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?