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?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment