it, and, frankly, I don’t know what to make of it. I have the faintest idea if it works, or, I guess I should say, if it would work for me. Maybe, I don’t know? At least it works for someone out there. I will share some other stuff during today’s group discussion. Or maybe I’ll just stand there and say nothing while the other members of my group do all the talking…
I think he raises some interesting points. Have a look (if you dare):
1. He points out that there is (or was?) a movement to abolish composition classes, mostly among postmodern critics.
2. He questions the value that reading/discussing literature has in a classroom, specifically in regard to topics related to composition.
3. He appears to be a proponent of student-centered instruction (at least in my view).
These are just a few things that I noticed in the text. There are many more items that can be discussed...more to come later during today's group presentation.
So far everything that I've learned has been based on theory, but yesterday I started my teacher observation work at Milton Hershey, and I got to see the writing process play itself out in a classroom for the first time. I noticed that my mentor teacher (or whatever he's called) used a few different methods as he worked with his sixth-grade students. First, he had them produce five-paragraph essays (all I got to see was the finished product) using what Williams would refer to as the process approach. I noticed that the students went through some sort of initial brainstorming session, which organized their ideas into a structured outline before actually writing out their rough drafts. Then they did a revision, and finally, the final draft, which the students wrote on colored paper.
Later in the day they also did a freewrite. He read them a story (or at least most of it), but before it came to an end, he abruptly stopped and had the students create their ending to the story, which he will later collect as a homework assignment. I liked this idea, because the students really seemed to enjoy that fact that they were given an opportunity to devise something of their own creation. Or at least it seemed that way…I saw a lot of smiles and laughter, so I guess they liked it.
I find myself wondering about this whole talk/write thing…I have never heard of anything like it, and, frankly, I don’t know what to make of it. I have the faintest idea if it works, or, I guess I should say, if it would work for me. Maybe, I don’t know? At least it works for someone out there. I will share some other stuff during today’s group discussion. Or maybe I’ll just stand there and say nothing while the other members of my group do all the talking…
writing is a process, not a paper
I started my first day of field observation yesterday at Middletown High School. The first impression that I took away from this first day is that the school district is really gung ho about having every student comply with a step by step writing process. The process includes taking notes on note cards, then constructing an outline, then a rough draft, then a final draft etc. I was a little turned off by the rigidness and lack of flexibility by this approach, probably because I never followed all these rules. My writing has always been a more spur of the moment process. After reading Williams, I see a lot of benefits to a set writing process, but I also feel that there needs to be room for flexibility for each individual within this approach.
I think that outlines are wonderful things, but I never traditionally followed a step by step outline filled with roman numerals and A-E instructions. Williams writes “Outlines begin when writers list the major points they want to address in their papers, without worrying much about order” (108). Thank God he says this. I think it is insane to expect a grade of 250 students to all construct the same outline with the same structure. I believe that outlines should have the same general purpose, but can come in different shapes and sizes. If a student wants to draft her outline on note cards, that works for me. If a kid wants to use a Venn diagram to construct his outline, why not? The teacher should be more concerned that each student is finding meaning and comprehension within the outline process, than checking to see if the student listed step A before step B.
I was also pleasantly surprised to read about Williams take on drafting. Personally, I believe that a piece of writing is never completely finished. Writing can always be improved or transformed. Williams writes, “How many drafts should students produce before a paper is finished? There’s no answer to this question. Every paper is different; every paper has its own context and requirements. Sometimes a single draft will be sufficient, other times a paper may require 5, 6, or even 10 drafts” (116-117). This truly proves that writing is a process, and not just a single paper. Students need to have the opportunity to grow and evolve within their writing. I believe that teachers should offer students to revise upon “final drafts.” If a teacher does not give students the opportunity to revise a paper that they hand in, they will never learn from their mistakes and grow as a writer. Writing should not be about a final grade. It should be about a process or journey in improvement. I agree with Longinus, and feel that students should have time in between drafts to revise and edit their work. It often takes a while for students to get some distance from their words. A creative writing teacher at my previous university advised his students that we should not even attempt to make changes to our work until after a couple of months. I value this advice. Sometimes we get too emotionally attached to our writing and we are unable to get past these attachments to change our writing for the better.
I believe that peer editing workshops are both scary and necessary. In high school and even in college I was one of those students that only thought I was writing for my teacher and no one else. Students should not be writing for invisible audiences or deaf ears. Even though other students can be overly critical and sharing one’s work with others is a vulnerable process, I believe that it is a necessary feat to overcome and learn from. However, I believe that teachers should be careful about teaming up students. They should be aware of the interactions between workshoppers and should not allow a student to be paired with another student that is not constructively critical.
I think that outlines are wonderful things, but I never traditionally followed a step by step outline filled with roman numerals and A-E instructions. Williams writes “Outlines begin when writers list the major points they want to address in their papers, without worrying much about order” (108). Thank God he says this. I think it is insane to expect a grade of 250 students to all construct the same outline with the same structure. I believe that outlines should have the same general purpose, but can come in different shapes and sizes. If a student wants to draft her outline on note cards, that works for me. If a kid wants to use a Venn diagram to construct his outline, why not? The teacher should be more concerned that each student is finding meaning and comprehension within the outline process, than checking to see if the student listed step A before step B.
I was also pleasantly surprised to read about Williams take on drafting. Personally, I believe that a piece of writing is never completely finished. Writing can always be improved or transformed. Williams writes, “How many drafts should students produce before a paper is finished? There’s no answer to this question. Every paper is different; every paper has its own context and requirements. Sometimes a single draft will be sufficient, other times a paper may require 5, 6, or even 10 drafts” (116-117). This truly proves that writing is a process, and not just a single paper. Students need to have the opportunity to grow and evolve within their writing. I believe that teachers should offer students to revise upon “final drafts.” If a teacher does not give students the opportunity to revise a paper that they hand in, they will never learn from their mistakes and grow as a writer. Writing should not be about a final grade. It should be about a process or journey in improvement. I agree with Longinus, and feel that students should have time in between drafts to revise and edit their work. It often takes a while for students to get some distance from their words. A creative writing teacher at my previous university advised his students that we should not even attempt to make changes to our work until after a couple of months. I value this advice. Sometimes we get too emotionally attached to our writing and we are unable to get past these attachments to change our writing for the better.
I believe that peer editing workshops are both scary and necessary. In high school and even in college I was one of those students that only thought I was writing for my teacher and no one else. Students should not be writing for invisible audiences or deaf ears. Even though other students can be overly critical and sharing one’s work with others is a vulnerable process, I believe that it is a necessary feat to overcome and learn from. However, I believe that teachers should be careful about teaming up students. They should be aware of the interactions between workshoppers and should not allow a student to be paired with another student that is not constructively critical.
Lessons learned
Out of all the three chapters of Williams that we read, I think that I have enjoyed this one the most. That is not to say that I read it and absorb it right away. Williams seems to want to put so much information into this book that every chapter is stuff with statistics, lessons of right and wrong ways to teach, as well as Williams own opinions.
There are a few things that stood out right away to me and that is he thinks that “A person has to understand a topic to explain it to others” (111). I think that this is a good focus for teachers to look at when giving their students writing assignments or any assignment for that fact. How well can you relate the information if you are hazy on the details? This can go right along with the fact that the content is more important too. An assignment will have better content from the beginning if the student understands the question as well as the answer to the question.
The section on outlines I agree with. I was never a person that revealed in writing the outline and in many cases I wrote the paper and then made up the outline from what I had already written. I can see some purpose for this approach, but also agree that for the most part it is a waste of time
The talk-write section is something that I would like to do as a student, but that is because I enjoy speaking in front of others and don’t find it fearful. I think though this approach should be used gently because students that are not has outspoken and are more quiet and shy could suffer greatly from a process like this. The most valuable of information from this chapter is that of peer editing and writing workshops. I have been doing peer editing in class since High School and have come to truly appreciate the opinions of my peers reading my papers. I feel that the quality of my work has been better when put through this type of process. This is something for sure that I would love to try and implement in my classroom someday.
There are a few things that stood out right away to me and that is he thinks that “A person has to understand a topic to explain it to others” (111). I think that this is a good focus for teachers to look at when giving their students writing assignments or any assignment for that fact. How well can you relate the information if you are hazy on the details? This can go right along with the fact that the content is more important too. An assignment will have better content from the beginning if the student understands the question as well as the answer to the question.
The section on outlines I agree with. I was never a person that revealed in writing the outline and in many cases I wrote the paper and then made up the outline from what I had already written. I can see some purpose for this approach, but also agree that for the most part it is a waste of time
The talk-write section is something that I would like to do as a student, but that is because I enjoy speaking in front of others and don’t find it fearful. I think though this approach should be used gently because students that are not has outspoken and are more quiet and shy could suffer greatly from a process like this. The most valuable of information from this chapter is that of peer editing and writing workshops. I have been doing peer editing in class since High School and have come to truly appreciate the opinions of my peers reading my papers. I feel that the quality of my work has been better when put through this type of process. This is something for sure that I would love to try and implement in my classroom someday.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Williams and the Process
Finally, it only took 98 pages, but finally Williams is getting into some ideas in which I can actually agree with him! At first I thought oh no, not again, because it seemed that he was going to tell us all about the process approach and then refute it as he’s done with other ideas in the earlier readings. However, he seems to think this is a worthwhile approach, and I agree.
One of the things I love about this approach is that one of the main ideas is to teach the behaviors of good writers. To me, this is just using good common sense. Anyone who has ever been new at a job can attest that when you are being trained for that job you are (hopefully) taught by someone who already knows how to do the job and do it well. Williams gives a list of 8 stages of composing with the disclaimer that each stage can be different for each individual. Again, I agree with him here. As we’ve noticed in class, not everyone “loves” the idea of freewriting – one of the invention activities Williams talks about. Writers may hate freewriting, but get better results from brainstorming with others instead. What’s important is that they find what helps them in their process.
I also was very interested in his ideas about student centered instruction. I saw some of these ideas put into practice when I did my field observations and it really seems to work well, especially since so many schools are now using block scheduling. The idea of lecturing for an entire 75 minute class would be boring at best for both teacher and student. Allowing the students to take on the role of active-learner will keep them engaged longer and thus learning instead of daydreaming while the teacher lectures. I will be student-teaching next semester and like most first time teachers, I am insanely nervous about it! When I read that Williams believes that “teacher-talk” should not exceed 15 minutes for a 50 minute class, this actually was a relief to me. Allowing the students to take this active role will free up the teacher to spend more time with the students (coaching) as they work and make adjustments to their approach as needed.
The one activity that I wasn’t completely on board with was the talk-write activity, although I will admit that this is just my personal preference and some students may benefit from it. As a student, the idea of giving a presentation is daunting and nerve-wracking, and that’s when you’ve got notes and are completely prepared. I know that I would hate this assignment for myself, so I doubt I’ll use this. I’m also still not a fan of the outline, but I can see its usefulness. Nevertheless, overall I was pretty pleased with this reading. It seems that he was giving us more ideas of what we can actually use when we are in the classroom.
One of the things I love about this approach is that one of the main ideas is to teach the behaviors of good writers. To me, this is just using good common sense. Anyone who has ever been new at a job can attest that when you are being trained for that job you are (hopefully) taught by someone who already knows how to do the job and do it well. Williams gives a list of 8 stages of composing with the disclaimer that each stage can be different for each individual. Again, I agree with him here. As we’ve noticed in class, not everyone “loves” the idea of freewriting – one of the invention activities Williams talks about. Writers may hate freewriting, but get better results from brainstorming with others instead. What’s important is that they find what helps them in their process.
I also was very interested in his ideas about student centered instruction. I saw some of these ideas put into practice when I did my field observations and it really seems to work well, especially since so many schools are now using block scheduling. The idea of lecturing for an entire 75 minute class would be boring at best for both teacher and student. Allowing the students to take on the role of active-learner will keep them engaged longer and thus learning instead of daydreaming while the teacher lectures. I will be student-teaching next semester and like most first time teachers, I am insanely nervous about it! When I read that Williams believes that “teacher-talk” should not exceed 15 minutes for a 50 minute class, this actually was a relief to me. Allowing the students to take this active role will free up the teacher to spend more time with the students (coaching) as they work and make adjustments to their approach as needed.
The one activity that I wasn’t completely on board with was the talk-write activity, although I will admit that this is just my personal preference and some students may benefit from it. As a student, the idea of giving a presentation is daunting and nerve-wracking, and that’s when you’ve got notes and are completely prepared. I know that I would hate this assignment for myself, so I doubt I’ll use this. I’m also still not a fan of the outline, but I can see its usefulness. Nevertheless, overall I was pretty pleased with this reading. It seems that he was giving us more ideas of what we can actually use when we are in the classroom.
Best Practices
Thank goodness this chapter of Williams was easier to retain in my head. There was so much information packed in the other chapters, I felt like I forgot everything I read…until we discussed it, that always helps. But I felt this chapter was very helpful to future teachers. One thing that stuck out to me in the chapter was when Williams discussed student-centered instruction in the process approach. I believe this type of instruction was very relevant in my education. When I was in elementary school, writing workshops were implemented in the classroom often, and I found them to be very helpful. The class went through the draft process, but instead of it being completely individual work, we would always work in groups to get feedback on our writing from our peers. I do remember writing multiple drafts, too, but by the final draft, I felt very confident about my work because I was able to reevaluate my work several times. I thought it was very interesting that “teacher-talk” should not be longer than 15 minutes in a 50 minute period. That seems bizarre to me because how can you even present your instructions and expectations in 15 minutes? I can see this being the case sometimes, but Williams made it sound like it should be an every day occurrence. I agree with the idea that teachers need to act as coaches and constantly intervene throughout the writing process. I don’t see how anyone could expect a student to go through the writing process by themselves at an early age; it’s pretty complex when you’re first introduced to it. Also, students need constant feedback on their work. They want to know if they’re on the right track and doing the right thing. I know that when I was younger and in the process of writing a paper, I would feel insecure about it until I had feedback from the teacher. I like Williams’s idea that “Students will adopt more effective writing behaviors when they are corrected on the spot” (105). They need to be corrected immediately before they continue to make the same mistake and make it a habit. The composing process was nothing new to me because I went through grade school always using this process in my English classes. The one thing that was new to me was a type of invention activity: Talk-Write. I can see this being very beneficial before one starts to compose. Students are almost forced to think of ideas and put their thoughts into logical order in order to present them to their teacher and classmates. On the other hand, this could work against students who cannot think “on the spot” and have anxiety about talking in front of the class. They would be so worried about that that they could not formulate ideas about their essay in their mind at the same time. In that case, I think using a voice recorder would be a better option. Hopefully the teacher would have access to a classroom voice recorder. The students could jot down a few ideas at their seats and one at a time could go out in the hallway or to another part of the classroom to use the voice recorder. I do find it easier to say something than write it sometimes…but once I say it, then I can write it…if that makes any sense. The phase model seems to be the most beneficial, and I wish this would have been used during my education. I remember always being taught that you cannot go onto another stage of the drafting process until you completed the one before it. It was hard to do that because revising and editing co-occur a lot sometimes as do other stages of the drafting process. I think the phase model should be stressed more with the idea that the stages happen simultaneously. A lot of the times I must remind myself that revising is not editing, but every time I go back and read over a paper I wrote, the first thing I do is correct my usage errors, adding more commas, replacing words, etc. Then, I check for content, which sometimes means the mistakes I just corrected don’t apply or are not needed anymore, so it was pretty much a waste of time. UGH!! But all in all, I always thought the drafting process was overused and dull, but I think if it was more on the lines of the phase model, it might be more successful and helpful. What other ways can the drafting process be more “fun” and helpful for students?
Solutions, not Problems
In this chapter, I felt Williams finally gave the writer a little leeway, as well as a little credit. I was pleased to see that the steps of process instruction (although clearly, definitively titled) allowed for interpretation. He wrote that “the process approach recognizes that writing is a very personal activity in numerous respects, which means not only that there are many behaviors that are not universal but also that there is variation within the universals” (Williams 101). Thankfully, not all writers must concoct an outline by means of the Roman numeral system to be defined as “good”.
My writing method is mostly messy, I admit. My inner self recoils at the thought of completing an outline, especially one controlled by those nasty Roman numerals. As Amber noted, I was more concerned about getting the format of the outline wrong than I was about focusing on the content, and the flow, of what would eventually become my paper. I always performed worse when forced to write by one. That doesn’t go to say that an outline isn’t a highly effective process for some individuals. In the classroom, I feel that teachers should present the idea, and allow for variation or substitution, as long as it works positively and effectively for that individual.
I have mixed feelings about peer revision groups. In high school, we seemed to read each other’s papers in a shy, considerate manner, blushing about the ears as we made small suggestions. During my first composition class in college, however, students ripped each other apart, scribbling away with their sadistic red pens. I was even accused of using a thesaurus. (As if that’s a bad thing? What writer always knows how best to say what they want at all times?) That classroom’s blunt eagerness to destroy each other’s personal voice had such a negative impact on me that, to this day, I feel sick knowing that a peer review will take place.
Teachers who use the method of peer reviews need to tread carefully. There is a fine line between useless nicety and soul-crushing ridicule that the teacher, as a coach, needs to supervise. After all, a coach can never be solely one of candy commentary- an athlete needs to grow, to improve. Likewise, harsh criticism will ultimately ensure that the player never returns. As facilitators, it is the duty of the teacher to create a safe classroom environment. Without this, peer reviews will never work, and if they are insisted upon, will so be followed grudgingly.
Overall, I felt that Williams tried to present the solutions, rather than the problems, in this chapter, which was a definite improvement over last week’s readings. Suggestions on how to overcome the abundant holes in our current education system are far more useful to me than merely lazily pointing out the cause of our deficiencies, with little else but an accompanying sneer.
Back to Elbow...
Top down, not bottom up. I will have to agree with this statement. Producing an entire paper is more important than the grammar and mechanics when it comes to preparing the first draft. The grammar and mechanics can be fixed in the editing stage. Now I am not saying that grammar and mechanics are less important. Each part of the paper is equally important. There is just a time for each part.
The stages of composing are very important to me. I use most of these stages when I compose a paper. Sometimes I do not realize that I am. I guess I am saying that I don’t sit down and write everything down. I sometimes plan things out in my head. I am sure we all use these stages without realizing what we are actually doing.
I found these three points very interesting. Have you students write often, provide feedback, and require many revisions based off the feedback. I think this has great potential in improving writing skills in the students. I always found feedback to be helpful. I guess this is why we do workshops and have our classmates read our work.
The author makes a valid point when he said that language arts classes are not always all about writing. There are other aspects to the class. I think learning new things in general helps students become more creative with their writing. New knowledge helps students become more confident in their writing. They will also learn punctuation, grammar, and other mechanics.
I like the idea of teachers being coaches. At the same time, I think students need to know that they can’t end a sentence in a preposition. I absolutely hate when people end in prepositions. “Where is she at?” That drives me crazy. Anyway, this is probably distracting to students when they are trying to write if they are constantly worried about things like this. This sort of thing can be easily corrected in the editing stage.
I personally like using outlines for certain papers. I am the type of person who needs to have structure in my life. If I don’t have structure, my life would be chaotic. It goes the same way for my writings. If I do not write out an outline, I have one mentally in my head. I am constantly planning things out in my head.
My final point is going to be made about the free writing section. I liked that the author mentioned Peter Elbow. Like I said in previous blogs, I enjoy free writing. I think it gives students the opportunity to write without worrying what they are writing. Writing is a process. Everyone has their own way of how they go about writing.
The stages of composing are very important to me. I use most of these stages when I compose a paper. Sometimes I do not realize that I am. I guess I am saying that I don’t sit down and write everything down. I sometimes plan things out in my head. I am sure we all use these stages without realizing what we are actually doing.
I found these three points very interesting. Have you students write often, provide feedback, and require many revisions based off the feedback. I think this has great potential in improving writing skills in the students. I always found feedback to be helpful. I guess this is why we do workshops and have our classmates read our work.
The author makes a valid point when he said that language arts classes are not always all about writing. There are other aspects to the class. I think learning new things in general helps students become more creative with their writing. New knowledge helps students become more confident in their writing. They will also learn punctuation, grammar, and other mechanics.
I like the idea of teachers being coaches. At the same time, I think students need to know that they can’t end a sentence in a preposition. I absolutely hate when people end in prepositions. “Where is she at?” That drives me crazy. Anyway, this is probably distracting to students when they are trying to write if they are constantly worried about things like this. This sort of thing can be easily corrected in the editing stage.
I personally like using outlines for certain papers. I am the type of person who needs to have structure in my life. If I don’t have structure, my life would be chaotic. It goes the same way for my writings. If I do not write out an outline, I have one mentally in my head. I am constantly planning things out in my head.
My final point is going to be made about the free writing section. I liked that the author mentioned Peter Elbow. Like I said in previous blogs, I enjoy free writing. I think it gives students the opportunity to write without worrying what they are writing. Writing is a process. Everyone has their own way of how they go about writing.
Mr. Williams...I Think I'm Coming Around to You
Ah, at last a topic in which I feel I can identify a bit more with Mr. Williams. The term “Best Practices” seems to be one that is thrown about quite freely at times to fit whatever educational process the government or school administrations are trying to sell; however, I think in this case it is aptly applied to process pedagogy that is developed in a student-centered learning environment.
I like Williams’ point about the need for students in this environment to do multiple drafts of their work and have them discussed/reviewed in peer workshops. I haven’t always been the biggest fan of doing drafts and revisions. I was always a pressure writer. If I knew a paper was due in two weeks, I’d collect the necessary research or familiarize myself with the content…and then throw it all into a paper the night before it was due. Definitely a ‘one and done’ kind of girl. But I have to admit, the revision of my Literacy Narrative was not painful at all. In fact, it felt good knowing that I was improving my work. Also, since I had placed so much focus on spitting out my ideas and details in the first draft, rather than paying attention to sentence structure and grammar, I found the revision work to be much less of a burden than in the past. All my good thoughts were already there. I just had to fine tune them. The input from the members of my peer group helped me focus the fine tuning process as well. I wasn’t going crazy trying to change things that they flat-out told me they clearly understood and to which they responded. Instead, I went straight to considering areas in which they stated they’d like to know more information.
This sentence also really stood out to me in the reading: “A person has to understand a topic to explain it to others” (111). I’ve been learning in some of my other classes that many schools are switching to a “Learning Focused” method. In fact, the school I’m currently observing in employs this strategy, and on every classroom board there is written or posted an “Essential Question” that students should be able to answer if they’ve gotten the knowledge they should have out of the lesson. If students can’t answer the question, it’s a sign for the instructor that perhaps they need to go over the content again and switch up their instruction methods. The Learning Focused method is effective for both students (they are seeing an active result of the effort they’ve put into learning) and teachers (the results allow them to reflect on how the lesson went well or how it could possibly have gone better).
Finally, I like how Williams emphasizes that there’s a difference between people who pause when they’re writing because they are considering specific details, and people who pause because they’re considering their audience and clarity. He writes, “…good writers use pauses to read what they have written. Reading enables them to assess how effectively their work is following their plan, how well it matches the audiences, and so on” (118). Before when we discussed freewriting and editing in class in relation to Elbow, we talked about the idea of letting your ideas spill out freely and continuously. I realized that I didn’t do that. I was a pause-taker. And so I figured I must be pausing to correct details that should not necessarily be fretted over at the early stages of writing. But after reading this section, I realized that the method of reading and pausing to determine whether or not you’re on track is exactly what I do. I guess it just felt like someone was validating my process and saying “it’s okay to do this.” And that felt good.
Did anyone else feel that they identified a little more with the content of this section or that it was in some way more accessible?
Do you agree with all the techniques that are considered part of the process pedagogy?
I like Williams’ point about the need for students in this environment to do multiple drafts of their work and have them discussed/reviewed in peer workshops. I haven’t always been the biggest fan of doing drafts and revisions. I was always a pressure writer. If I knew a paper was due in two weeks, I’d collect the necessary research or familiarize myself with the content…and then throw it all into a paper the night before it was due. Definitely a ‘one and done’ kind of girl. But I have to admit, the revision of my Literacy Narrative was not painful at all. In fact, it felt good knowing that I was improving my work. Also, since I had placed so much focus on spitting out my ideas and details in the first draft, rather than paying attention to sentence structure and grammar, I found the revision work to be much less of a burden than in the past. All my good thoughts were already there. I just had to fine tune them. The input from the members of my peer group helped me focus the fine tuning process as well. I wasn’t going crazy trying to change things that they flat-out told me they clearly understood and to which they responded. Instead, I went straight to considering areas in which they stated they’d like to know more information.
This sentence also really stood out to me in the reading: “A person has to understand a topic to explain it to others” (111). I’ve been learning in some of my other classes that many schools are switching to a “Learning Focused” method. In fact, the school I’m currently observing in employs this strategy, and on every classroom board there is written or posted an “Essential Question” that students should be able to answer if they’ve gotten the knowledge they should have out of the lesson. If students can’t answer the question, it’s a sign for the instructor that perhaps they need to go over the content again and switch up their instruction methods. The Learning Focused method is effective for both students (they are seeing an active result of the effort they’ve put into learning) and teachers (the results allow them to reflect on how the lesson went well or how it could possibly have gone better).
Finally, I like how Williams emphasizes that there’s a difference between people who pause when they’re writing because they are considering specific details, and people who pause because they’re considering their audience and clarity. He writes, “…good writers use pauses to read what they have written. Reading enables them to assess how effectively their work is following their plan, how well it matches the audiences, and so on” (118). Before when we discussed freewriting and editing in class in relation to Elbow, we talked about the idea of letting your ideas spill out freely and continuously. I realized that I didn’t do that. I was a pause-taker. And so I figured I must be pausing to correct details that should not necessarily be fretted over at the early stages of writing. But after reading this section, I realized that the method of reading and pausing to determine whether or not you’re on track is exactly what I do. I guess it just felt like someone was validating my process and saying “it’s okay to do this.” And that felt good.
Did anyone else feel that they identified a little more with the content of this section or that it was in some way more accessible?
Do you agree with all the techniques that are considered part of the process pedagogy?
Some more thoughts on Williams...
One of the things that I like about Williams, is that he gives us the general steps in the process of writing without over structuring it. What I mean by this is, he tells us the general planning and editing stages that can help to make writing great, but also gives us some leeway. “In some situations, a writer may not have an opportunity to do much planning…these stages are believed to reflect in a general way how successful writing develops” (106). I don’t plan, write, and edit my papers in exactly the same way every time. I do, however, need some type of structure to keep myself sane. I think it is important to stress to young writers that these various stages (prewriting, pausing, revising, editing, etc.) are important and helpful, but not every step is absolutely necessary every time. This could give them a little more freedom in how they go about writing. I think everyone needs to find their own comfort level and their own approach in order for it to be enjoyable.
On sort of the same note, I enjoyed reading his section on outlining. He tells us that often, in the classroom, the teachers put so much emphasis on the structure of the actual outline, and forget about the content. I can verify this! I do remember having to do outlines in school and the teacher spending an entire lesson on how to structure your outline correctly. There is roman numeral one, followed by capital letter “A”. You better not use a lowercase “A” because he/she might deduct a point. Really, the whole thing is ridiculous. I think it speaks volumes about the way the teachers teach us to write and how so much emphasis is put on the small stuff and not enough on our content.
Williams mentions drafting. First of all, I think that the use of computers can help or hinder the drafting process. It is so much easier to get caught up in spelling errors, USAGE errors and wording when changing things around is just a few clicks away. Williams tells us that sometimes we need 2 drafts, sometimes 10. I think I probably do this but don’t actually print out every single draft, read over it, do the corrections, reprint, and repeat. Generally speaking when I finish a draft, I walk away, come back, and move paragraphs, change wording, and save again. I kind of wonder if it would be more helpful for me to print out, physically see the paper, write down corrections and save every draft. I guess I know it would be helpful if I didn’t immediately go back and fix my errors, but how can you not when you can just click back? I genuinely tried to just free write and not fix anything on my first draft of my literacy narrative so I wouldn’t obstruct the flow. I was somewhat successful but the blatantly obvious just had to be fixed immediately. I couldn’t help myself.
I do think it is somewhat ridiculous to emphasis business letter writing in first grade (kind of like Jen’s daughter and her Power Point presentation). I do think that pen pals are a wonderful idea. I actually had a teacher that did this in third grade (though I completely forgot about it until now) and it really was quite enjoyable. I loved the idea of having your student writers write to a pen pal and incorporating various lessons into the exchange between students. I don’t know if I think that this would be an easy task to accomplish. I think you would have to somehow coordinate with another foreign teacher. If it would be possible, I think it is my favorite Williams idea.
On sort of the same note, I enjoyed reading his section on outlining. He tells us that often, in the classroom, the teachers put so much emphasis on the structure of the actual outline, and forget about the content. I can verify this! I do remember having to do outlines in school and the teacher spending an entire lesson on how to structure your outline correctly. There is roman numeral one, followed by capital letter “A”. You better not use a lowercase “A” because he/she might deduct a point. Really, the whole thing is ridiculous. I think it speaks volumes about the way the teachers teach us to write and how so much emphasis is put on the small stuff and not enough on our content.
Williams mentions drafting. First of all, I think that the use of computers can help or hinder the drafting process. It is so much easier to get caught up in spelling errors, USAGE errors and wording when changing things around is just a few clicks away. Williams tells us that sometimes we need 2 drafts, sometimes 10. I think I probably do this but don’t actually print out every single draft, read over it, do the corrections, reprint, and repeat. Generally speaking when I finish a draft, I walk away, come back, and move paragraphs, change wording, and save again. I kind of wonder if it would be more helpful for me to print out, physically see the paper, write down corrections and save every draft. I guess I know it would be helpful if I didn’t immediately go back and fix my errors, but how can you not when you can just click back? I genuinely tried to just free write and not fix anything on my first draft of my literacy narrative so I wouldn’t obstruct the flow. I was somewhat successful but the blatantly obvious just had to be fixed immediately. I couldn’t help myself.
I do think it is somewhat ridiculous to emphasis business letter writing in first grade (kind of like Jen’s daughter and her Power Point presentation). I do think that pen pals are a wonderful idea. I actually had a teacher that did this in third grade (though I completely forgot about it until now) and it really was quite enjoyable. I loved the idea of having your student writers write to a pen pal and incorporating various lessons into the exchange between students. I don’t know if I think that this would be an easy task to accomplish. I think you would have to somehow coordinate with another foreign teacher. If it would be possible, I think it is my favorite Williams idea.
Once More, the Enigma of Good Ideas/Poor Results
As he did in Chapter 2, Williams presents some exciting ideas for writing instruction -- and then immediately undercuts them. On page 99, he writes "the process approach has been implemented...since the late 1970s. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that this implementation has had a significant effect on student writing skills." He then says that the problem lies in "process pedagogy, not the concept itself." On page 115, Williams implies that most teachers have been trained to help students with the planning stages of writing, but have chosen not to follow through. If that's so, it would be instructive to know why.
Williams goes on to demonstrate the positive aspects of process writing, and convinces me that there's much to admire in these methods. It would have been better if he had also discussed the pitfalls of process teaching, so aspiring teachers would know what to avoid. Perhaps he will do so later in the book.
I like the idea of putting kids into discussion groups; it makes them active learners and collaborators rather than just passive listeners. When I was an ad copywriter, I found my best ideas often came out of "brainstorming" sessions with other creatives. I could see the teacher doing what the Creative Director would do: choosing the best ideas and making suggestions for further development.
The stages idea is also a good one. I have found that the more preparation goes into the writing, the easier the actual writing is and the better the finished product. Pausing for a day or two is important also; when you look at something with fresh eyes, you can spot flaws and think up new ways to improve your ideas.
Perhaps the 2 most important ideas are on page 109's discussion checklist:"What point do I want to convey" and "what examples should I use?" Much of bad writing rambles on pointlessly with no clear message, and no examples to prove anything. A lot of so-called "political" writing today uses loaded terms like "Fascism" without explaining what Fascism is or how the US is in danger of becoming a Fascist state.
The e-mail pen pal assignment is an exciting one. The way e-mail transformed Rita's writing is miraculous. In her paragraphs on censorship, Rita sounds like she can barely put together a sentence. In her Japan e-mails, however, she sounds inquisitive, bright and fully able to express herself.
Williams goes on to demonstrate the positive aspects of process writing, and convinces me that there's much to admire in these methods. It would have been better if he had also discussed the pitfalls of process teaching, so aspiring teachers would know what to avoid. Perhaps he will do so later in the book.
I like the idea of putting kids into discussion groups; it makes them active learners and collaborators rather than just passive listeners. When I was an ad copywriter, I found my best ideas often came out of "brainstorming" sessions with other creatives. I could see the teacher doing what the Creative Director would do: choosing the best ideas and making suggestions for further development.
The stages idea is also a good one. I have found that the more preparation goes into the writing, the easier the actual writing is and the better the finished product. Pausing for a day or two is important also; when you look at something with fresh eyes, you can spot flaws and think up new ways to improve your ideas.
Perhaps the 2 most important ideas are on page 109's discussion checklist:"What point do I want to convey" and "what examples should I use?" Much of bad writing rambles on pointlessly with no clear message, and no examples to prove anything. A lot of so-called "political" writing today uses loaded terms like "Fascism" without explaining what Fascism is or how the US is in danger of becoming a Fascist state.
The e-mail pen pal assignment is an exciting one. The way e-mail transformed Rita's writing is miraculous. In her paragraphs on censorship, Rita sounds like she can barely put together a sentence. In her Japan e-mails, however, she sounds inquisitive, bright and fully able to express herself.
I agree.. and then I disagree
Okay, this is the first chapter in Williams that had lots of information that I actually agree with. I think that his descriptions of the process-oriented classroom are great! Having collaboration amongst students is a great way to teach them. Looking back on my education, I know that I took away the most from classes where we collaborated together in our learning. Whether it was learning about the life cycle of chickens, or writing a paper, or learning about teaching, the classes that taught me the most were those where I wasn’t always listening to a teacher lecture the whole time. Is this why so many students enjoy extra-curricular activities, be it sports, music, or other clubs? In those activities, there is a team focus: we win as a team, we work together to make harmony, we are all part of this play, etc. The process-oriented classroom brings in a similar team approach, but students are still responsible for their own work, their own effort. Workshops allow students to learn from each other and from a teacher as well, provided the teacher is doing active team and individual coaching.
The stages of composing are great tools to use to teach writers about the writing process. I do agree with Williams that there needs to be a shift in focus on the stages from concrete to dynamic. Students—writers – need to know that it is okay to shift between stages. Writing is fluid. When I write, I do not think about each sentence having a subject and predicate. Writing flows. If we teach students that writing is dynamic, that it will ebb and flow, just like a river, we can loosen the strict rope that we tie around each writing assignment. At the same time, I think we need to be sure that students understand each stage thoroughly. I know that I am a person who likes things laid out in front of me. Today I am doing this, tomorrow I am going here, these are the plans for the weekend. The paper is due on this date, should be this long, and should cover this topic. I think many students in middle and high school today, while they are still learning how to write, want to know the steps. How do I start with idea A and write about it and put it into the assigned form B, so that I can get a passing grade without it being painful? What I think gets lost in Williams is that sometimes students need to first be taught the steps with a focus on each step, and sometimes this can seem fossilized. But then, once writers can understand and work through the process and see its fluidity, they can be turned loose.
I think that Williams sometimes fails to see that it is okay to teach the writing process steps formally; I think sometimes he judges teachers harshly and doesn’t allow for the fact that teachers are still teaching students how to be writers. Yes, we need to do better at teaching children from the start about the writing process, so that when they reach high school, or even middle school, they can flow through the stages on their own. But, the only way to teach students how to be fluid is to give the students meaningful writing process practice at each stage.
What was disconnected for me in this chapter though was the shift from the writing process stages and meaningful writing to expectations and standards. I felt when reading that I went from a happy place to a somewhat dark place. I think that Williams is very critical of teachers as a whole. It seems as though there is a very definite line between a good teacher and a bad teacher and that there aren’t very many who fall on the positive side of the line for Williams. I think that he puts a lot of blame on the shoulders of teachers, and I think that blame is misplaced. It is always easier to judge the little person, and I think this is what Williams does. I don’t know of many teachers who always ignore best practices because they don’t feel like teaching that way. I feel most teachers are doing the best to teach their students in the best way they know how. Yes, more needs to be done to improve how we teach, but I don’t think Williams is fair in the way he portrays teachers in this book.
The stages of composing are great tools to use to teach writers about the writing process. I do agree with Williams that there needs to be a shift in focus on the stages from concrete to dynamic. Students—writers – need to know that it is okay to shift between stages. Writing is fluid. When I write, I do not think about each sentence having a subject and predicate. Writing flows. If we teach students that writing is dynamic, that it will ebb and flow, just like a river, we can loosen the strict rope that we tie around each writing assignment. At the same time, I think we need to be sure that students understand each stage thoroughly. I know that I am a person who likes things laid out in front of me. Today I am doing this, tomorrow I am going here, these are the plans for the weekend. The paper is due on this date, should be this long, and should cover this topic. I think many students in middle and high school today, while they are still learning how to write, want to know the steps. How do I start with idea A and write about it and put it into the assigned form B, so that I can get a passing grade without it being painful? What I think gets lost in Williams is that sometimes students need to first be taught the steps with a focus on each step, and sometimes this can seem fossilized. But then, once writers can understand and work through the process and see its fluidity, they can be turned loose.
I think that Williams sometimes fails to see that it is okay to teach the writing process steps formally; I think sometimes he judges teachers harshly and doesn’t allow for the fact that teachers are still teaching students how to be writers. Yes, we need to do better at teaching children from the start about the writing process, so that when they reach high school, or even middle school, they can flow through the stages on their own. But, the only way to teach students how to be fluid is to give the students meaningful writing process practice at each stage.
What was disconnected for me in this chapter though was the shift from the writing process stages and meaningful writing to expectations and standards. I felt when reading that I went from a happy place to a somewhat dark place. I think that Williams is very critical of teachers as a whole. It seems as though there is a very definite line between a good teacher and a bad teacher and that there aren’t very many who fall on the positive side of the line for Williams. I think that he puts a lot of blame on the shoulders of teachers, and I think that blame is misplaced. It is always easier to judge the little person, and I think this is what Williams does. I don’t know of many teachers who always ignore best practices because they don’t feel like teaching that way. I feel most teachers are doing the best to teach their students in the best way they know how. Yes, more needs to be done to improve how we teach, but I don’t think Williams is fair in the way he portrays teachers in this book.
I thought Williams brought up a lot of interesting points in this week’s reading about best practices.
When Williams talks about the outline stage of the writing process model, he brings up the biggest problem I had with making outlines for papers in high school, the fact that the structure of the outline tends to be the focus, rather than the content. “…Students spend much effort deciding whether an A must have a B; whether a primary heading begins with a Roman numeral or an upper-case letter…” I had teachers who were real sticklers about the format of the outline being exactly right when you turned it in. To me, the content was more important than the format. I’d rather have an outline chock full of useful information, than one that is formatted correctly. I think I need to point out, though, that the teachers who focused more on the format were not English teachers, they were social studies teachers.
I liked the section on pausing while reading. That’s something I find myself doing a lot. When I pause I usually go back and read what I just finished writing to make sure it makes sense. I can’t just write and write and write. I need to stop and make sure what I’m doing works. However, I am guilty of pausing to go back and fix grammatical and punctuation mistakes. I am trying to get out of that habit and save that kind of editing for later.
I also agreed with Williams that writing assignments should be more meaningful in order to produce better writing. It makes complete sense to me. Students are more likely to go through the motions when doing meaningless writing. Williams makes the point that the students know the only audience is the teacher and that they are simply telling the teacher what they want to hear. I think the pen pal example is great and it is something I could see using in my classroom. It engages the students more and forces them to be more thoughtful in their writing. I also think the students would enjoy this kind of activity.
As a naturally shy person in high school (and even now, to an extent), I was interested in the section about teacher’s expectations. I was fortunate that none of my teachers ever treated me differently because of my shyness. I never felt neglected or left out because I was really shy. I’m glad Williams brings up the fact that some teachers don’t want to wait for students to answer questions. Some kids need a few seconds to formulate their thoughts. These kids shouldn’t be ignored because a teacher isn’t comfortable with a little bit of silence.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
I like the idea of writing workshops. I remember doing one in a class as a freshman in college and that was my first introduction into this idea. I really enjoyed the experience although the teacher did not have us talk a lot. She had us exchange papers and we spent most of the time scribbling notes on the paper. There was also a strong emphasis on grammar and mechanics. This would have been more beneficial if we had focused on content and discussed with our partners for a majority of the time. We also read silently (unlike this class where we read aloud). I think it would have been stronger if we had read them aloud too because it’s true that you hear better than you read. Anyway, I think it is a shame that my first experience with this kind of workshop did not happen until college. I think that it would have been fun and enriching for me to have had it during high school (or even junior high). I would like to create writing workshops in my classroom.
The section that dealt with the idea that weak writers believe a variety of myths made me feel awkward. I learned that you cannot begin a sentence with a coordinating conjunction and you cannot end a sentence with a preposition. I always adhere to these rules in my writing for school assignments. I thought these were a rule. I feel confused. If students had structured their sentences this way for a formal assignment, I would have thought they were wrong. Do these rules not exist? Do all teachers know this? What if I tell my students that it is okay and they do it in another class and get points taken off? I want to know everyone else’s view on this. I hope I am not the only one who believed these myths.
I like the addition of pausing and reading to the process model. I have never seen these acts labeled as stages before. However, they are very important and I think that everyone does them without even realizing it. (At least I know that I did). I can’t imagine writing something and not completing these steps. If students do not know that they should do this, it should be encouraged and explained.
It is true that when I had to write outlines in high school the structural details got in the way of the content. I probably spent more time trying to format the damn thing then I spent examining the order of the material. I will emphasize content over structure in my own classroom.
I would have hated the idea of the “talk-write” in high school. I have always been more reserved and did not like public speaking. (Ironic, huh?) I also like to organize my ideas and thoughts and sometimes this takes a while. The idea of spending 20 minutes to prepare a speech would have overwhelmed me. It sounds like a good idea, but I wonder how effective it would be for students like me in the classroom.
I like the idea of grading students’ papers and giving students with a grade of C or lower an opportunity to rewrite the paper one more time. I think this encourages students to revise one more time and see their paper more polished. It gives them a second chance to improve on their writing. I will implement this idea into my own classroom.
The section that dealt with the idea that weak writers believe a variety of myths made me feel awkward. I learned that you cannot begin a sentence with a coordinating conjunction and you cannot end a sentence with a preposition. I always adhere to these rules in my writing for school assignments. I thought these were a rule. I feel confused. If students had structured their sentences this way for a formal assignment, I would have thought they were wrong. Do these rules not exist? Do all teachers know this? What if I tell my students that it is okay and they do it in another class and get points taken off? I want to know everyone else’s view on this. I hope I am not the only one who believed these myths.
I like the addition of pausing and reading to the process model. I have never seen these acts labeled as stages before. However, they are very important and I think that everyone does them without even realizing it. (At least I know that I did). I can’t imagine writing something and not completing these steps. If students do not know that they should do this, it should be encouraged and explained.
It is true that when I had to write outlines in high school the structural details got in the way of the content. I probably spent more time trying to format the damn thing then I spent examining the order of the material. I will emphasize content over structure in my own classroom.
I would have hated the idea of the “talk-write” in high school. I have always been more reserved and did not like public speaking. (Ironic, huh?) I also like to organize my ideas and thoughts and sometimes this takes a while. The idea of spending 20 minutes to prepare a speech would have overwhelmed me. It sounds like a good idea, but I wonder how effective it would be for students like me in the classroom.
I like the idea of grading students’ papers and giving students with a grade of C or lower an opportunity to rewrite the paper one more time. I think this encourages students to revise one more time and see their paper more polished. It gives them a second chance to improve on their writing. I will implement this idea into my own classroom.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Ideologies
I loved reading all of your blogs this week, and was happy to see that you all recognized Williams' biases. We all have them, of course. After years of teaching writing I'm apt to agree with him (as you might have noticed) that teaching grammar doesn't do a lick of good in terms of helping writers improve their writing. Jess points out that teaching grammar (or usage? or mechanics?) within the context of a student's writing is helpful, and this is so true. But abstract grammar drill and exercises are completely useless unless the student is studying a new language or linguistics.
Williams' other biases stem from his preoccupation with the Composition scholar James Berlin, who he mentions briefly at the beginning of the chapter. Berlin wrote an article about ideologies in the writing classroom and, after blasting current-traditional and then expressive (what Williams emphasizes as "Romantic," although it's rarely referred to by that term) writing pedgogies, Berlin described a social rhetoric (his invention, according to his article) which, of course, trumped the other two. Williams follows Berlin's design and also the flaws in Berlin's argument, treating expressivism as if it has no other place in the curriculum except to use as forced "confession" or "fun" writing. I'd argue that expressive writing provides an opportunity for student writers to write about what they know (as opposed to being "tested" on some other content), and gives them the chance to develop fluency and clarity. Correctness comes later, in the form of the prescribed formats which some of you mentioned. These might include a memo format or a lab report, an MLA formatted research paper or, a brief one page introduction to a portfolio. Once a writer has achieved fluency, they can write in any one of these formats. Simply learning the format, however, (i.e. a five paragraph essay) will not help to enhance their fluency. Many of you mentioned these issues in your blogs, and also added that it should be part of every teacher's objectives (not just "English" teachers) to guide student writers in understanding the formats and conventions of their particular disciplines.
The other great thing about an expressive writing pedagogy is that it's a wonderful tool for writing to learn. We all learn as we write (writing the verb, not writing the noun) and writing through a problem (personal or academic) helps to solve it. We're not sure why it does this, but it does.
Williams (like Berlin) also confuses "expressive" with "personal." The two do not necessarily go together. Kineavy's triangle (the copy I gave you) shows that expressive simply means that the emphasis is on the writer (as opposed to being on the audience or the signal); one example being The Declaration of Independence. We'll talk more about this after we read about some "best practices." Thanks for the great online and in-class discussions.
Williams' other biases stem from his preoccupation with the Composition scholar James Berlin, who he mentions briefly at the beginning of the chapter. Berlin wrote an article about ideologies in the writing classroom and, after blasting current-traditional and then expressive (what Williams emphasizes as "Romantic," although it's rarely referred to by that term) writing pedgogies, Berlin described a social rhetoric (his invention, according to his article) which, of course, trumped the other two. Williams follows Berlin's design and also the flaws in Berlin's argument, treating expressivism as if it has no other place in the curriculum except to use as forced "confession" or "fun" writing. I'd argue that expressive writing provides an opportunity for student writers to write about what they know (as opposed to being "tested" on some other content), and gives them the chance to develop fluency and clarity. Correctness comes later, in the form of the prescribed formats which some of you mentioned. These might include a memo format or a lab report, an MLA formatted research paper or, a brief one page introduction to a portfolio. Once a writer has achieved fluency, they can write in any one of these formats. Simply learning the format, however, (i.e. a five paragraph essay) will not help to enhance their fluency. Many of you mentioned these issues in your blogs, and also added that it should be part of every teacher's objectives (not just "English" teachers) to guide student writers in understanding the formats and conventions of their particular disciplines.
The other great thing about an expressive writing pedagogy is that it's a wonderful tool for writing to learn. We all learn as we write (writing the verb, not writing the noun) and writing through a problem (personal or academic) helps to solve it. We're not sure why it does this, but it does.
Williams (like Berlin) also confuses "expressive" with "personal." The two do not necessarily go together. Kineavy's triangle (the copy I gave you) shows that expressive simply means that the emphasis is on the writer (as opposed to being on the audience or the signal); one example being The Declaration of Independence. We'll talk more about this after we read about some "best practices." Thanks for the great online and in-class discussions.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
The Many Methods of Rhetoric
For the majority of my experience as a student, I think that I’ve been exposed primarily to the current-traditional rhetoric model. I say this with a slight tinge of uncertainty because I also believe, trying to think back over all my years in school, that the other types of rhetoric (new and romantic) Williams discusses have also been incorporated throughout my education. Nevertheless, I’m used to the idea of “writing as thinking” (43). I’ve worked on countless writing assignments that aimed to shuttle my thoughts in one direction or another and to produce the “right answer.” And I can see why this type of teaching has led to such a significant decline in literacy for students across the nation over time. Students are uninterested in the content they have to write on and they’re intimidated by the pressure to always be mechanically and grammatically correct. The focus in writing today is all wrong.
Different types of rhetoric try to address this issue of what to center on when teaching writing and this presents another problem in and of itself. One of the most important concerns I picked up from this reading is that because there is no consensus on the best methods to instruct rhetoric and composition, most educational institutes continue to rely on the current-traditional rhetoric method. I became intrigued by the sections on new rhetoric and romantic rhetoric. This is something that we’ve been talking about in class for the past few weeks. In these methods, it’s all about process, revision, determining what you want to say, not how, and displaying your individual feelings. I found myself agreeing with the notion that writing can be improved if writers are allowed to express themselves and “search for individual ‘truth’” while letting go of all the “rules” (59). But then my feet touched the ground again when I read on and took in the opposing side of the argument. For one thing, it’s true that when reading a “personal experience paper” there is no way to know if the experiences mentioned are actually authentic (65). People make stuff up all the time just to complete an assignment and because they don’t want to actually reveal personal feelings/emotions in their writing. Additionally, as mentioned in the reading, most students (and I include myself in this) don’t feel the need to be ‘liberated’ via composition, which is a key idea in romantic rhetoric.
The task at hand of choosing the best approach to teaching writing if the emphasis can’t be on rules or writer confessions seems impossible. It’s no wonder that achievement levels in writing have plummeted. Part of the problem seems to be that too much emphasis is placed on the writer and not on the writer and audience. Writing across the curriculum (WAC) appears to be one way of tying together specific content areas and writing while paying attention to the audience. Still there are different methods of using WAC at different academic levels, so this too poses a hurdle for students and educators. Teachers in both the arts and sciences are daunted by the work and necessary collaboration that comes with teaching WAC. I found this chapter to be quite overwhelming, myself. Presented with all the different opinions and options available to educators I felt hopeless. It will be interesting to see over the next few years and with all the current technologies how schools adapt to writing in the real world as opposed to the traditional classroom assignments.
Different types of rhetoric try to address this issue of what to center on when teaching writing and this presents another problem in and of itself. One of the most important concerns I picked up from this reading is that because there is no consensus on the best methods to instruct rhetoric and composition, most educational institutes continue to rely on the current-traditional rhetoric method. I became intrigued by the sections on new rhetoric and romantic rhetoric. This is something that we’ve been talking about in class for the past few weeks. In these methods, it’s all about process, revision, determining what you want to say, not how, and displaying your individual feelings. I found myself agreeing with the notion that writing can be improved if writers are allowed to express themselves and “search for individual ‘truth’” while letting go of all the “rules” (59). But then my feet touched the ground again when I read on and took in the opposing side of the argument. For one thing, it’s true that when reading a “personal experience paper” there is no way to know if the experiences mentioned are actually authentic (65). People make stuff up all the time just to complete an assignment and because they don’t want to actually reveal personal feelings/emotions in their writing. Additionally, as mentioned in the reading, most students (and I include myself in this) don’t feel the need to be ‘liberated’ via composition, which is a key idea in romantic rhetoric.
The task at hand of choosing the best approach to teaching writing if the emphasis can’t be on rules or writer confessions seems impossible. It’s no wonder that achievement levels in writing have plummeted. Part of the problem seems to be that too much emphasis is placed on the writer and not on the writer and audience. Writing across the curriculum (WAC) appears to be one way of tying together specific content areas and writing while paying attention to the audience. Still there are different methods of using WAC at different academic levels, so this too poses a hurdle for students and educators. Teachers in both the arts and sciences are daunted by the work and necessary collaboration that comes with teaching WAC. I found this chapter to be quite overwhelming, myself. Presented with all the different opinions and options available to educators I felt hopeless. It will be interesting to see over the next few years and with all the current technologies how schools adapt to writing in the real world as opposed to the traditional classroom assignments.
Ahh so many methods!
Looking back to grade school, I would say that most of the instruction I received in writing was based on current-traditional rhetoric. I remember writing a lot of book reports or something similar to them, and they would mostly be a summary of what I had read. I didn’t learn how to really delve into a text and look “outside of the box” until I got to college. That was like a whole new world to me when I actually had to synthesize and make interpretations about what I read. It makes one think if high school really prepares you for college after all. In general, it does, but I was introduced to a lot of new things when I got to college, especially in writing. In addition, I recall the use of the “bottom-up” method. We would have to write an essay just defining one word or write a compare/contrast essay on characters from a novel. I don’t know if it was really helpful to me because it did not connect with anything; it was too straight forward and there was no room for much critical thinking. I thought the part in the chapter about grading student papers was interesting. Red marks all over the paper, correcting grammar and spelling, and a comment at the end of the essay—so typical. Is that really going to teach the student anything? I admit, most of the time I would simply turn to the last page of the essay, see what my grade was, and read the comment left by the teacher. I don’t think I often went back and looked at the grammar mistakes I made because once the essay was finished and graded, it was over. This is probably what a lot of students do, though. With that in mind, in order to truly improve students’ writing, teachers need to apply the grammar lessons to the students’ own writings. Instead of saying, “Oh, a lot of my students are terrible at grammar, so I have to go over the rules with them,” (which is probably said after the essays are graded), the grammar lessons and rules should be taught before the essays are written. In fact, grammar should be taught during the writing process of an essay or other form of writing. If the lesson of the day is comma rules, the students can go back through their drafts and correct their comma errors. Each lesson would be applied to the students’ writings, and maybe just maybe, there would be an improvement in their writing. Students learn nothing from doing grammar exercises out of a workbook; it needs to be applied to their own writing. I kind of went off in a tangent on grammar, but I have a huge concern on the way grammar is taught in schools, and this idea of the current-traditional rhetoric struck a nerve. I think the process approach of new rhetoric is a bit more successful in improving students’ writing. I think everyone has gone through the prewrite, draft, revise, edit, publish process as mentioned on page 54. It is important to go through these stages because it allows you to really take a good look at your work and reexamine it. Revision is vital when writing, and it doesn’t seem like current-traditional rhetoric focuses on it like new rhetoric does. Now if teachers applied the grammar lessons and other such lessons that lead to successful writing while going through this process, I think there would be a visible improvement in student writing. Of course, I like the romantic rhetoric method the best, and I think it would be the most successful in a classroom. I agree with Lindemann that “Good writing is most effective when we tell the truth about who we are and what we think” (62). Students and anyone for that matter enjoy writing when they can express how they really feel and use emotion. Page 62 discusses how “good writing” is frequently in the form of autobiographies and personal narratives. This is because the writing connects with the writer’s life. When writing a research report, one must almost take on a different character because the topic is oftentimes unfamiliar to them, which means things like expressive language and emotion is lost. I do understand, however, how drawing on personal experiences could be embarrassing for students if this romantic rhetoric is practiced in the classroom. Moreover, it is true that high school students are sometimes too young to have experienced certain events, and it is true that some narratives are made up—I know this because I have done it in the past when I had nothing to write about. In conclusion, it makes sense to somehow combine all of these methods; it does not seem like one method can be done in isolation. Is that really what happens?
This assigned reading was so informative to me. I didn’t know there were so many methods and things to think about when dealing with writing in the classroom. I always wondered what “writing across the curriculum” really encompassed. The method that was very new to me was the “linked model” method. I never had a class where a composition or English educator worked with a content area educator (like Social Studies) worked together to evaluate student work. I think that would be very beneficial to the students, but I can see where it would be difficult as well. It would be interesting to see how it works. I think WAC in general is a good thing to implement in schools because of its main aspect that students are given a purpose for their writing. As far as postmodern rhetoric and post-postmodern rhetoric go, I’m rather confused, so I hope someone can clear those two terms up. I don’t understand how you could do away with rhetoric and composition as postmodernists (if I’m correct) support? Towards the end of the reading, I felt a bit bombarded with all of the different methods and such, so everything started to run together. I would like to say that I agree with Katelyn about the whole writing portfolio process. I asked myself the same question as to why only Secondary English Education majors have to complete a writing portfolio. It goes with the whole idea of WAC; other content area teachers should also be responsible for teaching writing, not just English teachers. Therefore, Social Studies education majors and even math education majors should be taught writing methods in college as well.
This assigned reading was so informative to me. I didn’t know there were so many methods and things to think about when dealing with writing in the classroom. I always wondered what “writing across the curriculum” really encompassed. The method that was very new to me was the “linked model” method. I never had a class where a composition or English educator worked with a content area educator (like Social Studies) worked together to evaluate student work. I think that would be very beneficial to the students, but I can see where it would be difficult as well. It would be interesting to see how it works. I think WAC in general is a good thing to implement in schools because of its main aspect that students are given a purpose for their writing. As far as postmodern rhetoric and post-postmodern rhetoric go, I’m rather confused, so I hope someone can clear those two terms up. I don’t understand how you could do away with rhetoric and composition as postmodernists (if I’m correct) support? Towards the end of the reading, I felt a bit bombarded with all of the different methods and such, so everything started to run together. I would like to say that I agree with Katelyn about the whole writing portfolio process. I asked myself the same question as to why only Secondary English Education majors have to complete a writing portfolio. It goes with the whole idea of WAC; other content area teachers should also be responsible for teaching writing, not just English teachers. Therefore, Social Studies education majors and even math education majors should be taught writing methods in college as well.
Theories of contemporary rhetoric
One of my hobbies is knitting so reading Williams reviews of contemporary rhetorical theories made me just want to take parts of all of them and knit them together to make one very eclectic theory. I mentioned in an earlier blog post that same thought about classical rhetoric. I think it’s a no-brainer that each predecessor influences the next theory.
New theories get developed based on the perceived flaws of the old ones. One thing that stands out for me is that some new theories just take an old theory and invert it. Like current traditional theory with its emphasis on the bottom-up approach (structure) (45) gave way to new rhetoric and Kinneavy’s top-down approach (knowledge-generating) (53). Another example of this kind of inversion is postmodern theory as defined by Raschke to mean “everything that cannot be compressed in the term modern”. Modern meaning an attitude, a method of thought dominated by “empiricism and rationalism” (88,89) as opposed to Derrida’s deconstruction theory that there is “no connection between reason and what words signify” (91). Currently we are now moving toward what Fukuyama says, the “Great Reconstruction” (95). Every one of these theories is an attempt to correct what studies and test results conclude is wrong with the one that came before it. Unfortunately none of the new theories have been that successful at least according to the kind of evaluation tools that are used. I wonder if more emphasis should be placed on how we evaluate writing. Maybe those tools are flawed? Again as in classical rhetorical theories, politics and economics has played a part in developing contemporary theories.
Something that really stood out about current- traditional, romantic, and new rhetorical theories was that they put the writer at the “center of composing” and “ignore the influence of the audience” (80). I do believe some writing can ignore audiences like one’s personal journal, but most writing is for an audience and I agree that the audience basically controls what the writer produces (81,82).
In my own writing for grad school I have courses that involve scholarly and creative writing for an audience ranging from the professor, to a peer review audience like my classmates. Those pieces of work have particular style and content just for that audience.
My blog about my son’s last year as a Penn State football player has a different audience. I write it for friends and family, but I know since it is on the Internet it could be read by others not in my immediate target audience. So often when I am writing something for this blog I think about whom else may read it and then I write from that perspective. So I can see how the audience dictates what you write.
My conclusion about all these theories is that each one has some good and bad points. The problem is the same in writing, what criteria do we use to sort out the good from the bad to come up with something useful to facilitate rhetoric.
New theories get developed based on the perceived flaws of the old ones. One thing that stands out for me is that some new theories just take an old theory and invert it. Like current traditional theory with its emphasis on the bottom-up approach (structure) (45) gave way to new rhetoric and Kinneavy’s top-down approach (knowledge-generating) (53). Another example of this kind of inversion is postmodern theory as defined by Raschke to mean “everything that cannot be compressed in the term modern”. Modern meaning an attitude, a method of thought dominated by “empiricism and rationalism” (88,89) as opposed to Derrida’s deconstruction theory that there is “no connection between reason and what words signify” (91). Currently we are now moving toward what Fukuyama says, the “Great Reconstruction” (95). Every one of these theories is an attempt to correct what studies and test results conclude is wrong with the one that came before it. Unfortunately none of the new theories have been that successful at least according to the kind of evaluation tools that are used. I wonder if more emphasis should be placed on how we evaluate writing. Maybe those tools are flawed? Again as in classical rhetorical theories, politics and economics has played a part in developing contemporary theories.
Something that really stood out about current- traditional, romantic, and new rhetorical theories was that they put the writer at the “center of composing” and “ignore the influence of the audience” (80). I do believe some writing can ignore audiences like one’s personal journal, but most writing is for an audience and I agree that the audience basically controls what the writer produces (81,82).
In my own writing for grad school I have courses that involve scholarly and creative writing for an audience ranging from the professor, to a peer review audience like my classmates. Those pieces of work have particular style and content just for that audience.
My blog about my son’s last year as a Penn State football player has a different audience. I write it for friends and family, but I know since it is on the Internet it could be read by others not in my immediate target audience. So often when I am writing something for this blog I think about whom else may read it and then I write from that perspective. So I can see how the audience dictates what you write.
My conclusion about all these theories is that each one has some good and bad points. The problem is the same in writing, what criteria do we use to sort out the good from the bad to come up with something useful to facilitate rhetoric.
Teachers Must Know All
I was definitely able to connect with the Romantic Rhetoric theory. I enjoy writing what is real and authentic. To me, expression is what writing is all about. This whole section brought me back to what Peter Elbow was saying about how individuals must find their own voice. Erika Lindemann states, “Good writing is most effective when we tell the truth about who we are and what we think.” This quote makes perfect sense, because people enjoy writing that they can somehow personally relate to. It does not matter if something is fact or fiction, but the reader has to be able create meaning from it. The book explains how personal writing is more interesting to read than academic writing. Clearly, this is why most people prefer to sit down and read a novel, opposed to scholarly articles. The freedom of expression is essential to producing something original and meaningful. I believe writing is primarily an art, because it is so personal and expressive; however, it depends what type of writing you are doing.
Even though Romantic Rhetoric speaks to me, so does New Rhetoric and Process. In most of my English classrooms in school there were signs that said, Prewriting, Planning, Drafting, Revising, Editing, and Publishing. This is basically how I was taught to write, even though I didn’t always use the process. Writing really is a very gradual process that requires a lot of steps to reach the finished product. To me, Prewriting is kind of like Free writing, as discussed in Peter Elbow’s book. If someone is writing a research paper or an essay I feel like this approach is very effective. Unlike creative writing, research writing demands a lot of planning and organization. I suppose I just realized that the process of writing depends on what type of writing you are doing. I definitely have different methods for the types of writing that I do. I guess that is why learning about rhetoric really helps to teach students how to write. It all boils down to options and variety in writing and approaches to writing.
As New Rhetoric explains, grammar does not improve writing abilities. However, even though it has been taught from third grade until high school, it is still something I second-guess myself with. I liked when teachers marked on my papers grammatical errors that I made, because then I realized what I was doing wrong. No it does not help the content of my writing, but it still improved some elements of my writing. I do enjoy the idea of focusing on content, but I don’t think it is important to forget about grammar, which is what all of the readings are kind of suggesting. Maybe they are not trying to forget it, but they are looking at it as less important. I think both are very important. However, grammar must be last when writing a paper.
I do think the more you write, the better you get. Therefore, I enjoyed reading about WAC (Writing Across the Curriculum). There are so many different kinds of writing, and I think it is impossible to teach everything in solely an English class. Plus, some people are better at different types of writing. Therefore, maybe they won’t say I hate writing, but I hate creative writing, or some other form. The most important aspects of this reading is there are many different types of writings and many different approaches to teaching writing that are crucial, in order to produce better writers.
Even though Romantic Rhetoric speaks to me, so does New Rhetoric and Process. In most of my English classrooms in school there were signs that said, Prewriting, Planning, Drafting, Revising, Editing, and Publishing. This is basically how I was taught to write, even though I didn’t always use the process. Writing really is a very gradual process that requires a lot of steps to reach the finished product. To me, Prewriting is kind of like Free writing, as discussed in Peter Elbow’s book. If someone is writing a research paper or an essay I feel like this approach is very effective. Unlike creative writing, research writing demands a lot of planning and organization. I suppose I just realized that the process of writing depends on what type of writing you are doing. I definitely have different methods for the types of writing that I do. I guess that is why learning about rhetoric really helps to teach students how to write. It all boils down to options and variety in writing and approaches to writing.
As New Rhetoric explains, grammar does not improve writing abilities. However, even though it has been taught from third grade until high school, it is still something I second-guess myself with. I liked when teachers marked on my papers grammatical errors that I made, because then I realized what I was doing wrong. No it does not help the content of my writing, but it still improved some elements of my writing. I do enjoy the idea of focusing on content, but I don’t think it is important to forget about grammar, which is what all of the readings are kind of suggesting. Maybe they are not trying to forget it, but they are looking at it as less important. I think both are very important. However, grammar must be last when writing a paper.
I do think the more you write, the better you get. Therefore, I enjoyed reading about WAC (Writing Across the Curriculum). There are so many different kinds of writing, and I think it is impossible to teach everything in solely an English class. Plus, some people are better at different types of writing. Therefore, maybe they won’t say I hate writing, but I hate creative writing, or some other form. The most important aspects of this reading is there are many different types of writings and many different approaches to teaching writing that are crucial, in order to produce better writers.
I like the idea of using romantic rhetoric to explore your thoughts and feelings through self-expression. I always liked this idea because it does make students more interested and personally involved in their writing. I like that there is no "right" or wrong" to it. Students don't have to feel intimidated and unsure about their writing. (at least from a grading point of view) It states how the the writing is very confessional and how the most successful include painful personal experiences. This reminds me about The Freedom Writers movie and the work of Erin Gruwell. She encouraged her students to write self-expressive entries that helped the students to deal with the problems in their lives and form a sense of community in the classroom. I think that self- expressive writing would be really beneficial in the classroom.
It gave an example of how when students write a book report they include a section about their reaction or response to the book detailing their feelings. I remember doing a book report like this and I remember writing it with ease in junior high. I knew I had read the book and my opinion on it couldn't be wrong. I felt confident when I wrote it and I remember getting a good grade on it. This happened in junior high school and I still remember it. I think the writing does appear more authentic when it is written from your own personal experience or knowledge.
I like the idea of Writing Across the Curriculum. I like the examples for the art and science class in the elementary school. The writing-intensive model for middle school and high school did not appeal to me as much, but I would try to make it a little more creative. I have never been involved in an education that emphasized WAC. ( or if I was I don't remember it)
I hope that emoticons do not start to show up in my students papers when I go out teaching. I would love to grade more on content than mechanics, but emoticons are completely inappropriate. I would allow them in content focused journal entries, but not in anything else. I would not allow them to use these in their papers. I would have to agree with the more traditional teachers that it would not be preparing them for the workplace, which would not allow use of emoticons. Students must be able to learn to write without them for more professional documents or they will be unsuccessful.
It gave an example of how when students write a book report they include a section about their reaction or response to the book detailing their feelings. I remember doing a book report like this and I remember writing it with ease in junior high. I knew I had read the book and my opinion on it couldn't be wrong. I felt confident when I wrote it and I remember getting a good grade on it. This happened in junior high school and I still remember it. I think the writing does appear more authentic when it is written from your own personal experience or knowledge.
I like the idea of Writing Across the Curriculum. I like the examples for the art and science class in the elementary school. The writing-intensive model for middle school and high school did not appeal to me as much, but I would try to make it a little more creative. I have never been involved in an education that emphasized WAC. ( or if I was I don't remember it)
I hope that emoticons do not start to show up in my students papers when I go out teaching. I would love to grade more on content than mechanics, but emoticons are completely inappropriate. I would allow them in content focused journal entries, but not in anything else. I would not allow them to use these in their papers. I would have to agree with the more traditional teachers that it would not be preparing them for the workplace, which would not allow use of emoticons. Students must be able to learn to write without them for more professional documents or they will be unsuccessful.
It takes a village to teach a child how to write
Williams, Williams, Williams. You make it hard for a girl to focus! Because of the loads of information squeezed into this reading, I will concentrate on the two aspects that stuck out to me. The first is romantic rhetoric. Ahh how sweet. Personally, I love to write about myself. I know this is quite ego centric, but I have so much to experiment with when it comes to writing about my own life. To echo some of the sentiments from the text, good writing is “honest, true and authentic.” It should be fun. This is the kind of writing that gets students to write for themselves first, rather than for anyone else. I was kind of turned off by the idea of comparing romantic or personal writing to “confessional” writing. The word confession brings with it a slightly negative connotation. Confess your secrets! Confess your sins! I do not necessarily think that confession is always a negative thing, it can also be quite positive. Yet, I do not like the term being generically used to define all sorts of expressive and personal writing styles. Like Jamie mentioned, I too was a bit offended by Williams’ remarks about teenagers being unable to produce interesting writing from their life experiences. Does Williams actually know any teenagers? What a ridiculously ignorant comment. Additionally, Williams argues that some students might “make up” events to put into their personalized writing because they feel pressured to make it interesting. Is this really a real problem? I know that integrity and honesty are hugely important in school and life. Yet, why is it so wrong for students to embellish upon their writing? They are still producing pieces of the truth within their writing. They are learning about themselves and different styles of writing. And most importantly, they are writing. I’ve done this. I’ve embellished every personal essay I’ve written. There is a confession. Maybe some people think this is wrong, but I think I just got caught up in my writing. I’ve never changed the meaning behind my personal experiences by doing this. In this sense, I don’t think it made my pieces dishonest. Maybe this is extremely taboo of me to talk about. However, I really don’t think that sneaking bits of fiction into personalized writing is a real problem within education. There is a difference between biographical and personalized/expressive writing. I think it is ok to mix fiction with truth in personalized essays…as long as a student doesn’t go on Oprah pretending that her writing was the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The other area that really stood out to me within this reading was writing across the curriculum. At my previous university, we had writing intensive classes across the curriculum. I liked this method. I think it made me a more well rounded student. It held teachers accountable to help students understand different methods of writing. I had a minor in Sociology, and my writing intensive sociology classes/teachers were responsible for teaching us how to adapt to the APA or ASA format and specific styles that were acceptable for social science papers. Within the reading, I thought that the linked model would probably be a beneficial and educational way to teach students different writing styles. Yet, I also think it is a lot of extra work, especially at a college level. If professors are not able to guide students to write in the regulations of their content area, then they should not be a professor. If a teacher in any content area is not willing to teach or expand a student’s knowledge in writing, than why do those teachers assign students to write papers in their classes? Why are English teachers the only teachers who are responsible for teaching students how to write? Frankly, I think this is absolutely absurd. Why is it an English teacher’s responsibility to teach students how to write scientifically? I am not trying to back down from the responsibility of teaching writing. Yes, it is primarily an English teacher’s duty to teach writing. Yes, they can teach students how to react and interact with different audiences and writing styles. However, I really believe that teachers in other content areas should be partially responsible for teaching their students to write in that specific content area. Why is it that the only secondary education students at this university to have to complete a writing portfolio are the English students? Why not the social studies students? A lot of writing is involved in social studies. I don’t think this is fair. I can understand why the university makes future English teachers go through this process, but I do not know why they do not make everybody else go through it as well. To me, this is just an example of irresponsibility. I am very frustrated with this. Students would have such a rich and well rounded educational experience if more teachers in more content areas were willing to teach students a thing or two about writing.
The other area that really stood out to me within this reading was writing across the curriculum. At my previous university, we had writing intensive classes across the curriculum. I liked this method. I think it made me a more well rounded student. It held teachers accountable to help students understand different methods of writing. I had a minor in Sociology, and my writing intensive sociology classes/teachers were responsible for teaching us how to adapt to the APA or ASA format and specific styles that were acceptable for social science papers. Within the reading, I thought that the linked model would probably be a beneficial and educational way to teach students different writing styles. Yet, I also think it is a lot of extra work, especially at a college level. If professors are not able to guide students to write in the regulations of their content area, then they should not be a professor. If a teacher in any content area is not willing to teach or expand a student’s knowledge in writing, than why do those teachers assign students to write papers in their classes? Why are English teachers the only teachers who are responsible for teaching students how to write? Frankly, I think this is absolutely absurd. Why is it an English teacher’s responsibility to teach students how to write scientifically? I am not trying to back down from the responsibility of teaching writing. Yes, it is primarily an English teacher’s duty to teach writing. Yes, they can teach students how to react and interact with different audiences and writing styles. However, I really believe that teachers in other content areas should be partially responsible for teaching their students to write in that specific content area. Why is it that the only secondary education students at this university to have to complete a writing portfolio are the English students? Why not the social studies students? A lot of writing is involved in social studies. I don’t think this is fair. I can understand why the university makes future English teachers go through this process, but I do not know why they do not make everybody else go through it as well. To me, this is just an example of irresponsibility. I am very frustrated with this. Students would have such a rich and well rounded educational experience if more teachers in more content areas were willing to teach students a thing or two about writing.
Helping, not telling
Towards the end of the section on Romantic rhetoric, Williams points out, and says that opponents of Romantic rhetoric want to know one thing: “how teachers are suppose to empower their students and what they are suppose to empower them to do.” (p. 66)
Fair enough question.
As an advocate of Romantic rhetoric myself, I have one thought, or answer if you must, to these opponents: Romantic rhetoric is a way of self-expression, of free-writing to allow the students to think freely, write freely – self-exploration – all of which Williams has pointed out. It’s a creative way to think, write, act, and feel free of judgment and criticism, and a staple (I think) in our critical thought-process analytical abilities. If we can’t think and learn about how we feel about ourselves, about our abilities, our goals, our likes, our dislikes, our opinions… how are we going to be able to focus and critically analyze a foreign topic? If we can’t organize and learn from our own thoughts, how are we going to do so for others?
The question on how are we suppose to empower our students is a question I believe every teacher – whether an opponent or advocate of romantic rhetoric or not – struggles with; and there is no easy, right, or wrong way to do so. All you can do, just like a parent with their children, is to teach them that thinking for themselves, emotionally and critically, is what is going to help in all courses of work. Sure, they have only been through so much as kids, but every child has something they believe in, whether it’d be something as small as Santa Claus or something as important as poverty, global aid, or abortion, but as long as their finding their abilities to think about how they feel about a chosen topic, it will allow them to think critically and effectively about other topics in schooling.
It all boils down to taking this romantic rhetoric piece - the freely written assignment without structure - and to: 1.) Ask them to take a look at what they wrote, and ask them why they wrote (or feel) that way, to provide definition to what made them feel that way - what was their source? how did they learn about the topic at hand? etc. etc.; 2.) help students how to formally organize it with a structure from beginning to end I.E. : Introduction: saying what it is they wrote about; Body: information, thoughts and feelings; Conclusion: why they feel that way.
That was of course a loose, informal example but you get the point. All in all, I think romantic rhetoric is something that will not only help students think for themselves and give them personal satisfaction, but will also help them organize and give opinions and meaning to a topic at hand.
Fair enough question.
As an advocate of Romantic rhetoric myself, I have one thought, or answer if you must, to these opponents: Romantic rhetoric is a way of self-expression, of free-writing to allow the students to think freely, write freely – self-exploration – all of which Williams has pointed out. It’s a creative way to think, write, act, and feel free of judgment and criticism, and a staple (I think) in our critical thought-process analytical abilities. If we can’t think and learn about how we feel about ourselves, about our abilities, our goals, our likes, our dislikes, our opinions… how are we going to be able to focus and critically analyze a foreign topic? If we can’t organize and learn from our own thoughts, how are we going to do so for others?
The question on how are we suppose to empower our students is a question I believe every teacher – whether an opponent or advocate of romantic rhetoric or not – struggles with; and there is no easy, right, or wrong way to do so. All you can do, just like a parent with their children, is to teach them that thinking for themselves, emotionally and critically, is what is going to help in all courses of work. Sure, they have only been through so much as kids, but every child has something they believe in, whether it’d be something as small as Santa Claus or something as important as poverty, global aid, or abortion, but as long as their finding their abilities to think about how they feel about a chosen topic, it will allow them to think critically and effectively about other topics in schooling.
It all boils down to taking this romantic rhetoric piece - the freely written assignment without structure - and to: 1.) Ask them to take a look at what they wrote, and ask them why they wrote (or feel) that way, to provide definition to what made them feel that way - what was their source? how did they learn about the topic at hand? etc. etc.; 2.) help students how to formally organize it with a structure from beginning to end I.E. : Introduction: saying what it is they wrote about; Body: information, thoughts and feelings; Conclusion: why they feel that way.
That was of course a loose, informal example but you get the point. All in all, I think romantic rhetoric is something that will not only help students think for themselves and give them personal satisfaction, but will also help them organize and give opinions and meaning to a topic at hand.
Theory
First off all I have to say is that was a whole lot of information. My head is swirling with all these different approaches and pedagogies. I am simply amazed at how much information Williams is able to fit into what equates to still a very long chapter. I think to really grasp all the information that he is trying to convey I would need to read this chapter alone two to three more times.
I think that there is a lot of good information with this chapter and some pretty controversial issues as well. What I found the most interesting is how we changed our college curriculum to go with the new population of students. This does not show to me the integrity these colleges tout about within their degree programs. Basically because they still wanted to bring in the money for this increase in the college population, they dumbed down the curriculum. That does not put much value on the B.A. or B.S. we seemingly work so hard to obtain!
Writing across the Curriculum was interesting as well because we already hear so much about. That is a term that even someone that is not an education major is familiar with. I like what Williams says on page 68 “no single set of skills is applicable in all situations; instead, different kinds of writing for different audiences and purposes require different sets of skills.” This one sentence says a lot about what I feel we are trying to teach kids. Why is it that not until you get to college that we learn about how to write a lab report, and then a persuasive piece, and then something creative. To top that all these different types of writing are meant for different audiences therefore require a different voice from the author (or you).
Even now in my college courses I find myself getting frustrated with the constraints that teachers want to put on you for the ending product of a writing process. I won’t get started on that though because that is a long sordid story……..
I think that there is a lot of good information with this chapter and some pretty controversial issues as well. What I found the most interesting is how we changed our college curriculum to go with the new population of students. This does not show to me the integrity these colleges tout about within their degree programs. Basically because they still wanted to bring in the money for this increase in the college population, they dumbed down the curriculum. That does not put much value on the B.A. or B.S. we seemingly work so hard to obtain!
Writing across the Curriculum was interesting as well because we already hear so much about. That is a term that even someone that is not an education major is familiar with. I like what Williams says on page 68 “no single set of skills is applicable in all situations; instead, different kinds of writing for different audiences and purposes require different sets of skills.” This one sentence says a lot about what I feel we are trying to teach kids. Why is it that not until you get to college that we learn about how to write a lab report, and then a persuasive piece, and then something creative. To top that all these different types of writing are meant for different audiences therefore require a different voice from the author (or you).
Even now in my college courses I find myself getting frustrated with the constraints that teachers want to put on you for the ending product of a writing process. I won’t get started on that though because that is a long sordid story……..
so many theories...
Hey All,
I am sort of flying blind here. I left my book in my truck, so bear with me if I seem to stray off topic just a little bit. I did the reading, but it was a few days ago.
Anyway, I think that, from a philosophical perspective, it's interesting that there seem to be so many theories in regard to reading, writing, and rhetoric floating around. I was surprised to learn that lately (if I am recalling this correctly based on the reading) there has actually been little, or maybe less, emphasis placed on rhetoricism in the schools today. Also, why all the conflict between the literature purists and the rhetoriticians? I found this whole thing to be a bit confusing. Also, I found myself wondering how I, as a future English teacher, could devise lesson plans what incorporate both of these topics. Is this even encouraged in schools today? I haven't the foggiest idea, but I guess it depends on the particular district in which you are employed.
I suppose that cutting out topics such as rhetoric is just a reflection of the overall movement to reduce the study of the humanities in general in our school system. If this is the case, and I believe it is in many schools, then is this being done is response to the increased demands of standardized testing? I would assume so, although I am sure that there are many other factors to consider as well. Also, this isn't to suggest that this is taking place at every school, just that it's a trend right now.
I like the fact that Williams uses the phrase writing to learn, probably because that seems to be what writing is really about, at least for me. Before I started this blog, I didn’t know where it was going to take me. Now, I’ve sort of ventured off the beaten path and gotten into things that I never planned to discuss in the first place. It's like writing enables you to purge your mind of all the stuff that floats around up there, even if you didn't know that it existed there in the first place.
Next, I’ll get into deconstruction, which I have found to be absolutely exhausting at times. I think that, as a theory, it kind of turns everything that you’ve been taught to expect, at least regarding language, on its head. Basically, things are upside down. To say that language has no meaning, well, to me, that just appears to promote chaos, but I guess that's what the whole deconstruction movement is all about. To undo the meaning of the text, or to say that it has no meaning, is a very difficult thing for me to grasp as a reader. I think that this is something that you’ve got to learn to gradually ease yourself into over time. I don’t find it easy to slip into this mindset. But I guess people like Derrida would suggest that that is because I have been programmed not to do so.
Bye.
I am sort of flying blind here. I left my book in my truck, so bear with me if I seem to stray off topic just a little bit. I did the reading, but it was a few days ago.
Anyway, I think that, from a philosophical perspective, it's interesting that there seem to be so many theories in regard to reading, writing, and rhetoric floating around. I was surprised to learn that lately (if I am recalling this correctly based on the reading) there has actually been little, or maybe less, emphasis placed on rhetoricism in the schools today. Also, why all the conflict between the literature purists and the rhetoriticians? I found this whole thing to be a bit confusing. Also, I found myself wondering how I, as a future English teacher, could devise lesson plans what incorporate both of these topics. Is this even encouraged in schools today? I haven't the foggiest idea, but I guess it depends on the particular district in which you are employed.
I suppose that cutting out topics such as rhetoric is just a reflection of the overall movement to reduce the study of the humanities in general in our school system. If this is the case, and I believe it is in many schools, then is this being done is response to the increased demands of standardized testing? I would assume so, although I am sure that there are many other factors to consider as well. Also, this isn't to suggest that this is taking place at every school, just that it's a trend right now.
I like the fact that Williams uses the phrase writing to learn, probably because that seems to be what writing is really about, at least for me. Before I started this blog, I didn’t know where it was going to take me. Now, I’ve sort of ventured off the beaten path and gotten into things that I never planned to discuss in the first place. It's like writing enables you to purge your mind of all the stuff that floats around up there, even if you didn't know that it existed there in the first place.
Next, I’ll get into deconstruction, which I have found to be absolutely exhausting at times. I think that, as a theory, it kind of turns everything that you’ve been taught to expect, at least regarding language, on its head. Basically, things are upside down. To say that language has no meaning, well, to me, that just appears to promote chaos, but I guess that's what the whole deconstruction movement is all about. To undo the meaning of the text, or to say that it has no meaning, is a very difficult thing for me to grasp as a reader. I think that this is something that you’ve got to learn to gradually ease yourself into over time. I don’t find it easy to slip into this mindset. But I guess people like Derrida would suggest that that is because I have been programmed not to do so.
Bye.
Things that make you go hmmm
After completing the reading, I had an overwhelming feeling that I had just been led somewhere and not in a good way. I agree with Rachael in that she said that Williams writes with a heavy bias. There was an undertone in his writing that seems to say “this is bad” or “this is good.” This week’s reading has a lot of information to process, so I’m just going to touch on a few of the things that made me stop reading in order to think about what I had just read. In other words, things that made me go hmmm.
At the very beginning of the reading, Williams says that “A commonplace in education is that most teachers teach the way they themselves were taught. Education classes are designed, in part, to provide an alternative based on research and theory, but they are not always successful in moving teachers away from methods based on their own experiences.” (42) Williams goes on to say that because there are so many approaches to writing instruction that teachers find it difficult to get through it all and instead decide to fall back on their own experiences as students. This actually felt like a thinly veiled insult to teachers by saying they don’t want to do the work but instead opt for the easiest way to teach. I will be the first to admit that there were many teaching methods that my own teachers used that were less than ideal, however, there were many that were stellar. It goes back to that bag of tricks that was mentioned in other blogs; we need a variety of tools in order to teach a variety of students. Using only one type of teaching on a class of individuals with different learning styles just isn’t going to be successful. We need to have alternatives available for students whose learning style differs from the “norm,” and it is quite possible that something from my own experience as a student may serve that purpose. If you think about it, there was something in the methods of my teachers that helped me become a good writer.
There were elements in the reading that I did like as well. When describing the failure probability of the cookbook approach to writing, Williams states that “The five paragraph model not only has no real counterpart outside the classroom but also inevitably leads to the sort of shallow, unreflective writing that we all decry as the plague of American public education.” (46) I couldn’t agree more. Recently, I had to write a group of essays for my writing portfolio requirement. One of these essays had several broad topics to choose from, however, we were limited to 1-2 pages. This was by far the hardest, and ultimately, the cheesiest paper I’ve ever written. I had many good, well-thought out ideas for the topic, but because of the constraints on space I barely even touched on a few of these ideas. In my opinion, the best instruction for length of papers is that it should be as long as it needs to be.
Overall, I felt that Williams writes with a bit of an elitist attitude. I did like some things that he included, such as the universal features that all good writers share, but again I really felt like he was leading me and I took offense to several entries such as this quote that followed a section on a study of “Black” English,“… many people believed that if teachers just offered more of both (grammar and logic instruction), the barbarians pouring through the gates of academe would become civilized.” (50)
So, Williams made me think, made me a little angry, and made me go hmmm.
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